Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Samsung Electronics:
Analyzing Qualitative Complaint Data
April 3, 2012, found Samsung Electronics quality director Kevin Sarni wondering what he
could do to stop the flow of bad news coming to his department. Over the past few weeks the
company had experienced a series of quality-related problems; the recall of one of its LCD TV
models was the most recent setback. To Sarni it was clear there was no single root cause behind
these problems: Samsung’s supply chain management, product design, and testing/quality
assurance functions all played a role.
At a meeting the previous week Sarni had been shown comments about Samsung products
posted on the website ConsumerAffairs.com (see Exhibit 1). Although he was familiar with
Samsung’s customer complaint database, he was surprised at the number of—and emotion
behind—the website postings. Although he had the means to influence corrective action for
internal problems, Sarni felt powerless to address this public perception of Samsung’s products,
which he worried might touch off a social media–fueled public relations firestorm that would
make his job more difficult.
He wanted to analyze this qualitative feedback, but Sarni’s experience was limited to
quantitative manufacturing data. An internal Six Sigma Black Belt consultant suggested he start
by creating an affinity diagram and use that to create a Pareto diagram to determine which issues
to address first.
Sarni realized he would be leaving his comfort zone: engineering analyses were typically
black-and-white and focused on data, but the feedback from ConsumerAffairs.com was full of
emotion and conjecture with few verifiable facts. He took a stack of Post-it notes from his desk
drawer and began creating his first affinity diagram.
Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics was a subsidiary of the Samsung Group and had been the world’s
largest technology company by revenues since 2009. Headquartered in South Korea, Samsung
Electronics employed approximately 221,000 people and had assembly plants and sales networks
in 61 countries.
©2013 by the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. This case was prepared by Professor Jack Boepple. Cases
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This document is authorized for use only by Eva Saragih in 2017.
For the exclusive use of E. Saragih, 2017.
SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS KEL738
According to market research firm iSuppli, Samsung grabbed the market share lead in North
America for LCD TVs in Q2 2011.1 In Q4 2011, Samsung sold 2.4 million LCD TVs for a 23.6
percent market share in North America. Trailing Samsung were Vizio (15.4 percent), LG
Electronics (12.4 percent), and Sony (8 percent).2
To promote quality awareness and instill it in the organizational culture, Samsung issued its
Quality Vision in 2009. Using the slogan “Perfection in Quality beyond your Imagination,”
Samsung’s vision was “providing quality products which customers around the world can have
faith in and take pride in, leading to ultimate satisfaction by fulfilling their immediate and
potential needs.”3 In support of this vision, the company implemented a code of conduct
consisting of five points: customer-centric, true to basics, professionalism, quality workmanship,
and creating customers for life. It also opened a “Quality Experience Center” where employees
could take a firsthand look at product defects and understand customer grievances.
In 2009 Samsung received a total of 49 million customer inquiries and grievances on product
purchase, repair, usage, and other issues. The company’s formal process for managing customer
complaints is shown in Figure 1.
1
Tom Morrod, “US Flat-Panel TV Shipments Surge in Q2,” Market Watch, iSuppli, September 28, 2012.
2
Chris Casacchia, “Samsung Extends LCD TV Sales Lead Over Vizio in Q4,” Orange County Business Journal, April 2, 2012.
3
Samsung, “Customer Delight Service,” http://www.samsung.com/us/aboutsamsung/sustainability/productservices/download/
Customer_delight_service.pdf (accessed December 11, 2012).
ConsumerAffairs.com
ConsumerAffairs was a consumer news and advocacy organization founded in 1998 by James
R. Hood, a former Washington, D.C., journalist and public affairs executive. It was not a
government agency and was not affiliated with any other consumer organization or any of the
corporations whose products were reviewed on its website.
Its website, ConsumerAffairs.com, was an independent consumer news and resource center
with a database containing tens of thousands of pages of consumer complaints, comments, and
compliments. The site also contained consumer news, recall information, scams, and consumer
resources such as a list of class action lawsuits, a small claims guide, a handbook for finding the
right lawyer, a guide to understanding credit, and an identity theft handbook.
All complaints and reviews were moderated before publishing. Moderators published
trending consumer problems that would help users find content that was directly relevant to their
concerns. In addition, all consumer feedback was routed to attorneys for review. On occasion, the
lawyers found something they believed could form the basis of a class action suit on behalf of
consumers. Hundreds of class action lawsuits had been filed on behalf of consumers based on
information from the website, but ConsumerAffairs was not a party to those actions and did not
profit from them.
In quantitative (or objective) analysis, numbers and what they stand for are the material of
analysis; by contrast, qualitative (or subjective) analysis deals in words and is guided by fewer
universal rules and standardized procedures than statistical analysis.
As a first step, data must be organized and meaningfully reduced or organized into logical
groupings. According to Miles and Huberman, “Data reduction refers to the process of selecting,
focusing, simplifying, abstracting, and transforming the data that appear in written-up field notes
or transcriptions.”4 Not only does the data need to be condensed for the sake of manageability, it
also must be transformed so it can be made intelligible in terms of the issues being addressed.
One analytical tool for data reduction is an affinity diagram. An affinity diagram is a visual
tool that helps synthesize large amounts of data by finding natural relationships—or “affinity”—
between data points. As shown in Figure 2, in an affinity diagram random ideas are arranged into
logical themes.
4
Susan Berkowitz, “Analyzing Qualitative Data” in User-Friendly Handbook for Mixed Method Evaluations, National Science
Foundation, August 1997, http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1997/nsf97153/chap_4.htm, quoting M.B. Miles and A.M. Huberman, Qualitative
Data Analysis (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1984), p. 16.
Source: Based on “Affinity Diagrams: Organizing Ideas Into Common Themes,” MindTools, http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/
newTMC_86.htm (accessed December 11, 2012).
Themes identified in an affinity diagram could be used as the basis of a Pareto diagram,
which ordered the themes from highest frequency to lowest. This technique was named after
Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed in 1906 that 80 percent of land in Italy was
owned by 20 percent of the population. In the 1940s management consultant Joseph M. Juran
applied the Pareto principle to quality issues to identify the “vital few and trivial many,” or the 20
percent of causes (the “vital few”) that were responsible for 80 percent of the results. The Pareto
principle enabled organizations to focus on what typically happened (i.e., the 20 percent, or “the
vital few”) rather than the multitude of exceptions (i.e., the 80 percent, or “the trivial many”) that
had little effect on outcomes (see Figure 3).
100%
250 90%
80%
200 70%
Cumulative Percent
60%
Number
150
50%
40%
100 Vital few Trivial many
30%
50 20%
10%
0 0%
Parking Rude sales Poor Confusing Limited Clothing Clothing
difficult rep lighting layout sizes faded shrank
Taking Action
Measure what is measurable and make measurable what is not so.
—Galileo Galilei, 1564–1642
Consumer blogs would never be Kevin Sarni’s primary source of information, but they could
serve as “listening posts” to provide early warning of problems. The returns and warranty returns
data he had traditionally used was valuable, but the delay in getting the information meant it was
not as actionable as the more real-time consumer complaints from ConsumerAffairs.com.
After Sarni completed the unfamiliar diagrams he had still another task ahead of him:
examining the results to see if they justified taking short-term action to address the quality
problems raised in the complaints.
problem was and gave my phone number. A few days later, a TV repairman called me
and asked what the problem I was having was. So I explained about the black lines on the
screen. The repairman told me it is not worth the money to fix it because it’s about the
same price for a new TV. When I called back Samsung, they said I did not renew the
extended service plan. I understand that, but I shouldn’t have any problems with a three-
year-old TV which I paid top dollar for. I feel they should fix it or replace it. After all, I
have a 15-year-old TV that never had any issues. Why is that? These Samsung LCD
HDTVs are defective, as I read all the complaints.
and plasma televisions are experiencing, but was not included in the class action
settlement. It started by cycling on and off with a clicking noise, and now does not turn
on at all but just makes a clicking noise when plugged in. I talked with three different
people and spent a total of 1.5 hours on the phone with Samsung only to be told that I
would have to pay for any repairs out of pocket. I was blatantly lied to by uninformed
Samsung representatives in an attempt to explain to me why Samsung would not repair
my television, stating that the problem was only with LCD TVs, when there are actually
nine plasma TV models included in a settlement over this very same issue. Free repair of
the faulty capacitors should be covered by Samsung for my TV just as it has been for
others.
send a technician for an in-home repair of said faulty product. Samsung took all our
information and said the repair technician would contact us within 48 hours. They have
an online tracking form that said we would be repaired by March 11th. Today is March
12th, and after speaking with two customer service representatives and holding now for
39 minutes to speak to a supervisor, we have not received any contact or anyone that is
able to follow up to make this repair happen.
problems, as it would cost more to fix than to buy a new one. Anyway, I purchased the
HPT4254X/XAC three and a half years ago. After two years, I started to get black
horizontal lines going across the screen. Now, the TV shuts off and takes forever to turn
on after clicking for an hour.
The problem with this whole situation is that I researched this for the best TV at the time
and Samsung came up with high rankings. To pay over $1,700 at the time of purchase
and for this to happen now, coupled with the fool from the Bahamas (support group)
makes me really think about the integrity of Samsung. I purchased a new Samsung 55-
inch LED lately and am going to take it back and purchase an LG at a cheaper price. I am
going to put a lot of comments where Samsung sells these products, including but not
limited to Best Buy, Future Shop, Walmart, etc. Honor your product.