Design and Management of Service Processes: Keeping Customers for Life (Engineering Process Improvement)

In recent times, the role of service has become a critical differentiator between companies that are merely ordinary and those that are truly exceptional. Companies can create and maintain a competitive advantage and can keep loyal customers returning for life by consistently delivering a level of service that delights customers. To do this, exceptional quality needs to be designed into the service when it is first created, and maintained through the life of the service.
This book, intended for managers in both manufacturing and service industries, shows you how to design customer delighting service by applying well known Total Quality Development (TQD) and Total Quality Management (TQM) principles. The book is a detailed, step-by-step guide that describes the state-of-the-art tools and methods such as Quality Function Deployment, Functional Analysis, Experimental Design and Simulation that you need to create, implement, manage and improve the processes by which service is provided so that you can consistently exceed your customers' expectations and keep your firm competitive in your industry.
In this book, through numerous examples and a single, large-scale case study, you will learn how to determine customers' expectations for the service, develop design specifications based on a quantitative assessment of customer satisfaction, generate and evaluate different service design solutions based on these specifications and select the solutions that deliver the highest performance at the most reasonable cost, and monitor and continually improve your designed services.
At every point, the book offers concrete and specific recommendations that can be immediately applied to your business for real improvements in service quality and customer satisfaction.

Rohit Ramaswamy is Technical Manager at the Technology Realization Center, AT&T Labs.