FREE ESSAY ON ANALYZATION OF TOYOTA SUBCOMMITTEE

ANALYZATION OF TOYOTA SUBCOMMITTEE

THE CUSTOMER 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.