Customer Feedback as a Tool for Quality Improvement : A Case Study in a Service Organization

This bachelor's thesis explores how a Swedish tax and audit firm works with customer feedback and how this process can be improved. The study is based on challenges associated with the organization’s current approach, which is characterized by informal, person-dependent routines and lack of structure, leading to a risk the valuable customer insights are lost. The aim is to develop a systematic and long term sustainable improvement proposal for handling customer feedback. The study draws on theories of Total Quality Management (TQM), Hörnstensmodellen and the PDSA-cycle as well as key concepts such as customer satisfaction, organizational culture and change management. Methodologically the study was carried out as a qualitative case study based on semistructured interviews with six employees and a document analysis of internal policy documents. A thematic analysis was used to identify patterns in the collected data. The results show the customer feedback is primarily gathered spontaneously and without guidelines and that the feedback collected is used only to a limited extent. Several obstacles were identified, such as time constraints, unclear responsibilities and a lack of tools. At the same time, employees expressed a willingness to change and a desire for support to work more systematically with customer feedback. The conclusion is that the organization’s current work with customer feedback could be improved through the implementation of a structured and cyclical approach based on the PDSA-cycle. Proposed improvements include standardized routines, clearly defined areas of responsibility, increased internal communication, strengthened leadership and more.