Know-How Exchange : Customer Behavior

Hi.

few points for such an interesting question.

Maintaining customers is all about meeting or exceeding expectations. In most cases it is indeed connected to quality... however there were cases when this wasn't exactly so.

I remember some years ago in an industry where Customer Service and Product Quality were important factors, a japanese company (some say!) deliberately introduced some minor bugs in their products so people could call Customer Service and experience the excellence of their Representatives.

As a result, word passed from that company as being exceptionally good, despite the (apparent) lack of quality from their products.

So, it was (it is) all about meeting or exceeding customer expectations.

Regards
Antonio

HI,

Same comments as Antonio Said. Less points for very interesting question.

I agree to Antonio answers and adding my experience also.

Having better relation with the customer means you are keeping them happy and always remember "If you keep your customers happy, They will keep you in business". I believe you require both better Quality of your product and better customer service. BOth are inter related. ANy how, better customer relationship term aries when companies were fighting for customer retention. Providing better quality products and wide range of options keep your customer happy with a view of one stop shop and at the same time better customer service add toppings to that. Now a days companies are concentrating more on understanding customer needs and acting upon them and running loyalty programs to retain them. SO i say, for a longer race you require both Better product quality and Better customer service.

Warm Regards,
Nisman

there is a famous saying that goes something like:

"Quality, Speed, Cost - choose any Two"

It says that you can provide your customers with any 2 of the 3 area (speed could perhaps be replaced with service).

Given this, quality is not necessarily a requirement. many items sold at WalMart are not that high quality, yet people buy them because of the low price.

It's very easy to fall into platitudes and generalisms here. Do you personally always dine at the best restaurant you can afford? Or do you occasionally drop into McDonalds? Do you actually have a 'relationship' with the company that provides electricity to your home? if you've bought products online did you actually get to speak to a human being?

Personal relationships are a big thing in some markets (eg B2B, small business and trades). In others branding and company reputation is more important - have you ever met the people who make your Shampoo?

Overall, customers always trade-off from the options on offer looking for the right value for what they want to buy. Big businesses use research techniques like conjoint analysis to work out what they need to deliver and how much so they best meet the trade-offs in the market en masse.

However, if you just focus on quality of delivery, that is producing a product to a consistent standard, timeliness of delivery, ease of ordering, sound customer service, maintaining lines of communications and minimised hassle for a customer, this is both strongly desired by customers, but also vital processes for the business to get right to reduce costs and increase efficiency. Every time you add an error into one of the quality of delivery processes, the cost of fixing the error is usually 2-3x more than if you got it right first time. If you can be fast on these, then you increase the volume of customers you can handle, increase revenue turn and you will have happier customers.

Ultimately businesses have to get the trade-offs right for their markets and their customers - be careful looking for universal solution. Should your business make hand-crafted chairs to the customers exact needs, or mass product chairs of a single design at low cost and sell them out online?

Well you didn't say what kind of product you have...but one key goal is to continue to deliver value to the customer. Here is what I mean. LEt's say you bought a computer. And it works fine no problems. Well if let's say on a regular basis, once per quarter or so you got an email with additional tips on how to use your computer better: tuning, new applications, new ways to use it, fun projects whatever it is va customer stories or some other way. This computer begins to take a bigger part of your life and you like it more. so I think you as a service/product provider need to continue to prove why your product is necessary and useful throughout it's useful life. Of course this maybe doesn't work for pencils.

How do you defines quality? Better yet how does your customer define quality?

For some, they want every thing yesterday, so the quicker the better. For some they want the product to work right out of the box without even having to look at the manual.

What ever your customer sees as quality you have to meet that expectation or better yet exceed it. You can't be every thing to every one but you have to determine who are the someones who matter most to your bottom line and work to please them above others if possible.

Personally I always want a quality product at what I consider a reasonable price. However if the product is presented in a way that rubs me the wrong way, I may just ignore it in favor of a more expensive or lower quality product, depending on what it is, how critical it is to me or my business etc...