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Quality Lives in the Eye of the Beholder
by Adele Sommers
Regardless of
how good you believe your offerings or project solutions
are, your clients and customers will be responding
to "quality in perception" even more than
"quality in fact." Quality in perception refers
to things like courtesies, special considerations, a
caring and personalized attitude, and a host of other
subtleties that can lead us to believe that we are receiving
something above and beyond what we're paying for.
Those things speak
just as loudly, if not more loudly, to our customers
and clients than the actual quality in fact
we provide through our products, services, and project
solutions. Effective quality in perception
can help compensate for any gaps in quality in fact
that could otherwise irritate or inconvenience consumers.
Through examples,
this article explains how to recognize deficiencies
in quality in perception, and what to do about them.
Example 1 - Driving
Your Customers Away
 Imagine
a car repair service that repeatedly fails to diagnose
a problem with a car and cannot fix it correctly after
numerous attempts. The car is in the shop off and on
for days; the customer, who is a single mom, misses
time from work from having to shuttle the car back and
forth. The car repair shop has no loaner vehicle, and
it does not offer a pickup or drop-off service. The
car owner cannot afford a rental car, nor does she have
insurance coverage for this need.
In addition to not
getting her car fixed, the customer is having her pay
docked for missed time at work, plus she's been given
a reprimand. To top it off, she cannot respond to an
emergency call from her child's school when her child
is injured on the playground and has to be taken to
the hospital.
This example shows
how one set of poor quality-in-fact circumstances
can compound, as the ripple effects expand outward.
Yet even with poor quality in fact (the inability to
fix the car), the repair shop might have been able to
salvage the customer relationship if it had increased
its quality in perception, such as by
offering sympathy along with a loaner vehicle.
Example 2 -
Often, It’s Not about Cost
Some time ago, I
was a volunteer mediator in the Small Claims Court system.
Over a period of months, I was fascinated with the proportion
of cases involving alleged wrongdoing or incompetence.
People were suing businesses such as termite services
and auto body painters, and even former best friends
and health care providers over a variety of grievances.
The suits often sought fairly small amounts of compensation,
which meant that the financial aspects were not the
primary concern.
 What
repeatedly emerged in the mediation sessions was that
each plaintiff felt that the vendor, service provider,
health care provider, or ex-friend had not listened
to his or her concerns. The plaintiffs frequently believed
that their complaints about shortcomings in services,
products, or communications had been dismissed.
Had the defendants
in these cases earlier offered something as simple as
an apology — and had they made a sincere effort
to communicate while taking timely remedial action —
I believe the resulting quality in perception
could have prevented many of these lawsuits, even if
the quality in fact still left something
to be desired.
Example 3 - Honest
Communication Matters
A group of consultants
took on a major project (a Web site to collect and process
data) that their clients truly believed would be easy.
The group had not tackled anything like it before, but
they, too, thought it would be possible to complete
the project quickly. After all, it looked easy. How
complicated could a Web site be?
Little did they
realize it would be many times more complex than the
client’s simple home page. The project finally
turned out to be nearly impossible for the consulting
group to complete. The consultants finally got the system
to work after many delays and dozens of mishaps. The
clients, however, were very unhappy, even though the
consultants ultimately fulfilled the project requirements
(quality in fact).
Whose fault was
it? The clients didn’t understand what they
were asking for. To top it off, they insisted on a  short
schedule that reflected their simplistic view of the
effort. The consulting group, on the other hand, was
not forthright about its own limitations. The partners
scurried to find people who claimed to be able to do
the work. They kept quiet about their own difficulties
and did not reveal their growing problems. The group’s
ongoing failure to communicate greatly reduced the clients’
confidence, and drastically shortchanged their quality
in perception.
In conclusion,
quality in perception can profoundly affect your customers’
and clients’ experiences with your products, services,
and project solutions. To make sure you’re not
overlooking opportunities to create quality in perception,
consider:
1) Special courtesies
that can set your offerings apart from your competitors’
2) Your ability
to listen to and handle complaints quickly and diplomatically
3) Your willingness
to be honest with clients about problems and shortcomings
Remember that
quality in perception is not a substitute for quality
in fact. But it can go a long way toward minimizing
customer and client dissatisfaction, as well as powerfully
reinforcing stellar quality when you ultimately deliver
it.
Copyright 2006 Adele Sommers
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Isn't
it interesting how our perceptions rule our beliefs
and actions? So much of the brain research today seems
to support the idea that our perceptions define our
reality.
