Customer satisfaction surveys turn up more customer dissatisfaction than
satisfaction. It is a deplorable state of affairs, and four main reasons have been suggested to explain it. - Cost-cutting: Companies are skimping on quality as a way of skimping on costs. They are switching to lower-cost suppliers and cheaper materials. They are eliminating process steps to save a few yen.
- Speed demands: Companies have speeded up the development and production process so they can come up with new product after new product. They are throwing one thing after another at the market in hopes something will stick. They are not bothering to beta-test. They are only interested in speed, and the results show it.
- Short-circuiting: Information flow, chains of command, and everything else is getting short-circuited in this informal, impatient Internet age. Likewise, the effort to added product value. Short-circuited.
- Lack of memory: Companies do not keep or analyze records of what went wrong. Having no institutional memory, they founder and muddle, doomed to repeat their failures.
As a result, companies end up not winning loyal customers but making enemies with every sale. Customers are not objecting to cheaper and faster, but they want lower costs with no sacrifice of quality, speed with the same careful thoughtfulness. They want companies that are efficient and can learn from their mistakes, not companies in too much of a hurry to care. They want to be able to select the better-quality product, not simply the lesser evil.
Takeda Tetsuro
Takeda Management Systems
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