The Quality-Ready Advantage

Last week I listened to a story about a small shoe repair shop as told by one of their long-time customers. It’s a heart-warming business story that I think you’ll enjoy. Blairsville Shoe Repair is located on Booger Hollow in the North Georgia mountain area. The sole proprietor is a cobbler at night - he holds down a delivery job during the day. His shoe repair business is built on a self-service model and depends on the honor system. Customers leave their shoes for repair in a converted newspaper vending machine located on his front porch. Shoes that are ready for pick-up as well as the money folder are also in the machine. Yes, the money folder - customers pick up their shoes and leave their payment, and in 25 years he has never come up short.

In today’s competitive environment we can read plenty about earning the customer’s trust. However; you don’t see much written about trusting the customer. Can you earn the customer’s trust without first trusting the customer? Free software evaluation downloads are a form of two-way “Booger Hollow” trust. The evaluator gets value in the form of free use of the software for a trial period (expensed R&D / intellectual property) in exchange for some degree of personal information. Now, the “exchange rate” is sometimes a point of discussion; that is to say, how much personal information is too much to ask for in exchange? It’s a difficult question and software vendors vary on the topic. How would you manage the exchange on Booger Hollow?

Remember playing “Rock, Paper, Scissors?” The basics of the game consist of each player shaking a fist a number of times (priming) and then extending the same hand in a fist (rock), out flat (paper), or with the index and middle fingers extended (scissors).  Each of these is referred to as a throw, and which one wins is dependent upon the opponent’s throw.

• Paper wins against Rock (paper covers rock)
• Rock wins against Scissors (rock smashing scissors)
• Scissors wins against Paper (scissors cut paper)

Under close examination many companies may find they are using a rock, paper, scissors business strategy. You know - prime the market with new product features, throw out a marketing campaign hoping to rock your prospects with creative copy, cover your defects with patch releases, and then cut your development time so you can do it again - only faster.

Your new product features might be on target, and your entertaining marketing copy may rock; however, your customers may still cut-out your business faster than you can scream “don’t run with scissors” if poor quality impacts their customer experience.  Research shows that your reputation for quality affects sales in three ways.  It will:

1. Reinforce the confidence of previous customers
2. Win new customers
3. Induce customers of competing brands to switch

The cost of quality may seem high, but the cost of poor quality is still higher.  If you take steps to protect your reputation for quality you will be sure to win no matter what your competition is throwing.