PRINCIPLES OF QUALITY HEALTH MANAGEMENT

ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY IN UGANDA

(IUIU)

COURSE UNT: PRINCIPLES OF QUALITY HEALTH MANAGEMENT

COURSE CODE: AHM 1104

Lecturer’s Name: Ms. Kapchebasa Lucy

QUESTION:

Quality in Service Industry

1) What is good service?

2) Why people give bad services

3) Characteristics of service (Intangibility, Heterogeneity and Inseparability)

4) Customer care- Internal and External

5) ISO series on service

Sn NAME Reg No

1 MAIGA AYUB HUSSEIN 120-032122-22587

2 MUKYALA ZAINABU 120-032123-22169

3 NAMONYWE ANNAH 120-032123-21951

4 NAMBOZO ROSEMARY 120-032123-21340

5 OYITE DAVID 120-032123-22297

6 WAISANA RICHARD 120-032123-22466
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Good service: Are best practices like valuing customer time, having a pleasant
attitude and providing knowledgeable and resourceful resources, while taking a
step further to exceed rather than just meeting customer expectation.

Why people give bad services

Bad customer service: Is when a business fails to meet the customer expectations

in terms of service quality, response time, or overall customer experience.

Hiring the wrong employees

Some people are just not cut out for customer service work, and hiring them for
customer service positions might just do more harm than good for your business.
It’s more about having passion for this kind of job and really enjoy doing it.

Refusing to invest in customer service training

So, no matter how good you think your customer service representatives are,
there’s always room for improvement, and investing in it would pay off in a
number of ways.

Not empowering your customer service frontline

Customer service is more than answering simple questions about your products or
services. When dealing with complicated issues and complaining customers, your
customer service agents have to be real decision makers and problem solvers.

Not having a dedicated customer service team

 PRINCIPLES OF QUALITY HEALTH MANAGEMENT

No matter how small or big your business, having a customer service team totally
dedicated to supporting your customers (and trained to do it right) is a ‘must-have’
aspect of any successful business.

Not building a customer centric culture

What does it really mean to be customer centric? Customer centricity actually goes
further beyond just offering outstanding customer service. Customer centric
strategy is based on putting your customers first, at the core of your business.

Lack of respect for customers

Customers need to be treated with respect without expectations, the problem is that
after a long day of work, customer service advisor can sometime slips and become
distracted. If they are not paying attention to the clients, they may perceive this as
disrespect.

Lack of Empathy

After working in the same job for a long period of time, most people can become
indifferent to their customers, which is completely natural. However if a new
employee lacks empathy from the beginning, that can lead to a more serious
problem in line to the business.

Work overload

If you have many customers compared to the service delivers, the customer
expectations won’t be achieved in relation to, response time and quality of service
rendered.
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Poor delegation

Delegation should be in line with hierarchy, professional ability and skills,

therefore delegating duties to someone who is not skilled and unable to execute the
right duties may result into poor service delivery.

Characteristics of services

Definition of Service:

Services are a special form of product which consists of activities, benefits or

satisfactions offered for sale that are intangible and do not result in the ownership
of anything.

Services characteristics: intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity and

perishability.

Intangibility

Service intangibility means that services cannot be seen, tasted, felt, heard or
smelled before they are bought. You cannot try them out. For instance, airline
passengers have nothing but a ticket and a promise that they will arrive at a certain
time at a certain destination. But there is nothing that can be touched.

Inseparability

This means that services are produced and consumed at the same time and also
reflects the simultaneous delivery and consumption of services

This also entails that services cannot be separated from their providers. Contrary to
services, physical goods are produced, then stored, later sold, and even later
 PRINCIPLES OF QUALITY HEALTH MANAGEMENT

consumed. Services are first sold, then produced and consumed at exactly the same
time.

Heterogeneity

This is a particular problem for services with a high labour content, as the service
performance is delivered by different people and the performance of people can
vary from day to day.
Variability

It refers to the fact that the quality of services can vary greatly, depending on who
provides them and when, where and how. Because of the labor-intensive nature of
services, there is a great deal of difference in the quality of service provided by
various providers, or even by the same providers at different times.

Perishability

Perishability means that services cannot be stored for later sale or use In general,
services cannot be stored and carried forward to a future time period. Services are
“time dependent” and “time important” which make them very perishable.
This is one of the most significant characteristics of services, since it may have a
major impact on financial results. Doctors or dentists often charge patients for
missed appointments because the service value has foregone.

User participation

Finally, the characteristics of services include user participation. Indeed, users

participate in every service production. Even when the user is not required to be at
a location where the service is performed, users participate in every service
production. A service cannot be separated from its provider, but neither can it be
separated from its user.
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Customer Care

Customer Care: The work of looking after customers and ensuring their
satisfaction with your business and its goods or services

External customers: Are the people that pay for and use the products or services
that a company offers.

Internal customers: Have a relationship with, and within, a company, either

through employment or as partners who deliver products or services to the end
user.
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ISO (International Standards Organization)

Is defined as a set of international standards on quality management and quality

assurance developed to help companies effectively document the quality system
elements needed to maintain an efficient quality system.

They are not specific to any one industry and can be applied to organizations of
any size.

ISO defines standardisation as the “activity of establishing, with regard to actual or

potential problems, provisions for common and repeated use, aimed at the
achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context.

The purpose of ISO

 To promote the development of standardisation and related activities in the

world with a view to facilitating international exchange of goods and
services and to developing co-operation in the spheres of intellectual,
scientific, technological and economic activity.
 Enhancing economic competitiveness and efficiency
 Facilitating international trade.

The primary objective of standardisation is to rationalise production through the

adoption of common standards to simplify, unify and specify.
 PRINCIPLES OF QUALITY HEALTH MANAGEMENT

This allows the removal of unnecessary or duplicative manufacturing in favour of

the “best” products, and promotes the interchangeability of spare parts, especially
at the international level.

Hence, standardisation not only aims to rationalise production, but also to increase
production quality, including in terms of sustainable development or
environmental considerations.

ISO standards and public policy

ISO standards are voluntary. There is no obligation for ISO’s Members to adopt
them nationally or for a State to make them mandatory by referencing them in
legislation, nor any obligation for any private person to conform to them.

ISO standards can be useful tools for supporting public policy initiatives, including
legislation or technical regulations, and also other kinds of public policy decisions
or actions such as in public procurement, incentive systems, or awareness
campaigns.
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REFERENCES:

1) http://www.impactlearning.com, Impact Learning Systems International—a

division of Miller Heiman
2) Journal of Empirical Generalisations in Marketing Science, Volume Three
2015
3) Journal of Service Science Research, Springer, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2013, pp. 125
154.
4) 5 Core Principles ofCustomer Care
5) The Case of the International Organization forStandardization (ISO) By
Jeanne Dupendant
6) An Investigation Into Four Characteristics of Services
7) Russell Wolak, Stavros Kalafatis and Patricia Harris*
8) McDaniel S.W. and Rao C.P. (1980). “The Effect of Monetary Inducement
on Mailed Questionnaire Response Rate and Quality”, Journal of Marketing
Research, 17, 265
9) Zeithaml V.A., Parasuraman A. and Berry L.L. (1985). “Problems and
Strategies in Services Marketing”, Journal of Marketing, 49, 33 - 46.