Total Quality: An Overview

Total Quality is a unique and comprehensive measure of the total ownership experience. Strategic Vision knows that all aspects of the experience of buying, owning and driving a vehicle interact to form an overall impression. Other measures that fail to recognize this interaction can be misleading.

Strategic Vision also believes that it is essential to explicitly incorporate the emotional response to buying, owning and driving a vehicle into the measurement of Total Quality. The emotional responses which are derived from the experience with the attributes of the vehicle significantly influence Total Quality. These dimensions are not typically factored explicitly into the calculations of measures from other companies.

Strategic Vision has captured in its unique Total Quality Index score a comprehensive measure of the experience of the owner that encompasses positive product characteristics, reliability (things-gone wrong), the dealership experience and the emotional response.

Factor scores that cover attributes and emotions (as well as other diagnostics) provide a clear explanation of why one vehicle creates a more positive response than another for the owners.

Calculation of the Total Quality Index® (TQI)

The Total Quality Index score is calculated using multivariate statistical techniques that create weights from the correlations of all aspects of the vehicle ownership experience including product, reliability and dealership (independent variables) against multiple outcome measures (dependent variables) which include the following:

• Satisfaction with the complete ownership experience
• Perception of quality
• Owner reported delight
• Future purchase intent
• Emotional attachment to vehicle

The weights derived from this procedure are then used to transform measures of experience into a 1000 point scale to facilitate comparisons between vehicles. The scores typically range from 750 to 900. Generally, scores over 800 are terrific, although in some segments a score in the low 800's is not very competitive and a score over 900 becomes the epitome of excellence.

Typically, differences of 3-5 points in this scoring system are significant depending on the nature of the sample, i.e., variation, differences in factor scores, etc.