The Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) and Gartner collaborated on a research to bring to the front the benefit of using Quality 4.0 in enhancing Customer Experience.
For years the talk about advancing Quality and raising the profile of the profession has been at the centre of many discussions. In 2021, the CQI started its research of Quality in today’s world and Quality 4.0 was launched.
Similar to any human handling change, the Quality Professionals reacted in the same way: the enthusiast, the skeptic, the encourager, the implementer, and the indifferent all came to the front with their comments.
One myth that was crushed early on is that Quality 4.0 is not here to replace the 7 principles* of Quality – our foundation. It is here to give a framework, relevant to today’s world, to apply the 7 principles of Quality in a more relatable world to today’s businesses. Case studies were released from the financial/shipping sector, manufacturing sector, and nuclear sector, and several professionals started talking about the use of one or more of the Quality 4.0 eight principles (see graph below).
Now, Gartner made a study on customer experience and how it can be enhanced using those same Quality 4.0 principles.
Gartner highlighted 7 key drivers to evolve customer experience in businesses. They are:
- Convergence of physical and digital experiences
- Increased data collection and privacy needs
- Expectations of frictionless company interactions
- Rise of social commerce and influencer marketing
- Productization of fulfillment
- Desire for principled brands and interactions
- Expectations for ecosystem reliability
They provide a description for each driver, the implication it has for Quality Management and provide an example.
In the end, they give Quality Professionals 3 simple action items: Stop one thing, Start one thing, and Keep doing one thing.
The Stop,Start and Keep Doing were my favourite part of the report. but let me wet your appetite with one CX Driver:
Driver 1: Convergence of Physical and Digital Experience:
Using Quality 4.0 to Enhance Customer Exeprience Report, Gartner & CQI 2023
Though it is no surprise that customers want their products and services to be straightforward and easy to use, this is especially important for products that have both physical and digital components (e.g., a smart refrigerator). As technology continues to advance, customers expect both the hardware and software aspects of a product to be of similar quality and to integrate seamlessly with one another.
Implications for Quality Management
This means that if one aspect of the product has an issue or if the hardware and software components do not integrate or work together as expected, the customer’s experience with the product (and possibly with the company) suffers.
Let us take an example: If your mobile phone looked so cool, the hardware was so powerful, but the software was full of bugs, the device kept restarting, and it was diffcult to send messages or use your favoutie apps. Would you describe this product as the best product you had? Or would your frustration slowly start mounting.
Now think of this one driver, and think of your role as a Quality Professional, or if you are part of the Csuite, think of the Quality function you have in your business. How are you (or how are they) equipped to work with both software developers and device manufacturers and ensure the integration is robust, the expeirence is smooth and represents exactly what the customer expects, if not more.
If your quality function is silo’d and is structured to focus on a single type of task, such as QA testing feature X of the software, or QA inspecting part Y from the device production line, then you might be missing on some great potential to using data from both tasks, and combining them with the holistic framework that puts your customer’s experience at the heart of your business.
The paper is very insightful and the 7 drivers of Customer Experience are direclty linked with the principles of Quality 4.0 via the routes of Stop, Start, Keep Doing – 3 simple action items:
🛑 Stop Relying on Secondhand Customer Data
🟢 Start Solving Tomorrow’s Issues Today
🔛 Keep the Human Touch
These action items are powerful and could inspire you to address practical businesss matters. You can download the entire report directly from the CQI’s website here
* You can check the seven principles of Quality in the ISO9001:2015 standard.
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