What is total quality management?

Total quality management is a systematic approach to managing the customer experience with a firm and constantly looking to improve it. TQM is driven by ongoing research, feedback and upgrades to the solutions that a company offers its marketplace.

TQM is process driven, and it is divided into four elements: plan, do, check and act, or PDCA. Planning centers on identifying problems with the customer experience. Doing is the development and implementation of a new or modified solution that addresses the problems identified. Checking is a review of the experience after the implementation. The act stage jump starts the next phase of improvement by documenting new problems.