Select a process (delivering fast and friendly customer service) at Target Store that needs improvement

Solution Preview

a. A description of the chosen process
Customer service which is "the behaviors and attitudes of a company and its personnel toward customers, during all interaction and communication with them" (Swartzlander, 2004, p. 1) is the heart of an organization. Our chosen process is delivering efficient and effective customer service. According to the wikipedia "A customer is someone who makes use of or receives the products or services of an individual or organization. " Thus customer uses the product or service of another individual or firm. This process is of utmost importance to Target as it's into retail industry where its direct clients are its consumers only. Thus the customer service is their core part of operations. The consumer goes to the Target stores with the expectation of exceptional customer service to him for selecting the right merchandise for herself.

b. An "As-Is" flow chart of the process to be analyzed.
You have already downloaded. Still I will explain it again:

At the beginning of the process improvement efforts , an "As Is" flowchart helps the team and others involved in the process to understand how it currently works. The team may find it helpful to compare this "As-Is flowchart" with a diagram of the way the process is supposed to work. Later, "the team will develop a flowchart of the modified process again, to record how it actually functions. At some point, the improvement team may want to create an ideal flowchart to show how you would ultimately like the process to be performed." (http://quality.dlsu.edu.ph/tools/flowchart.html, 2006).
In analyzing the "As Is" process, five lenses of analysis are used. The five lenses of analysis are customer satisfaction, software developer frustration, time, cost, and quality. Each lens reveals aspects of the process that are either working or not. Each lens is linked to a specific improvement methodology such as lean, Six Sigma, activity based costing, and reengineering.
For Customer service, the "As Is" flow chart will start with the operational departments, end at customer interface. This is necessary to identify the bottlenecks and inefficiencies in the customer service at Target. After identifying these processes, recommendations can be given to Target with respect to improving efficiencies by comparing the process with best practices in the industry.

c. Describe the relationship of the process to the organization's strategic plan.

As today's consumers are becoming more price conscious, technologically advanced, demanding and convenience driven. Thus, the key for success in today's tumultuous marketplace is exceptional customer service as this allows an organization to prosper in this highly competitive marketplace. (Kotler, 2003)
If the perceived performance of product/service meets the expectation of customer than customer is satisfied. Satisfied customers recommend the products to others. Customer satisfaction" is an organization's ability to attract & retain customers and enhance the customer relationship over time. Every interaction a customer has with a company's products & services is a reflection on quality." (ISO, 2007)
Thus the customer service is very important to the strategic plan of Target. It will help in improving the customer loyalty and thereby the market share and revenue of the firm.

The basic idea of customer satisfaction will be same for both the internal and external customer. The

d. Identify the internal and external customers that are currently impacted by the process that would benefit from the process improvement.
Internal Customer
An internal customer is "anyone you count on or rely upon to complete a task or a
function or to provide you with information so that you can get your job done...and
anyone who counts on you to complete a task or function or to provide them with
information so that they can get their job done." (Rosenberger, 1998)
http://www.lib.umd.edu/groups/learning/handouts/CS-M2handouts.pdf.
Internal customers are those people and employees who might use your services and products, who reside in the same company. For example the computer department, and human resources department serve internal needs.
http://customerservicezone.com/Customer_Service_-_Internal_Customers/ as retrieved on 25 Jun 2007 03:05:52 GMT.
Thus internal customers are intrinsic and they are within the organization. For example The Retail Merchandize department can be the customer of Human resource department. The external customers are the customers outside the organization or the entities which buys from the organization any good or service. Thus external customers are the organization's shoppers. The primary focus of the internal customers is the employee delight and raising their productivity and morale by giving right environment and care. Here the internal customers are employees.
The primary focus of the external customer is the customer delight and they are the shoppers. The organization should treat all of its external customers in an equitable and non-discriminatory manner, behave polite, courteous and fair in its dealings with them, respects their right to privacy, protects their personal information and does not disclose it to other individuals if it's not permitted by law. While using technological advancements to deliver better customer service, the organization should first focus on supplying up-to-date, accurate and comprehensive information and ensure that the potential offered by information technology is simple and useful.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Internal-and-External-Customers&id=317979 as retrieved on 4 Jul 2007 11:43:40 GMT.
www.principledprofit.com/internal-customer-service.html

e. Identify the most appropriate Quality Management tool that can be used to collect and present data on the process improvement changes

We will utilize Benchmarking as a QM tool. According to the Juran, ...