Toyota Customer Satisfaction

Although all customer complaints at Toyota are accorded high significance, complaints are handled and redressed based on the warranty policy that covers the vehicle. At times, the cases reported may be overly severe as the case that led to a recall of the firm’s vehicles in 2010. In such cases, a Toyota Customer Relationship Officer or Service Manager may have to visit complainants in their homes or car parks in order to examine the vehicle. Hayes (2008) posits that customer satisfaction and importance to the customer are crucial issues in Toyota particularly in regards to resolving emergent issues and complaints. Monden (1993) declares that it is for this reason that Toyota Motor Company has set a complaint resolution target level in the company

Toyota measures customer satisfaction and importance to the customer by use of four main variables namely: loyalty, intention to repurchase, perceived quality of products and attribution satisfaction. Hill, Brierley & MacDougall (2003) point out that some of the techniques used by the company to assess customer satisfaction and importance include customer surveys, customer interviews and focus groups. In regards to perceived quality, more often than not, Toyota customers who regret making purchases are categorized as dissatisfied; those that have positive feelings regarding their purchase are satisfied customers. Goldstein (2009) asserts that customer loyalty is mostly measured by their willingness to recommend the firm and its products to others around them. As indicated by Hill et al (2003) the attribution satisfaction variable is useful in determining the importance of specific products or product attributes to customers. Hayes

In addition to having a clear strategy of total quality management, Monden (1993) declares that Toyota also implements the lean manufacturing and just-in-time approaches. As is to be expected, there are several strengths and weaknesses that are identifiable from the analysis of TQM in Toyota. The greatest strengths are the culture of quality and commitment to continuous improvement by the leadership and human resources of Toyota. Despite this, Miltenburg (2005) alleges that the fact that Toyota implements three quality approaches- TQM, lean manufacturing, and just-in-time systems- implies that the firm may be caught in between the three and fail to enjoy the full benefits of each. It is thus recommended that Toyota adopt only one or two quality management approaches and perfect their implementation to ensure superior quality and improved customer