The U.S. presidential debates are underway wobbling between the wonkiest details on debt retirement to cartoonish attacks in Sesame Street’s Big Bird. Equally, the media swing between fact checking and photogenic charisma. Voters are encouraged to make intelligent choices, but how should candidates present themselves in order to make this less frustrating?
“QFD is the art and science of taking the voice of the customer, and, more specifically, the top needs of the targeted customer segments, into consideration before developing a product or service. Can this technique be applied to a political campaign?”
This lofty question is going to be answered and the specific steps using Modern Blitz QFD® tools will be presented at the upcoming 24th Symposium on QFD on November 2, 2012, “QFD and Politics — A Sure-fire Way to Start An Argument” by Carey W. Hepler, QFD Black Belt®and Operations Director of Care Spot Express Healthcare.
Carey’s case study involves an actual election campaign by his wife Ruth Ann for a Florida county judgeship. The primary focus of the paper is to understand how to: 1) select target segments; 2) use the voice (top needs) of the target segment customers to develop the strategy; 3) creating the message and; 4) deploy the messaging to the targeted segments for a campaign.
For example, what sort of true “customer needs” can be identified from this verbatim voice of voters — “what do you think about the Chick-fil-A case?” and then what kind of a campaign strategy and slogan should be deployed?
Carey’s QFD application is solid and innovative (he is a full status QFD Black Belt® after all). This interesting paper deploys downstream using the data to make strategic and operational decisions. Carey’s presentation is worth every campaign dollar.
