Managing Customer Value

Creating Quality and Service That Customers Can Se

Bradley Gale

• Publisher: Free Press
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9781451612929
• eBook ISBN:
  9781439188361
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Forecasting
• Index: Business

Even today with quality improvement the battle cry of American industry, the quality programs in most companies are limited to "conformance to technical standards," according to quality expert Bradley Gale. While some have ventured a step farther to measure customer satisfaction, few of them, Gale demonstrates, have attempted to track market-perceived "quality" -- how buyers select among competing suppliers, why orders are won or lost, and which competitors are succeeding in which market segments.

Using cases including Milliken & Company; AT&T, United Van Lines, and Gillette, Gale shows how leading-edge companies have gone beyond the minimal achievements of conformance quality and customer satisfaction to focus on the third, higher stage, "market-perceived quality versus competitors" and aspire to an emerging fourth stage, "true strategic management." Drawing on his extensive research at AT&T, Johnson & Johnson, Parke-Davis, and other world-class companies, Gale provides new metrics for market-perceived quality that are straightforward and easy to interpret. His set of seven integrative tools for customer value analysis makes up the heart of the "war room wall" to help guide business-unit teams in their effort to outperform competitors in satisfying customers. The great value of these tools is that they are derived from a future-oriented strategic navigation system that tracks competitive information and market-perceived quality. Learning to master this system accelerates customer satisfaction from a slogan to a science and leads ultimately to true strategic management -- the fourth stage of Total Quality Management.

The processes described in this book provide an insider's perspective on the criteria of the Baldrige Award. Bradley Gale's insights and innovative methods for defining, measuring, and improving market-perceived quality will create an entirely new thrust for the worldwide quality movement.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• PART ONE Making Quality a Strategic Weapon
• CHAPTER 1 The Four Steps to Customer Value Management
• CHAPTER 2 Moving “Customer Satisfaction” from a Slogan to a Science
• PART TWO Role Models Companies That Delivered Market Perceived Quality and Value
• CHAPTER 3 How Milliken & Co Built a Competitive Powerhouse
• CHAPTER 4 “Customer Value Added” at AT&T A Competitive Strategy Milestone
• CHAPTER 5 Communicating the Complex Truth About Cholesterol
• CHAPTER 6 How to Achieve Quality Service
• PART THREE Managing Some Big Issues with Customer Value Management
• CHAPTER 7 Creating Power Brands
• CHAPTER 8 Assessing Competing Technologies and Nurturing a Long Term Winner
• PART FOUR The Tools and Metrics of Customer Value Analysis
• CHAPTER 9 The Seven Tools of Customer Value Analysis
• CHAPTER 10 Putting the Power of Your Whole Organization in a Single Room The War Room Wall and Strategic Navigation
• CHAPTER 11 Aligning Your Quality Initiatives with the Goal of True Customer Value Management
• PART FIVE The Payoff from Providing Superior Quality and Value
• CHAPTER 12 Here’s the Proof Superior Quality Drives the Bottom Line and Shareholder Value
• CHAPTER 13 Learning from the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award
• CHAPTER 14 Comprehensive Alignment Key to True Competitiveness
• What’s Next
• APPENDIX A Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award 1994 Award Examination Criteria and Guidelines
• APPENDIX B Why Do Patients Demand a Large Drop in Total Cholesterol
• APPENDIXC Building Our Store of Case Examples and Empirical Evidence
• APPENDIX D Questionnaire to Aid Benchmarking
• Notes
• Index