In today's world, organizations face challenges like market competition, changing customer needs and technology advancements. Organizations need to adopt new technologies and processes to remain competitive to meet these challenges. One such tool is Six Sigma. It helps organizations improve quality and reduce costs through continuous improvement.

Six Sigma is a management system that focuses on meeting customer expectations by eliminating defects and improving quality.

Voice of the Customer (VoC)

Voice of the customer (VOC) is a term used to describe the in-depth process of capturing a customer's expectations, preferences and aversions. (stated and unstated).

The Voice of customers can be collected in several ways:

• by interviewing customers
• by observing how they use the product or service;
• or by using focus groups or surveys
• By listening to what customers say about products and services

VOC can help companies understand why people buy from them and how they use the products or services provided. With this information, companies can improve their products and services for the better.

Critical to Quality - CTQ

The problem with collecting the Voice of Customer is that it is vague and difficult to define.

For example, if you want to improve the level of service provided by a clinic, you might get feedback from customers that the service needs to be improved. But as an improvement professional, it does not help much. What you would need are some specific areas or parameters to improve. That is where the concept of CTQs or Critical to Quality parameters comes into play. CTQs, in a way, convert customer needs into specific internal requirements.

The customer may identify a requirement that is difficult to measure directly, so breaking down these into identifiable and measurable terms will be necessary. These are called CTQs.

 

Critical to Quality (CTQ) Trees

Using a CTQ Tree, you can convert broad customer requirements into specific and measurable internal requirements. These are the requirements you should focus on to improve customer satisfaction.

Please see below an example of CTQ Tree, where the customer's expectation of better service at the clinic has been converted into specific CTQs.