Why do you favor one brand of soap over another? Does it con­tain the top cleaning agents? Does it smell better than others?

Does it make your skin soft and smooth? How can we improve loyalty to Sonoco's

products? This is the focus of Sonoco's world­wide customer satisfaction survey.

"Previously, we conducted only relative perceived quality surveys to compare our product and service quality with a competi­tor's. However, we could not determine from these surveys why customers remained loyal to a particular vendor over another," said Lynn Hunsaker, strategic information manager.

"With this company-wide customer satisfac­tion survey, we will find out how to improve customer loyalty, which will provide us with the right focus for Total Quality Management (fQM)," said Hunsaker.

In May of 1991, Sonoco's vice-president of TQM, Ronnie Holley, asked Hunsaker to head a taskforce with representatives from each di­vision and international. The objective of the taskforce was to determine what to measure, how to measure it, who would be involved and how often.

"Each survey may be tailored to business units' needs. For example, within the product quality category, the High Density Film Prod­ucts Division measures 'bag strength,' and Partitions Division measures 'ease of inserting partitions in the case'," said Hunsaker.

Quality Strategies, an independent research

firm from Dallas, Texas, is conducting the sur­veys in the United States and Canada, and su­pervising other independent researchers in London (UK), Sydney (Australia), Mexico City and Bogota (Colombia).

More than 3,000 customers will be sur­veyed each year either by telephone or face­to-face.

"The key to utilizing the survey results is in linking each factor in the questionnaire with

From left, Randy Kelley, division vice-president; Nancy Ha"ington, regional sales manager; Doug Kreitzer, sales/marketing manager­Plastic Drum and Wayne Carlberg, general manager - IBC (Intermediate Bulk Containers) observe the results from a Customer Satisfaction Survey done for the Semi-Bulk Packaging Division.

internal activities, and assigning responsibility to specific individuals for implementing and monitoring improvement. This will allow the voice of the customer to drive continuous im­provement In TQM - Increasing loyalty - and creating customer satisfaction through excel­lence," added Hunsaker.- by Jonathan Lee