hus, a service quality program accompanied by organiza-tional restructuring was implemented as a part of a longterm strategy to retain market-share dominance (Schlossberg, 1991, p. 1).
At Federal Express, the first step in the development of the firm's new strategy was a search for expert advice (Panchak, 1992, p. 28). The firm sought expert advice from both within the organization and external to it, but relied most heavily on out-side experts. Secondly, Federal Express developed and implemented a training program that focused on quality of service and organizational team work.
Federal Express learned the importance of matching expert
advice to the unique needs of the company. An intensive manufacturing interest on statistical process control, as an example, was not appropriate for a service-oriented firm. Instead, the Federal Express strategic reorganization emphasized the percentage of on-time deliveries as the measure of quality. The firm then developed a 12-component indicator to describe customer perceptions of service quality. Each of the 12 components is a Service Quality Indicator (SQI), and each indicator is weighted to reflect the potential for an adverse effect on the level of customer satisfaction.
At Federal Express, the quality management department was formalized within the revised organizational structure, but was maintained as a relatively small organizational unit (Panchak, 1992, p. 29). By keeping the quality management department relatively small, the firm was in a position to pursue the notion that quality is everyone's job at Federal Express. This notion is put into practice by empowering employees to make an increasing proportion of the day-to-day work decisions at Federal Express.
As a part of the Federal Express strategic restructuring, also, senior managers now head cross-functional teams (Panchak, 1992, p. 29). Each of these teams focuses on one of the 12 SQI, and each of the teams assumes resp...