Quality: The Unfair Advantage

When you talk about the quality of your product or service, what comes to mind? Usually, we tend to think about product engineering or manufacturing processes or skills of the person delivering the service… rarely do we think about customer service…

But, for almost all types of businesses, Quality and Customer Service are very closely linked.

The greater the attention to Quality in production, the better the product performance after sales.

The greater the product performance, the lower the demand on customer service operations to correct any problems.

In my last post, one of the questions I had posed was – How important is Quality after the sale?

One of the comments I received on LinkedIn (shoutout to Erik Gross) said:

“I think that the quality of your delivery after the sale is probably the most important area to concentrate on – if you consistently deliver more than was expected, your prosperity is assured.”

And I couldn’t agree more!

I think Quality processes form a connection between Sales and Service teams, which when done correctly can be converted into a huge competitive advantage for any business.

Here are a few use cases:

• Customer Service acts as an early warning system – detecting bugs, defects, issues before they become a crisis.
• Outreach to existing customers – discourages switching to other vendors, reduces churn
• Strong word of mouth from customers generates new sales leads
• Reinforces partner loyalty – affiliates/dealer/channel partners always appreciate strong customer service programs
• Brand created through the focus on quality influences purchase decisions.