Previous

Page - 2

The most prominent source of customer dissatisfaction in services lies in the presence of GAPs in the quality delivered and quality perceived by the customer service organizations. By measuring and quantifying the existing GAPs, service organization
could deliver service which gives higher customer satisfaction.

Introduction

Six-Sigma means "a systematic, scientific, statistical and smarter approach to statistically measure and analyze causes of defects that happen in all parts of management, and then remove those causes". A defect in the context of Six Sigma is defined as "anything that does not meet the customer requirements". It is a methodology to define a problem from the view-point of managers or users as a defect and ascertain its causes in order to solve it. Six Sigma was first developed at Motorola, refined at AlliedSignal and transformed into legend at GE under Jack Welch. It has found application in myriad business sectors. Today, it applies to service areas to find out the non-value added activities and variation in core service process to achieve continuous and breakthrough improvements in service performance. For example, in a call-centre, the following opportunities could result in defects which ultimately cause customer dissatisfaction and, hence, lost customers: -

1. The number of abandoned calls

2. Time taken to resolve the problem once the data are entered in the system

3. Time taken to send out the requested follow-up material

4. Politeness, eagerness to help the customer

Service processes are all non-manufacturing operations and activities, either in non-manufacturing industries, or within organizations that manufacture. The major segments of service sector are: -

• Banking

• Healthcare

• e-Commerce

• Food Services

• Retail Sales

• Call-center

• Tele-communication

• Aviation

• Hospitality

• Legal

• Education

• Entertainment

Next

* Contributed by: -
Aniket Raj Agarwal & Nikhil K. Jainender,
Symbiosis Institute of International Business, Pune.