Closing the Customer Gap

The gaps model says that a service marketer must first close the customer gap between customer perceptions and expectations. To do so, the provider must close the four provider gaps, or discrepancies within the organization that inhibit delivery of quality service. The gaps model focuses on strategies and processes that firms can employ to drive service excellence.

Customer perceptions are subjective assessment of actual service experiences. Customer expectations are the standards or reference points for performance against which service experiences are compared and are often formulated in terms of what a customer believes will or should happen.

The sources of customer expectations consist of marketer-controlled factor (such as pricing, advertising, and sales promises) as well as factors that the marketer has limited ability to affect (innate personal needs, word-of-mouth communications, and competitive offerings). In a perfect world, expectations and perceptions would be identical: customers would perceive that they receive what they thought they would and should. In practice these concepts are often separated by some distance. Broadly, it is the goal of service marketing to bridge this distance.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Quality or Excellence?

The question is what is the organization trying to accomplish? Is it striving for quality, or excellence or both? Quality and excellence are two different terms. Quality is an absolute state—in the control of total quality management, quality is conformance to requirements, doing things according to standards. Excellence is a relative term, to put it simply, it is being better than others. It requires comparison. So it can be said that quality is built in, while excellence is designed. If the goal is quality, it means individuals will be assessed on whether they meet the established standards. It is assumed that they possess the minimum competencies. If the goal is to achieve excellence, individuals will be assessed on their competence levels based on a continuous evaluation scale. Hence when evaluating for excellence, it would be necessary to compare the relative competence between two employees in addition to measuring their competence against the standards scale.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Weapons for Success

One type of weapon is seldom enough to win a war. The same is true in our bodies. The successful conquest of the stresses we now face at work requires that we understand the strengths and limitations of each level of defense and use them in concert to encourage victory, prevent disaster, and cultivate excellence at work.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

International Codes of Environmental Conduct

A number of business organizations have developed codes of environmental conduct. Among the most important ones are the following:

• International Chamber of Commerce (ICC): The ICC developed the Business Center for Sustainable Development, 16 principles that identify key elements of environmental leadership and call on companies to recognize environmental management as among their highest corporate priorities.
• Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI): A group of over 20 companies dedicated to fostering environmental excellence, GEMI developed several environmental self assessment programs, including one that helps firms assess their progress in meeting the goals of the Business Center for Sustainable Development.
• Keidanren: This major Japanese industry association has published a  Global Environmental Charter that sets out a code of environmental behavior that calls on its members to be “good corporate citizens.”
• Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA): The U.S. based industry association developed Responsible Care: A Public Commitment, which commits its member-companies to a code of management practices, focusing on process safety, community awareness, pollution prevention, safe distribution, employee health and safety, and product stewardship. The group is working for the international adoption of these principles.
• CERES Principles: These are 10 voluntary standards developed by the Coalition of Environmentally Responsible economies that commit signatory firms to protection of the biosphere, sustainable use of natural resources, energy conservation, risk reduction, and other environmental goals.
• International Organization for Standards (ISO): ISO 14000 is a series of voluntary standards introduced in 1966 by the ISO, an international group based in Geneva, Switzerland, that permit companies to be certified as meeting global environmental performance standards.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Core Values

The professional and the institution for which the professional works should compile a relatively brief list of core values. These are values that help determine what the priorities are and how one aspires to act. Ten core ethical values are described:

1. Honesty (truth telling, candid, openness)
2. Integrity (act on convictions, courageous, advocacy, leadership by example)
3. Promise keeping (fulfilling the spirit of commitment)
4. Fidelity (loyalty, confidentiality)
5. Fairness (justice, equal treatment, diversity, independence)
6. Caring (compassion, kindness)
7. Respect (human dignity and uniqueness
8. Citizenship (respect for law, social consciousness)
9. Excellence (quality of work)
10. Accountability (responsibility, independence)

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Take Risks

• Think excellence. Great satisfaction comes from doing your best in every activity. Average performance is never good enough.
• You are being copied by others in everything you do. So, set the kind of examples you want followed.
• Speaking up is essential to leadership. Express yourself at every opportunity. Conquer fear by speaking up. You need other people to help you achieve your goals. So, win their cooperation.
• Invest all the praise you receive.
• Take 100 percent responsibility when things go wrong.
• Coordinate the knowledge of other people.
• Have the courage to take risks. Taking risks is as essential to success as breathing is to life.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Principles for Empowering People

1. Tell people what their responsibilities are.
2. Give them authority equal to the responsibilities assigned to them.
3. Set standards of excellence.
4. Provide them with training that will enable them to meet the standards.
5. Give them knowledge and information.
6. Provide them with feedback on their performance.
7. Recognize them for their achievements.
8. Trust them.
9. Give them permission to fail.
10. Treat them with dignity and respect.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

 

Stock Ownership

One of the best incentives a boss can offer is a fraction of the action in the form of performance-based monetary rewards, or, better yet, options to participate in a company stock ownership. One of Ross Perot’s greatest pleasures was to make some of his managers into multimillionaires through stock participation. They all repaid him with generated enthusiasm, renewed energy, and, ultimately, more corporate profits than any of them had ever imagined. Stock participation can be one of the best ways to transfer the spirit of entrepreneurship into any company. By spreading out the risk-reward net to include more of the staff, the good boss uses shared stress to encourage group excellence.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

 

Producing a Quality Product

To attain excellence in producing a product of high quality, your organization must:

• Have a clear understanding of your products, its capabilities and applications.
• Ensure that all of your employees understand the product, its capabilities and applications.
• Understand your customers.
• Understand the requirements of your customers.
• Have a clear definition of the acceptable quality level of your product.
• Have a clear understanding of what your customers define as the acceptable quality level of your product.
• Have an effective means of measuring the quality of your product.
• Continually solicit your customer’s views and evaluations relative to the quality of your product.
• Continually communicate to employees the importance of producing a quality product.
• Continually emphasize to employees that they contribute to product quality in the successful performance of their jobs.
• Identify and then build upon the operating factors that sustain and contribute to product quality.
• Utilize techniques that solicit and stimulate employee innovation, ideas and recommendations that improve product quality.
• Utilize techniques that solicit customer ideas and recommendations to improve product quality.
• Give serious and timely considerations to employees and customer ideas and recommendations.
• Utilize effective techniques to test and evaluate  new ideas and recommendations.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

 

Employee Communications

To attain excellence in employee communications, the organization must utilize communication techniques that:

• Communicate the organization’s objectives, goals, priorities and values to all employees.
• Ensure that supervisors clearly define the tasks and responsibilities of each of their employees.
• Ensure that supervisors give employees timely evaluation of their job performance.
• Communicate the organization’s expectation of quality to all employees.
• Ensure that policies and practices are clearly communicated and understood by all employees.
• Stimulate frequent face-to-face discussions between managers and their employees.
• Inform all employees of the organization’s accomplishments, achievements and other important issues related to the work environment.
• Involve employees in the department of organization policy and procedures.
• Encourage employees to express their ideas and recommendations to improve the operation of the organization.
• Provide timely feedback to employees regarding the organization’s consideration of their ideas and recommendations.
• Solicit information from employees relative to their career goals and aspirations.
• Provide employees with information they can use to make personal career decisions.
• Inform employees of job openings within the organization.
• Encourage employees to voice their problems and concerns.
• Give timely consideration and response to employee problems and concerns.
• Continually monitor what information employees want to receive.
• Regularly measure the effectiveness of communication techniques.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.