Running a Small Business

Lesson 2: Ensuring Quality

Getting feedback on quality

The process of ensuring quality has three parts to it. We've looked at the most important part - ensuring that the customer receives what he bought. That's the part which ensures that what you sell does what it is supposed to when your customer buys it. The second part of ensuring quality is to find out whether the product or service continues to perform as it should. The first part of ensuring quality makes sure that your customer is satisfied when he receives what you have supplied; the second part makes sure that he is still satisfied when he is finished with the product or service long afterwards.

Most companies don't do this. It's time consuming and relatively expensive for little apparent short term result or gain. It can't be justified in terms of an immediate increase in revenue or profit and you often seem to be going through the motions without any cause or effect. But there are three reasons for checking to see how your product has satisfied your customers over its lifetime.

1. It improves customer satisfaction long term.
2. It demonstrates to your customers, employees and partners that you are completely committed to quality and customer satisfaction.
3. The knowledge that you are completely committed to quality and to your customers is a source of personal satisfaction.

There are three sources of information regarding the performance of your product or service after delivery:

1. warranty claims;
2. service calls and complaints;
3. customer questionnaires.

While not all three apply in all businesses, all three are considered by many businesses as a cost item and as a problem. For the purposes of ensuring quality, all three are opportunities to further serve your customers and ensure that your product or service continues to perform as it should long after delivery.

When you take that attitude, all three are tools which give you valuable information. All three give you feed-back on how your product or service performs and, in the first two cases, the feed-back is free. What you need to do is track all the information that comes in.

Using information has two components: the collecting of the information and the processing. You first have to collect the information that comes in and keep track of it somewhere. This means that each complaint, each warranty call and each service call has to be documented, perhaps with a suitable form and the information kept, perhaps in a customer file or perhaps in a "problems" file. The processing involves finding problems with the product or service. For large, expensive products each problem is tracked to its source and explained. For most products and services you're looking for a pattern of problems with many complaints. If five percent of customers are finding spelling mistakes in your promotional texts, then it's time to find out why; if ten percent of your customers report that your shiny finish rubs off on the corners, then it needs to be fixed.

This step is part of the "Check" the result section of ensuring quality and it is essential if your goal is "total" quality, not just when your supply leaves your hands, not just when your customer starts using it but over its total lifetime. Most large businesses, under pressure for short term results and quick fixes, cannot afford this approach. A small business owner who, on principle, wants to be totally committed to quality cannot do without it.

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