Integration of IPA and QFD to assess the service quality and to identify after sales service strategies to improve customer satisfaction – a case study
本研究将重要性-绩效分析与质量功能展开相结合，通过问卷调查和案例分析，帮助家电制造企业确定售后服务改进策略，以提升客户满意度。
AbstractCustomer satisfaction is considered very essential nowadays as it shows how firms are dedicated to afford quality products or services to their customers. Retaining the existing customer and acquiring the new customers are the basic objectives of any organisation and after sales service (ASS) has acquired a strategic role as a mean to achieve customer satisfaction. Importance–performance analysis (IPA) and quality function deployment (QFD) are the powerful tools successfully applied in many fields. However, studies on application of these tools in investigating the ASS quality and customer satisfaction seems to be scarce. This article investigates linking of IPA, which is a simple and effective customer satisfaction tool and QFD in the improvement of ASS attributes in an effort to determine the appropriate ASS strategic action plans to be adopted with the objective of enhancing customer satisfaction. In this study, a customer-driven model is proposed to examine the importance of the various ASS attributes and the performance of the organisation via questionnaire survey, and through the IP analysis, the areas to be focused are identified to help the decision makers in devising suitable policies, to improve the ASS performance. This is achieved through the employment of QFD that will help decision makers in the strategic planning to attain better customer satisfaction. A case study is carried out to exhibit the effectiveness of the developed model in a firm involved in manufacturing the home appliances.Keywords: Importance–performance analysis (IPA)after sales service (ASS)quality function deployment (QFD)customer satisfaction AcknowledgementsAuthors would like to thank the anonymous referees for their valuable comments, which helped in improving the contents and quality of the paper.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.