Toyota Satisfaction Committee
Toyota executives lead the customer
satisfaction committee at TMS and TMC.
* These committees help establish the
link between marketing strategies and
operational realities of the
organization. DEVELOPMENT OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
COMMITTEE * One of
Toyota's key indicators of its performance for customer
satisfaction is
"initial quality" or " the quality percieved by
the customer in the first few
months of ownership. * The J.D. Power initial
survey provides feedback on
quality to automobile producers, individual
diagnostics, and comparison to
competition. Toyota was not ranked number one in
customer satisfaction by
J.D. Power and found out they had a lot of room for
improvemnt. * In 1986,
TMS/USA made a strong proposal to TMC/Japan stating that
Toyota should be
number one. The proposal implied that TMC should improve
product quality in
the plants to achieve that number one ranking. * In 1987, TMC
began to persue
the proposal. * The initiative to improve the customer
satisfaction came to
be referred to as "J1". ESTABLISHMENT OF TMC'S
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
COMMITTEE * In 1988 TMC established a committee structure
specifically to
accomplish the J1 objective for customer satisfaction. There
were three
subcommittees involved to address specific customer satisfaction
issues:
product quality, domestic sales and service, and overseas sale and
service.
INITIAL EFFORT TO IMPROVE QUALITY AT TMC JAPAN * TMC'S initial efforts
for
the J1 initiative concentrated on the work of the product quality
committee.
* They set out targets and initiated many improvements, and were
to 60 to 70
percent on their way to achieving their targets when the
incongruity between
their "high" quality improvements and "lower"
customer
satisfaction rating became obvious. * TMC's product quality
committee relied
heavily on TMS's voice-of-customer information and surveys
of customers. * Some
of TMC's responses were "Door has scratch" or "grease on
the
carpet" but their audits of the vehicles when leaving Japan had no signs
of
these. The damage must be occurring after they leave Japan. THE J1
BOOMERANG *
TMS returned messages to TMC stating product quality was
improving, yet damaged
vehicles are still arriving at the dealerships. * So
TMC/Japan study team
followed some shipments to the dealerships and
discovered that the damage was
indeed occurring after the vehicles left
Japan, when the vehicles were the
responsibility on TMS. * TMC reflected the
proposal back to TMS that TMS itself
should make some improvements on the J1
initiative. INITIAL EFFORTS TO IMPROVE
QUALITY AT TMS * In 1989 they
established a formal program defining standards to
accessory installation
processes and quality at ports of entry. * Quarterly
audits provided feedback
and encouragement. * They allowed dealership managers
to improve goodwill
warranty adjustments on their own. THE TMS CUSTOMER
SATISFACTION
COMMITTEE * The TMS customer satisfaction committee was established
to
improve teamwork and communication between all departments by
coordinating
the development of company-wide satisfaction activities. * The
mission of the
committee can be summarized in the following chain of events:
1. TO strengthen
the dealer network, all TMS, activities, and product
quality. 2. TO become
number one in customer satisfaction, with millions of
satisfied customers and
high brand image. 3. TO achieve and maintain sales
and volume of 1.5 million
annually by retaining former customers and
attaining new ones. THE COMMITTEE
STRUCTURE * The committee structure is
composed of the subcommittee chairmen,
Japan staff advisor, and a
secretary. The structure is not permanent and the
committee maybe replaced if
Toyota's priorities change. * The committee promotes
communication and
continues to oversee the work of the subcommittees, the
cross-functional work
really gets done in the subcommittees. * The subcommittees
have became
relatively powerful in this company, as far as getting work done
quickly. THE
SUBCOMMITTEES * Each major operational area at TMS is represented
in a
subcommittee made up of members responsible for instituting improvements
in
customer satisfaction. * These subcommittees include sales and marketing,
parts
and service, product quality, and Lexus. THE STRUCTURE OF SUBCOMMITTEES
* The
subcommittees provide a forum for cross-department communication among
top-level
representatives from diverse operational departments and for
coordinated actions
to improve customer satisfaction. * Involvement of
operational department is key
to success of the committee structure. *
Another key factor to success of the
committee structure is that each
subcommittee is chaired by Toyota Vice
President execustives. * Executive
leaders of the subcommittees are responsible
for involving all affected
departments in determining problems and developing
action plans related to
customer satisfaction. Their involvement secures support
and commitment for
programs that address customer satisfaction issues.
INFORMATION FLOW
THROUGH SUBCOMMITTEES The subcommittees play a major role in
gathering,
analyzing, reporting, and distributing actionable information that
can be
passed on to the appropiate department. * The subcommittee hears the
customer
voice from a variety of sources: 1-800- calls, surveys, or externals
studies
such as those of J.D. Powers. * Customer relations department reads
the
voice-of-customers and feeds the subcommittees through monthly
reports,
newsletters, and other communications. * The subcommittee reviews
the
information and communicates it to the appropiate department for action.
* The
information is then feed back to executive managers for review. * The
committee
meets monthly and each subcommittee reports to the president on a
quarterly
basis. SUBCOMMITTEE AUTHORITY AND RESPONSIBILITY * Mission of each
subcommittee
is narrowly defined to ensure they can function. * The
responsibility among the
departments is to achieve objectives not solely
affected by an individual
department. This denies each department and workers
the Luxury of being able to
send to problem on down to the next station and
assume that somebody else will
fix it. * They establish their own specific
plans for improving customer
satisfaction, but they have no implementation
power. There are no resources in
the committee to do anything other than
evaluate voice-of-customer data, come up
with a conclusion, and then decide
on a action of plan. REGIONAL/PRIVATE
DISTRIBUTOR CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
COMMITTEE * They are dedicated to solving
problems and setting standards at
local levels. * As top priority, they target
high-volume, low satisfaction
dealers on a monthly basis and urge them to follow
specific customer
satisfaction plan. * Having these Regional/Private distributor
committees has
helped the Region focus more on customer satisfaction issues
rather than
customer relation issues.