Service quality can be improved with the help of the following five strategies:
1. Assessing the Efficiency and Influence of Operating Practices
In order to upgrade service quality, organizations should mainly understand the employees’ thoughts or beliefs at various levels.
The organizations should review the confidence and support of the service personnel in their improvement activities.
Such kind of analysis enables the service organizations to recognize the steps required for service quality improvements. The feedback here acts as both the source of information on customer expectations and as a driver for change.
2. Determining Teamwork and Management Support
Every quality initiative taken by an organization essentially requires management support.
The support should not be only for starting the initiative, but it should continuously support it for sustaining the effort.
Continuous cooperation and improvement should be set as priorities for employees by the top management.
The managers’ roles and duties should be incorporated with continuous improvement as the main motive.
Determining and improving quality standards, generating and executing feedback mechanisms, training, joining corrective actions teams, etc., are the areas where service managers are required to play a crucial role.
Depending on their competency to promote continuous service improvement, service managers must be selected, trained, promoted, evaluated, and rewarded.
If such kind of focus is missing, it would gradually lead to a decrease in the enthusiasm and support to enhance quality.
3. Addressing People Effectively
Employees act as vital constituents in any long-term development initiative.
In the presence of the right kind of support and leadership, these employees may become very fruitful.
Dealing with the “human side of quality” in an orderly and coherent manner will help to attain long-term improvements in service quality.
All employees should be provided with the necessary training to develop effective communication skills, teamwork, and conflict resolution skills, and accomplish optimal performance.
Feedback provided by the employees on matters influencing the workplace as well as continuous improvement must be noted.
It is necessary to give the human elements paramount importance with a view to avoiding negative and unfavorable results.
4. Continuously Improving the Quality Efforts
Developing and growing together with the dynamics of varying needs leads to better service quality by an organization.
Ways to achieve long-term quality improvements must be reviewed from time to time. Through modifying corrective action measures and assessing and evaluating feedback mechanisms, the quality standards can be continuously improved.
Service quality will decay if these alterations are not made, resulting in negative consequences.
5. Leadership Commitment
Following are some of the key questions that need to be addressed by every manager of service organizations because answers to these queries are crucial and indicate an organization’s leadership adherence toward long-term sustained improvements:
- Do you focus on quality improvement regularly?
- Do you motivate your employees to do the same?
- Do you offer your leadership to tackle persistent quality problems?
- Do you offer your leadership to improve the current quality enhancement initiatives?
- Are the follow-ups and corrective action procedures done appropriately?