Strategic Imperatives of Total Quality Management and Customer Satisfaction in Organizational Sustainability

Abstract

The importance of Total Quality Management (TQM) in today’s business environment is a sine qua non (an indispensable and essential action). This is due to the ever increasing tastes of customers who see service quality as a right owed them by businesses they chose to patronize. This study examined the relationship between total quality management and customer satisfaction in service industries. The aims among others were to evaluate the relationship between of top management commitments and customer retentions as well as to examine the influence of organizational reputation on customer’s continuous patronage. Relying solely on secondary data collected from various archival sources, findings shows that strong relationships exists between total quality management and customer satisfaction in the achievement of organizational goals especially in the current dispensation of globalization and stiff competitions. The analyzed data also revealed that total quality management and customer satisfaction have increased steadily over a period of time in some service industries but top management still have much to do in order to entrench TQM and customer satisfaction as policies in their organizations. The authors recommend a holistic adoption of TQM and customer services tenets and its entrenchment as policies in all organizations for quality customer services and satisfactions.