COMMUNICATING SERVICE QUALITY IMPROVEMENT - ANOTHER ROLE FOR PUBLIC-RELATIONS

Public relations practitioners have struggled to become part of total quality management (TQM) teams in an era when companies have focused e normous effort on enhancing service quality as a competitive edge. TQM is a challenge to practitioners whose mentality and training leads th em to focus on process instead of measurable outcomes and who are bett er prepared to defend the status quo than to abandon it for greener qu ality service pastures. This article combines public relations practic e and TQM improvement stages to create a philosophy and set of strateg ies to assist practitioners' understanding of the challenges and respo nse options available to them as part of improving service quality. Ro bert L. Heath is a professor and director of the Institute for the Stu dy of Issues Management at the University of Houston. Steven A. Leth i s a principal of The Institute, and Kathy Nathan works in Creative Mar keting Services.