The Quality of Leather Products as Seen from the User's Viewpoint

Content: We are a group company of a major department store in Japan. We are in charge of quality control and customer service of items sold by our stores. We constantly monitor our customers’ concerns, and we have been keeping customer correspondence records since 1996. We hold over 100,000 cases for all items of food, clothing, living and services. The record includes not only customer requests but also test results of each item before sales as well as reproduction test results based on customer requests. We use the database to build our quality standards for everything we sell and for the education of our sales staff. All personal information in these correspondence records are, of course, kept completely confidential. However, improving the quality of the items we sell is not simply a problem of finding solutions within our supply chain. Using compiled results, we aim to clarify the type and level of problems users experience with leather goods, leading to overall quality improvement of supply items of scale. However, we cannot perform this task alone. As a survey method, it is based on compiling all 7,000 records of leather goods over the past decade sorted by our original ‘product-code’ and ‘consultation-code’. By using compiled results, we are able to clarify what kinds of items and what kind of complaints is more often in major sales items. Additionally, by using text extraction from the content of customers’ requests and compiling them manually, totals can be determined for each use period and product color. For example, we can compare customer complaint data with test results for colour fastness. Referring to required performance items specified by ISO standards, the gap between customer requests and quality standards can be clarified. With the internationalization of purchasing networks of sales items, quality control based on setting various safety and quality standards is becoming increasingly important. In terms of the characteristics of leather, we think that there is probably a level that is impossible to realize, however, not only the problems of regulations and safety but the nature of the customer's viewpoint must also be discussed. Take-Away: We are going to present current data showing proof of what consumers actually want. Using this data, leather goods manufacturers can efficiently make products that consumers want and avoid making products that consumers don’t want. We suggest that quality standards , including ISO, should consider not only safety and regulations of environment, but consumer`s opinions as well