The Quality-Ready Advantage

The April 2008 issue of Quirk’s Marketing Research Review noted that research company Harris Interactive conducted an online survey to learn if having a tattoo made people feel or act differently.  The article was interesting to me because my father was 18 years old and serving in the USMC during the Korean Conflict when he was tattooed.  The motto permanently inked into his skin boldly reads “Death before Dishonor.”  If you’re an old school Marine you understand the meaning; otherwise you might think he supports the Boston hard core punk band that now uses that motto for their name.  Just kidding, it would be difficult to associate a Marine from the 1950’s with today’s punk band scene. 

The word “tattoo” is a borrowing of the Samoan word tatau, meaning to mark.  Today, people choose to be marked for several reasons, and often to symbolize their belonging to or identification with a particular group.   In some respects your brand is like a tattoo.  More than just a logo, symbol or slogan though; a brand conveys to consumers a strong, positive sense of a product, its promised value, and why it’s different and better than the competition.  As a marketer you’d probably like your brand tattooed over your customers’ heart.  So, when it comes to “quality branding” - which centers on delivering a quality customer experience in order to build a quality brand - are you using permanent ink or temporary tattoos that only last a few days? 

In the Seapine Software Quality-Ready Assessment we asked respondents: “What level of priority does your company currently assign to building quality into your software development environment?”  Nearly 65% of our over 600 respondents rated their software quality initiatives as high or one of their top priorities.  Those initiatives are likely to be marked with permanent ink so to speak.

However; it also appears that many companies are still not committed to quality branding.  In other words, they are only paying lip service about quality, and as a result there is a discrepancy with how their customers view the relationship.  Consider the following statistics from the Cutter Consortium, an IT advisory firm.

• 32% of organizations say they release software with too many defects.
• 38% of organizations believe they lack an adequate software quality assurance program.
• 27% of organizations do not conduct any formal quality reviews.

Quality, like branding must be a core business function, and it needs to be permanently inked into the skin of the entire organization to create a sustainable quality-advantage.

Did you happen to see the front cover of the April 7^th copy of “InformationWeek?”  The picture was related to the article “The end run around IT - and how CIO’s can prevent it” by John Soat.  Of all the executive level positions to choose from, why was “Marketing” pictured as the player making the sweeping end run in the OPPOSITE direction of the CIO?

Well, marketing automation, marketing optimization, marketing resource management, BI / customer profitability projects, SEM, and social networking initiatives (just to name a few) do provide plenty of technology situations in which it might be tempting to bypass my CIO and ask for forgiveness later.  On the other hand, I prefer a play book in which the CMO and CIO are leading the charge together with power sweeps.  Let me explain; at USC, opponents are often fed a healthy diet of the Trojans’ famed “student body left” and “student body right” toss sweeps. Hordes of very large sized linemen lead fleet tailbacks left or right with regularity for healthy gains.  In a like manner, I’ve found my marketing strategy is more likely to produce healthy gains when I keep my IT organization in tight, leading the charge with me.

With that said, how about your development and QA organizations?  Are they in tight leading the power quality sweep for competitive gains that result in customer loyalty and healthy profitability?  Or does it sometimes look like end runs heading in opposite directions? 

The Seapine Software Quality-Ready Assessment (www.seapine.com/qualityready) asked the following key question:  How well do your development and QA teams collaborate?  To date we’ve had nearly 600 responses to our survey, and the results are very interesting. The answers follow:

1. Regularly scheduled meetings keep the development and QA teams up-to-date.  29%
2. All team members stay informed of each other’s tasks and progress through automatic assignments, email notifications, and RSS feeds.  24%
3. The QA manager is informed when development is completed.  18%
4. The teams do not interact. New builds are “thrown over the wall” when they are completed.  16%
5. Development teams track their status in a spreadsheet, which the QA team can access to check the project status.  13%

At a glance it appears about half of those who have taken the survey are facing 3^rd and long situations.  By that I mean there isn’t tight collaboration between development and QA capable of producing a sustainable competitive quality-drive.  For your marketing and sales counterparts that’s disappointing news because the odds are low that they’ll be able to provide the Hail Mary pass capable of keeping your customer relationship drive alive.  No matter how you try to spin it - poor quality is a tough sell, especially in the red zone.

Does your software development and QA strategy clearly support your customer relationship strategy?  Feel free to take my polling question (to the right) and let’s see how many power sweeps are in play.

The April 2008 copy of QP magazine pays homage to Joseph M. Juran. In 1951, the first edition of Dr. Juran’s “Quality Control Handbook” was published establishing his reputation as an authority on quality.

Dr. Juan’s take on quality control: “For quality in the sense of freedom from deficiencies, the long-range goal is perfection.”

Quality to Dr. Juan also involved the human experience. So, is there such a thing as the perfect customer experience? Well, we’d like to set that standard. In fact, Seapine Software recently joined the ASQ as a sustaining member bringing additional substance behind our commitment.

How about your company? What kind of standard would you like to set? Juran’s take on standards: “Without a standard, there is no logical basis for making a decision or taking action.”

Top flight customer support can create a sustainable competitive advantage for company’s that are able to deliver the right customer care.  Delivering superior customer support may sound easy; however, it’s not.  In fact, according to a survey by Harris Interactive and RightNow Technologies 85% of consumers say they’ve sworn, shouted, cried, smashed things, or experienced chest pains while waiting for help on tech-support call lines.  In other words, many support organizations are not doing it right.       

In my marketing role at Seapine I’m very thankful to have a world-class support organization standing behind our brand.  The Seapine Customer Support organization is staffed by individuals who are truly customer-focused, and their efforts positively impact our customers.  That impact was recently reflected in our March customer satisfaction surveys.  The attached is an amusing and fun message that originally went out only to Seapine employees.  I’m going to take a chance and share it with you:

You’re invited to view a short presentation titled Seapine Software Customer Support:

http://www.brainshark.com/seapine/Great_Customer_Support

OK, OK …my impersonation of Harry Caray isn’t world-class, but now you know why I’m excited about our customer support.  Great support is part of a quality customer experience.

Got HAL? I was reminded this week of an old story that once surfaced about the Heuristically programmed Algorithmic Computer (HAL) in the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

The story suggests that HAL was so-named to indicate that he was one step ahead of IBM. Alphabetically “H” “A” “L” precede “I” “B” “M” by one letter. The author of 2001, Arthur C. Clarke denies this legend in his book “Lost Worlds of 2001.”

All the same; doesn’t it feel good to be one step ahead? Many organizations look for high powered analytics to provide that extra step; but that may not always work because in the customers’ algorithm, quality is often the most important matter.

If your product - or service reflects poor quality, no amount of spin, marketing or branding will fix it. If your goal is to build a high-performance brand through a differentiated customer experience you may need a new way of thinking, and a new discipline for getting things done.

In the book “Execution” by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan the authors point out that a business’ culture defines what gets appreciated, respected, and ultimately rewarded. And the culture of an organization is the sum of its shared values, beliefs, and norms of behavior.

In short, to deliver a differentiated customer experience you may need to start with your organization’s ingrained beliefs concerning the customer experience and how to perfect the execution of your customer strategy through quality improvement initiatives.