Quality Awareness Program Problems

The researcher is employed by the Dean Witter/Discover organization. Dean Witter/Discover is a financial services firm. Recently, the firm initiated a quality awareness program. Implementation of the program has not been smooth and the time goals for some program objectives have been missed. This research examines the implementation of quality awareness programs at other firms with a view towards the development of recommendations that will get the implementation of the Dean Witter/Discover quality awareness program back on track.

The development of a total quality improvement program within an organization is facilitated by first developing quality awareness within the firm (Roach, 1990, pp. 1417). As is true in the control of marketing performance with respect to goods, quality is also important in the marketing of services (Brown, 1990, p. 11). The control of quality in services is especially dependent upon the interaction between customers and employees (Murray, 1991, p. 10).

While only 10 percent of service companies had quality improvement programs in place at the beginning of the 1990s, the estimate is that 70 percent of service companies employing 500 or more persons will have formal quality control programs by the year 2000 (Armstrong and Symonds, 1991, p. 101). The most aggressive pursuit of quality in the service indu

. . .
in services at Bank of America was the institution's response to an increasingly competitive banking and financial services environment in the United States. Bank of American encountered a major problem soon after implementing a quality improvement program. The problem was that the institution's staff did not accept that a problem existed with the services delivered (Smallwood, 1992, p. 100). Bank of America's solution to this stumbling block was the initiation of a quest to find out exactly what the bank's customers wanted in the way of service. To accomplish this objective, Bank of America customers were surveyed. Armed with the results of this survey, institutional management was able to develop a quality awareness program that emphasized customer perceived deficiencies in the services being delivered. Federal Express Federal Express set out to provide high quality package service. The success of the company in attaining this goal has established the standards by which all other overnight courier services are evaluated (Hauss, 1993, pp. 2226). In corporate America, it is a near maxim that "if it absolutely has to get there overnight, send it by Federal Express" (Fishkind, 1993. p. 56). With such an enviable record, i
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Federal Express, Armstrong Symonds, Dean Witter/Discover, Express IBMRochester, Service Industries, IBMRochester Division, Bank America, Bank American, March Companies, federal express, quality awareness, Bank America's, quality improvement, awareness program, implementation quality, quality awareness program, quality improvement program, improvement program, dean witter/discover, implementation quality awareness, armstrong symonds 1991, bank america, panchak 1992, quality management, panchak 1992 29,
Approximate Word count = 1632
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Quality Awareness Program Problems