Total Quality Management
What Does Total Quality Management Mean?
Total Quality Management (TQM) is a workplace system aimed at helping a company produce higher-quality products and enhance customer service. Under this system, every employee is encouraged to identify ways to improve both the product and customer service in addition to their regular duties. With the entire company focused on quality improvement, mistakes are minimized, and better products are consistently delivered. While TQM was initially developed for factories producing goods, it has more recently been adopted by various types of companies, including insurance firms.
Insuranceopedia Explains Total Quality Management
If an insurance company implements a Total Quality Management (TQM) program, it would focus on preventing errors in customer documents, speeding up claims processing, and enhancing customer service quality. Given the highly competitive nature of the insurance industry, customer satisfaction is crucial for retaining clients. TQM would also extend to ensure the company maintains strong financial stability, which is essential for insurance firms.
TQM involves systematically analyzing and improving work processes within a company. Its benefits include increased market share, improved profitability, cost reductions, higher employee retention, greater productivity, and a more innovative work environment.
In the context of insurance, the goal of TQM is to ensure clients experience a seamless transition through each stage of interaction with the company. This includes everything from advertising to purchasing a policy and even filing a claim. It’s important to emphasize that TQM in insurance (as in any industry) is focused on delivering quality as defined by the client.