Product quality from the customers' perspective - Systematic elicitation and deployment of perceived quality information

Abstract

Product quality lies in the eye of the beholder. It is an individual and subjective interpretation of realized product criteria and hence more than the compliance with the customer's expressed performance requirements. But the elicitation of delighting quality attributes is both time- And cost-intensive and often still open to interpretation. To successfully differentiate themselves from their competitors, companies have to systematically objectify their customers' quality judgments. The paper presents an integrated approach to structure quality perception from the customer's perspective and to channel the relevant information into the product development process. Key elements are the coordinated survey and specification of perception-relevant product attributes to minimize losses and misinterpretations. This supports the change from an intuitive to a fact-based product development as well as the notion of a resourceconserving value chain. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010.