“The cause of decline (in business) is that management have walked off the job of management… A better way to serve stockholders would be to stay in business with constant improvement of product and service, thus to decrease costs, capture markets, provide jobs and increase dividends.“ (W. Edwards Deming, the father of Continuous Improvement.)
From a business perspective, the concept of quality or excellence begins with your customers, or prospective customers. How do THEY define quality? What is it they REALLY want?
Here are some questions to ask yourself:
- Do you really know what your customers think about the quality of your products, service, and/or customer service?
- What is most important to your customers or clients: Level of service? Product quality? Wait (service) time? Friendliness of staff? Professionalism of staff? Keeping them informed about what’s happening with their order or your products? Product availability? Price? Or…
- What do your employees think about the level of quality you/they are providing?
- What in your business does not measure up to the standards you want? What needs improvement RIGHT NOW?
- What actions are you going to take and when? What should you do RIGHT NOW?
With so many products and services becoming commodities, your major competitive advantage may be the level of service that you provide. With many businesses, customer service is becoming the defining factor in attracting and retaining customers.
STOP RIGHT NOW and develop your Action Plan beginning with your TOP Priority – What’s the most important thing you can do to provide better value to your customers, based on what THEY want?!
Remember, EVERYTHING you’re doing now can be done better. Get your customers and employees involved in improving your products and services and their delivery and watch your business grow.
A place to start might be to do an Internet search for “free surveys” and design customer and employee surveys to obtain their feedback on what THEY think. But, take a couple of minutes to list the one, two or three things that require your immediate attention. Then commit to improving these, NOW!
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Tags: quality, excellence, customer service
