Quality Interview Questions and Report

The subject of this specific interview is a man named Steve McGuire, who is in his late 20s. Steve has seven years of professional expertise in the field of information technology. He is employed by a business called Datadog. At the company, Steve McGuire holds the position of senior software engineer. The New York City-based digital software startup Datadog focuses on monitoring services that assist organizations in properly storing their data and aggregating it as needed. Additionally, it seeks to make it simple for businesses to get their data as needed. The business offers all services relating to data and has technical competence focused on assuring data security. The company has some applications that help business entrust their information and aid them in streamlining their processes.

Datadog Company has a high employee turnover of more than a hundred employees. The approximate funding of the company ranges from between a hundred and fifty million to two hundred million United States dollars. Datadog company s good at server monitoring, cloud maintenance and applications developments. As such, the company receives pleasant ratings from its clients from time to time. The Datadog has grown to become one of the top Digital Software companies in New York City.

The interviewee chosen for this particular exercise has a lot to offer concerning work experience, paying attention to detail, and working under strict deadlines. He has faced many diverse environments judging from the extensive client base of the company. With all these perspectives in mind, the interviewee can provide the interviewer with precious information relevant for a comprehensive and conclusive report.

Datadog Company focuses on quality services and experiences with its customers. Data safeguarding and storage is critical for every company. Datadog Company is well aware of this fact, and therefore, they channel their energy towards ensuring their customers are satisfied. Satisfaction entails quality services with efficiency in utilization of the client resources. The company ensures attainment of quality through upgrades and training of employees. It gives its customers questionnaires and carries out surveys to get feedback on customer experience from his clients.

The Interview Guide

Datadog Company pays attention towards ensuring that quality attainment occurs throughout their processes. The company only defines quality as the possibility of getting arecommendationto other clients by how good they are at their work. The goal towards achieving quality goes a long way for the company as it sets specific criteria to adhere. The testsstart from setting the goals needed before quality assurance. These goals are exhaustive and cover a vast region of the company departments. The goals include developing a broad client base, improving its applications, developing new once, and reaching high levels of efficiency in utilization of resources. The board of directors, while also seeking the opinion of staff and the loyal customers, sets the goals.

The company carries out some measures that that pivot the attainment of the goals above. These actions include frequent training, anaudit of procedures and products, proper record keeping and analysis of short-term goals. The set measures undergo implementation and the results analyzed for theascertainment of their effectiveness.

A series of questions guide the interview with the aim of achieving the most out of the session. The questions revolve around the aspects of quality and its attainment. The issues posed to the interviewee include the following.

How does the company utilize benchmarking as a tool for performance measurement? For this particular question, the expectation is to provide a list of the competitors of the enterprise. How well they carry out their procedures that lead them to become the “elite” companies.

How does the company maintain quality? The expectation from the interviewee is to provide sufficient details on quality management techniques implemented by the corporation.

Does the company use Proactive or reactive approach towards theachievement of quality? The expected reply is the effectiveness of the approach employed by the company

How well does the company meet the customers’ expectations? The planned answer from the interviewee is the measures utilized by the firm in gauging the met expectations.

How are issues (whether soft data or hard data) regarding customer service resolved? The expectation is to get the criteria and measures taken by the company about solving issues addressed to them.

Does the company receive feedback from customers? If yes, how is this made possible?

Why does the company create a need for customer feedback?

What is the culture like in the company?

Does the company change concerning what it obtained from customer feedback?

Does the company actively look for feedback?

All these questions give guidance during the session as they involve critical sectors of the business. The channeling of importance is towards theattainment of coherence between the expected replies and the actual responses given by the interviewee.

Quality is an important aspect of every regular setup or organization. It directly influences the probability of success for any organization. In respect to Datadog Company, quality receives sufficientattention, as it is critical for the business. In an attempt to understand the importance attached to the quality of the company, some questions arose that prompted answering by the interviewee. The following texts outline the respective answers given by the interviewee on the subject matter.

The Use of Benchmarking by the Datadog Company

Datadog Company has many competitors, most of whom are located in New York City.Datadog acknowledges that its competitors are worthy and have a lot to offer. Bearing this in mind, the company carries out benchmarking on its competitors to identify their weak points and their strengths. The company then aims at improving their strengths and making them even better. As for the weakness, the company lays back and formulates strategies that best suit these deficiencies. They implement the policies and from time to time monitor the progress of the strategies towards the curbing of the weaknesses noted.

Apart from identifying the strengths and weaknesses through benchmarking, the company also shows interests in identifying its threats and opportunities in its industry of operation. The company receives signals of their likelihood of losing market share using benchmarking. As for the possibilities, the company can gauge the niches that have not experienced venturing into by the other companies. With this valuable information, the company can counter moves made in pursuit of the niches. The interviewee adequately provided a reply to the use of benchmarking that offers a logical perspective of how operations need administration.



The Maintenance of Quality by the Company

Propagation of quality as one of the primary goals of the organizationfrequently occurs all through the enterprise. The company emphasizes the need for quality services to its clients and the benefits the attached benefits. As such, the company puts across maintenance of quality policy that governs the attainment of the utmost quality levels. Among the prescribed manners of maintaining quality include, periodic training of employees, motivational sessions offered by the company to its employees, requests for feedback from clients, proper documentation of services made to every client and emphasis on cooperation during work performance.

Frequent training of employees ensures that skills of the employees are at par with the market demands and that they readily handle all the situations brought to them with ease. Expertise developed through training ensures that there are no mistakes committed due to ignorance or obsolescence. Well-trained employees also earn the confidence of their clients. The training of employees is a milestone towards achievement and maintenance of the desired levels of quality.

Provision of motivational sessions for the employees helps the employees to get motivated and be ready to face even the harshest conditions. Well-motivated employees strive to achieve the best for their sake and the benefit of the company as a whole. They, therefore, give it their best while performing their work and as such, the maintenance of quality levels takes route. The requests for feedback also help the company in maintaining the desired quality levels. Clients of the company offer valuable information on the loopholes not attended to by the company and therefore, the company can readily counter such proposals from customers with proper improvements as suggested. In return, the attainment and maintenance of quality levels occur.

Proper documentation of all the procedures carried out in the client company also helps in maintenance of quality standards as stated by the interviewee. Documentations help in significant follow-ups in case there are issues raised on the procedures conducted. The company can readily carry out an overview to find all the shortcomings that occurred during the proceedings. With the identification of such failures, the company can provide recommendations for better performance. Eventually, the maintenance of desirable quality levels is a go.

The emphasis of cooperation of employees is critical for theattainment of the desired quality levels. Association brings all thoughts and suggestions together that readily offer the best possible manners of initiating procedures. With proper cooperation, efficiency and effectiveness take route hence substantiating the levels of quality so desired. The company arranges for events that foster the development of interpersonal bonds for the attainment of complete cooperation.

The Approach of the Company towards Quality Achievement

The company uses a proactive approach towards the achievement of quality. Losses, damages, and mistakes made on the systems of clients may be fatal to the enterprise. The costs associated with the correction of such mistakes end up being unbearable. For this reason, the company uses a proactive approach towards the maintenance of quality. Detection of loopholes occurs even before the actual losses due to the gaps occur. The detection of the holes saves the company a lot of funds that get channeled to other sectors of the business.

Since the company uses a proactive approach towards the achievement of high levels of quality, it hires special consultants. These consultants provide guidance on all the measures that lead to improved quality of work and output. The consultants offer advice to the management on the ways of improving quality. Among the points of emphasis by the consultants, include proper tracing and tracking of mistakes, making long-term commitments, proper investments in training, development of quality circles and the maintenance of the right attitudes towards work.

Proper monitoring of mistakes

Mistakes can be fatal in an organization, even the pettiest ones. Mistakes lead to the development of contingent liabilities that lead to dents in the funds available. An organization with minimal supply of funds may find itself at a crossroad as to whether to cater for the contingent liabilities for the other corporate needs. Once the identification of mistakes becomes a custom, the management is able to mitigate against unforeseen losses before they actually occur. These losses may include both financial losses and losses due to time wastage.

Formulation of long-term commitments

Long-term commitments are crucial for proper progress of corporations, individuals, and small businesses. Commitments help in building a sense of direction and a common goal that everyone in the task force adheres to achieve. This sense of direction aligns the efforts of the entire workforce and achievement of goals become easy. Quality of production and services progressively improves in the corporation and better results achieved.

Proper Investment in Training

Training equips employees with the relevant skills and expertise of performing their roles and duties. Proper implementation of duties by the employees reduces the probability of losses due to ignorance and obsolescence. Training also develops the confidence of workers as they perform their job and therefore, they give their best to the customer’s company. The quality of work progressively increases with frequent trainings offered to the employees. Datadog holds weekly trainings for their employees to keep them at par with the emerging trends.

Development of Quality Circles

There is an everlasting need for the development and proper functioning of quality control circles. Quality control circles help in the setting of short-term goals that help in boosting the quality of services offered. Datadog Company has a number of quality control circles in each department charged with the responsibilities of initiating quality improvements throughout the corporation. The leaders of all these circles are tactical and well experienced in the sectors of quality improvement. Cooperation from the employees creates an enabling environment for quality improvement to flourish.

Developing the right attitudes towards work

The Datadog Company secures the services of psychologists and motivational speakers who help the members of the workforce in developing the positive attitudes towards work. Quality starts with people developing a passion towards their work. Passion makes employees resilient when it comes to work performance. When the attitude is right, the set levels of quality are attainable and thus higher levels are set.

Advocating by the consultants on these key points enable the corporation reach the desired levels of quality management. When achievement of all these points occurs, quality Improvement becomes a sure thing. Therefore, the task is ensuring that adherence on implementation of the advice.

How well does the company meet the Customer Expectations?

According to the interviewee, procedures carried out by the firm to its client's target satisfaction of the customers. These services are tailor-made to suit the expectations of the customer's company. The client company points out what it desires and the levels of quality required. Datadog Company in return adheres to the prescriptions given by the corporation, and they rather use the order as a guide during the performance of their work. The use of the order helps the company in building coherence between the client’s expectations and the deliverables attained by the firm. As such, there are no mismatches between the job done and the actual expectation of the customers. With that, a guarantee of reaching the customer expectations takes the route, and a harmonious relationship develops that fosters improved future commitments.

The company also from time to time request suggestions from their clients on how to meet their expectations. The implementation of such ideas occurs with efforts of satisfying their customer needs. In circumstances where the customers have no complaints or criticisms, the company considers itself useful in meeting the customer satisfaction. It, therefore, strives to maintain the situations that prevail and that directly foster the client satisfaction aspect.

The company puts across a number of strategies that ensure that the attainment of customer satisfaction occurs. Some of the strategies include, treating the customers as the bosses and the priority of the company, focusing on building loyalty among the customers, rectifying the mistakes pin pointed by the customers from previous encounters and early setting of customer satisfaction goals.When all these strategies are well coordinated, the improvement of customer satisfaction becomes a guarantee. The Datadog Company utilizes all these strategies throughout their operations and therefore, the customer satisfaction levels are always in the rise.

The Resolving of Issues Raised by the Customers

The company does not take grievances raised by the client companies lightly. The company has set a particular team charged with the responsibility and mandate of answering to the issues made by the customer's companies. The task force caters for both the soft and hard data, and no stones left unturned at all times. The special team carries out one on one session with representatives from the client company with the aim of ensuring the restoration of coexistence and confidence.

A sense of understanding readily occurs when much attention gets channeled towards the customer'sbusiness. The customers of the company form an integral part of Datadog Company as they easily influence the probability of success of the company. The company is well aware of this fact; it, therefore, strives to ensure that there is fostering of satisfaction and ample coexistence between the company and its clients.

The company utilizes a number of techniques of resolving issues with their customers. Some of these methods include, asking relevant questions that aim on showing the concerns of the company towards the customer complaints, developing a special team that caters for solving issues, giving apologies to the customers without excuses and blaming one another and finally yet important, putting the company in the customers shoes. This help in getting better understanding of the grievances of the customers.

The Need and Collection of Feedback by the Company

Feedback from the client companies is vital for streamlining of the operations and the efficiency with which the attainment of the goals occurs. Feedback does not necessarily relate to loopholes identified by the client company. It can entail recommendations made by the client company, ratings of the services offered, and the performance measurements of the company in theview of the client. All these aspects are essentialto the success and improvement of the company operations. Datadog, therefore, values customer feedback and considers it for ensuring they emerge the best service providers in the industry.

Culture Developed by the Company

The company has a well-diversified workforce coming from different backgrounds, races, and regions. The company offers equal treatment to all these groups of people with no levels of favoritism whatsoever. There is free mixing of such groups with no form of discrimination. There is anenhancement of the spirit of teamwork and employees readily work together. The management emphasizes on the open door policy as and insists on employees reaching them for any grievances that they may have. The company readily accommodates opinions from employees on the manner in which operations occur. These practices enable a suitable connection between the workers and their leaders. The culture created therein receives compliments from companies that benchmark and by most of the company’s competitors.

All these issues raised and talked in the interview actively advocate for better quality services and customer satisfaction. From the interview of Datadog Company, many lessons surface and are helpful for all the companies that are yet to reach the levels of Datadog and its competitors.

Theories of Quality Management portrayed by Datadog Company

A critical review of the company’s quality management policies evidences the implementation of the Total Quality Management approach. The approach by the corporation to the management of quality in the company is in coherence with the stipulations of the Total Quality Management theory. The company focuses on long-term success. The company is customer focused, ensures that it readily utilizes its workforce, and ensures that it gets the best out of its operations.

The company also bases its operations on facts and integrates all its operations that perform as a whole. Proper communication and activities based on well-developed strategies also occur in the company. All these practices by the company are in coherence with the Total Quality Management Theory stipulations, and therefore, they show the reliance of the company on the theory. The principles of Total Quality Management directly influence the rate of quality improvement when well administered.

In conclusion, the insights from the interview session are resourceful in all manners for the understanding of the need for quality in an organization. The insights help in applying the classroom knowledge to the real-life situations and accordingly bringing out the necessity and importance of quality management.













References

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Oakland, J. S. (2016). Total quality management: A pictorial guide for managers. Place of publication not identified: Routledge.