Just take a pen and paper and write the bad or very bad experiences suffered in the consumption of various goods and services.
If we analyze the list carefully we will see from indifference, to lack of ethics or little concern for security.
The lack of ethics implies plain and simple to generate defects, failures, errors and inconveniences generated to the consumer in use, use or employment of the goods generated by the company. Possessing high ethical values implies the concern to fully satisfy consumers, not cause disturbances, and design, produce, offer and deliver products and services whose added value covers the economic sacrifices of the purchasers.
The consumer is continually testing goods and services, so businesses are constantly being tested as well. In this test the future of each company is at stake. Consumers vote with their monetary units which products satisfy them and which do not.
Companies in their daily work and often lacking data and / or analysis thereof, do not realize the continued loss of customers, who are temporarily replaced by others. New customers who in turn will leave the ship to give way to new consumers. But that source of new customers will sooner or later be depleted causing the sharp drop in sales and income.
The bad experiences generated by companies tend to generate the “boiled milk syndrome” due to “who burns with milk, sees the cow and cries”. Thus, the bad experience suffered with the products or services of a company tends to distance us from new acquisitions of its brands or in it. These observations are valid both for large and small and medium-sized companies.
Perhaps a list of cases allows us to meditate on it. Let's see, then, an enunciative enumeration of facts or events that undoubtedly has happened to you in your capacity as users, and I hope you have not experienced it in your capacity as entrepreneurs, managers or employees.
1. Let's start with products, for example a cable cutter. Very nice, it is used once and it works well, it is used again for a second cut and perfect, on the third use it breaks. Does that sound familiar to you? Well, let's take note of the brand and origin, and avoid buying them again.
2. We can say something similar about umbrellas. Many will say, they are cheap! I say, it would have been better if they had not manufactured it, since they will hardly be able to repeat their sales in the future.
3. To have, to have! And what do we have in terms of medical services? An eye doctor diagnoses his patient with progressive myopia, prescribes glasses. Soon the patient suffers from severe headaches and eyesight pain. He consults with another eye doctor and he tells him that he should never wear glasses. Effectively the patient stops wearing the glasses and everything is fine. More than twenty years have passed, the patient reads a lot, uses a computer, and the eyesight is splendidly good. What do we have here, lack of professional ethics ?, incompetence ?, malpractice? No matter what is said, there is only a lack of quality in professional services. Of course we do not want to know more about that eye doctor and we will also try to prevent other people from taking the risk that we did. How to explain in this case such a wrong diagnosis?
4. But the question does not end there. Let's go to other health professionals and see how complacently they prescribe conflicting medications, or misdiagnose the cause or origin of a disease. For anyone who is a specialist in problem solving or quality issues, you will appreciate the complete lack of competence on the part of many medical professionals in treatment.
5. To illustrate the previous point, let's see the case of a patient who visits a traumatologist for a problem in one of his knees.
The professional tells him that his knee is destroyed and that he will have to have surgery on the menisci. At no time does the doctor tell you that you can solve your problems by lifting weights on a stretcher specially designed to strengthen the leg muscles and correct the position of the meniscus. Urra !!! The patient consults with another professional who tells him that no operation is necessary and that he should only exercise on a stretcher with weights. As in the case of the oculist, how can such an error be accepted. Maybe you have to look for the problem in the Faculty of Medicine that gave them the title. And in this case we are clearly faced with a lack of ethics and quality at the faculty level.
6. Who has not happened to deposit money at an ATM and who will then be notified that the amount deposited according to the form does not match the amount found in the envelope? Well, after researching the subject, I learned of many cases. We can talk about theft of money when counting the deposited cash, but the quality of the services is also at stake here. One might ask about the quality of personnel recruitment and the tasks of auditing, internal control and security.
7. If it is an ATM, how often do we find broken ATMs?
8. Very few people start analyzing the billing of telephone companies. If they did it using a simple spreadsheet, they would observe that services within the same tariff schedule do not keep the slightest logic. 45 '$ 2, and within the same hours on another 10' $ 5 day. Errors in computing, or security, or auditing, or billing. It does not matter, anger and concern lead the client to change companies. Waiting for the possibility of change, in the case of monopoly, resignation and increased controls.
9. We order books by mail, and how beautiful they are, what interesting topics. Too bad, there are blank sheets inside. Forward, phone the problem and wait again for the book without fail. Lack of quality control in the publishing house, lack of control in the distributor when receiving the books and lack of control when sending it. It was enough for the bookseller to quickly glance through the book to find the imperfection. Failure to do so involves a poor image and forwarding costs.
10. Maybe we will be luckier with something simpler. Let's buy a bottle of soda, and what happens to us? The plastic donut does not open. It has a superior grip than specified. If the problem recurs what would you do? Logical, change of brand.
11. And now the turn of the collectives. What can we say about such illustrious services? Lack of compliance with schedules, or leave after hours, or before the deadline. Dirty seats, in poor condition. Excessive heating and more than cooling we have a refrigerator. Owners and managers should be made to travel so that they feel what the users of their beloved services feel.
12. In a restaurant we could have a great service or a lousy one. But think of waiters who do not pay attention to our signals to attend us, long waiting times for food, invoice or reception of the returned, dirty tablecloths, just to mention some cases. To be a waiter is to be with all the radars on to serve customers and not bring the drink after they have finished eating.
13. Poor polyethylene distributor for shops. It takes time to conquer his new clients, but one day the clients begin to turn their backs on him because the bags opened with the merchandise inside. A manufacturer with zero commitment to quality generates the loss of customers for the distributor.
14. Save! Not everything that is said dietary is real and authentically dietary, with the health hazard of what they require. Total for the manufacturer just by changing the packaging and putting dietary can make a difference.
15. Watch out for the Banks! Many banks do not control the checks of the issuing firm in checks below a certain amount. They say it is to save costs and defend themselves in the law of large numbers. But when a check is stolen from us and the signature on the affixed does not correspond in the least to the characteristics or quantity, nor do they have the respective explanatory stamps, the bank still pays them and then is not responsible. Anyway! the company has been swindled twice, by whom I adulterate or stole the check and by the bank that said to give security to our money.
16. And what about the "fanned" of a famous brand of fast food services. If you don't tell them to give you drink without ice, poor us. We will receive more ice than drink. And well, somehow you have to earn money.
17. Language courses are quite famous in terms of quality. They promise something and then do the opposite. Programs for adults without knowledge of the language, then become courses with young students and adults, with different levels of knowledge, with all that this entails in its development.
18. Banks are usually very good at offering their clients securities that are about to collapse. In all, the fine print clarifies that they are not responsible for the losses generated by the market.
19. The media put us in contact every day with frightening news related to medicines and food in poor condition, or with production defects, with its sequel of diseases and death.
20. Hotels without a good cleaning service, without fulfilling reservations, without good air conditioning systems and with food services that do not meet expectations.
21. Supermarket services with excessive "queue" times (waiting time at checkouts).
22. Safe Deposit Box Services by Banks with very low level security measures and processes. More than a Safety Box service they provide a Safety Box service.
23. Public (government) services offices with very poor attention and very low levels of satisfaction.
24. Shows of all kinds that start after hours, and not for minutes, but for half an hour or more.
25. Lack of maintenance and security services in airlines, railway services companies, among other means of communication.
26. Custom software development, with design and operational errors. Completed completely outside the agreed deadlines.
27. Construction of houses without the slightest quality control.
28. Repair services where deadlines are not met.
Just as movement is demonstrated by walking, quality is demonstrated by generating it. The cases seen before are only one more than small, they are a very small sample of the problems that consumers experience daily. If only companies would acknowledge their mistakes when complaining, but sometimes it doesn't happen. Either they reply that they will have to see to what extent they will be held responsible, or they continue without correcting the root cause of the problems.
A company with ethics and social responsibility will first take measures to prevent and avoid both harm and bad experiences for its customers and consumers, and also for society. But if defects still occur, not only do they quickly recognize them, taking responsibility, but they act accordingly, correcting the faults or defects that cause such errors and / or inconveniences. The motto of a company with these characteristics is: "Generate 100% satisfaction".
But just as people suffer from poor services and products, companies that practice excellence must also be highlighted, making it their mission, turning it day by day into their work ethic.
Most of the big brands are not for advertising, they are for the consistency in the quality of their products and services over time. You can fool someone for a while, but it is impossible to fool many for a long time. Just think and experience the quality and satisfaction of products such as Orient, Citizen, Seiko, Casio, Pentel, Sony, Sanyo, Nike, BankBoston, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Honda, Suzuki, Toyota, Kawasaki, Nokia, Motorola, Xerox, Editorial CECSA, General Electric, HP, Panasonic, Cannon, Siemens, Phillips, Disneyland, Samsung, Compaq, John Deer, 3M, Ferrari, Porsche, Sheraton, Carrefour, Coca Cola, Lacoste, P&G, Unilever, ICI, SanCor, Johnson & Johnson, Osram, KLM, SAS, Benetton, Volvo, Dunlop, Scannia, Alianza Editorial, Bayer, Merk among many others.
Not only do large companies make mistakes that they can avoid or prevent, but also small and medium-sized companies can plan for a higher level of quality and satisfaction. And above all the professionals that their clients and patients trust so much.
A small company or a professional can also make a good name and an excellent brand, perhaps not at a global level like the aforementioned brands, but within its scope of activities.
We continuously value what we consume, whether it is products and services, and the level of satisfaction obtained is recorded in our memory. This is something fundamental that businessmen and managers should always keep in mind. Their attitude towards quality ends up generating a positive or negative effect on the memory of their customers and consumers. Only by generating good effects and reinforcing them through a discipline of quality and continuous improvement, will they have their future assured.
Bibliography
Total Quality - Mauricio Lefcovich - www.gestiopolis.com - 2005
TQM. Total Quality Management - Mauricio Lefcovich - www.gestiopolis.com - 2005
Consumer Satisfaction - Mauricio Lefcovich - www.monografía.com - 2003
Build Total Quality Culture - Batten - Ibero-America - 1993
Total Quality Treaty - Laboucheix - Editorial Limusa - 1994
Development of a Culture of Quality - Humberto Cantú Delgado - McGraw Hill - 1997
