Most and nearly every business today claims to believe and practice quality. Many advertise it to their customers. Particularly in a Contact Center environment, the terminology “Service Quality” is often being used. Service Quality in this context is about differentiating great service from good. “Total Quality Service” (TQS) was conceptualized by Karl Albrecht. In his book titled, “The Only Thing That Matters”, TQS is defined as a state of affairs in which an organization delivers superior value to its stakeholders, customers, owners and employees.

The TQS concept originally focused on the needs of service based organizations. Utilizing this concept, we can further develop its application in contact centers, which literally is in the service business. As such, Total Quality Service in contact centers simply means a state of affairs in which a contact center delivers superior value to its organizations, customers and contact center professionals.

One of the keystones of TQS in contact centers is that all quality standards and measures used in the contact center should be customer-referenced. This indicates that they should relate directly or indirectly to a model of customer value. Secondly, this customer-value focus should apply both internally and externally. Contact center professionals must consistently keep in mind that they serve not only external customers, but also the contact center team and other support functions within the organization.

The TQS approach in contact centers evolves around five action elements, which were discerned by observing outstanding organizations. These five critical processes are Market and Customer Research; Strategy Formulation; Education, Training and Communication; Process Improvement; and Assessment, Measurement and Feedback. These five components of TQS have one over-riding purpose: to align the contact center’s people, technology and processes around the needs of its customers. This approach is aligned with the integrated approach to a customer-focused culture in the contact center pyramid.

The above stated five basic action elements can be combined into what is called the Total Quality Service Model, with the goal of Total Quality Service at the center. By mastering well all the elements around this model, contact centers will ultimately achieve distinct customer experience. The detailed explanation and application of each of these components will be outlined in Part 2 of this article.

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This article is inspired by “The Only Thing That Matters”, by Karl Albrecht