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Customer Requirements Segmentation (CRS): A prerequisite technique for Quality Function Deployment (QFD)

Lookup NU author(s): Joseph Chan

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Abstract

Since customers are not all created equal, it could not be overemphasised that a precise knowledge of Customer Requirements (CR) holds the key to business success. This paper offers Customer Requirements Segmentation (CRS) as a novel technique for categorizing CR with precision. CRS involves three different types of segmentation according to: service encounters or the service provided within each service encounter (CRS-I); customers' characteristics, e.g. age, gender, etc (CRS-II); and prioritized CR importance (CRS-III). Starting with a comprehensive list of Service Quality Dimensions (SQD), the CRS-I, II and IIIs will successively emerge. Although Quality Function Deployment (QFD) has been widely used in analysing and eventually delivering what the customers want, its implementation has not always been effective. CRS would help overcome some of the major difficulties in QFD implementation which are particularly acute in the Service Sector, namely: in ascertaining the ambiguities in the voice of the customer (VoC); in handling large houses of quality (HoQ); and in resolving conflicts among different variety of CR. A case study on using CRS to analyse the service encounter at the front desk of a four-star hotel will be presented in order to demonstrate CRS in action. The implications of the findings are discussed in detail.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Shahin A, Chan JFL

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Total Quality Management and Business Excellence

Year: 2006

Volume: 17

Issue: 5

Pages: 567-587

ISSN (print): 1478-3363

ISSN (electronic): 1478-3371

Publisher: Routledge

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14783360600588117

DOI: 10.1080/14783360600588117


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