Within any business there are multiple factors that a customer can imprint on to recognise a brand and associate with quality. Businesses can use the customers intuition to their advantage, targeting on the key aspects of a quality product in order to maximise return. Here is a list of the common points a business can tailor in order to maximise their revenue;
- Profitability, Businesses must decide how much profit each product or service should undertake, whether it be a large return or a small one. Customers may be willing to buy a product purely on its premium price point.
- Customer Service, Businesses may wish to place the quality of their product on par with the quality of its customer service. Poor customer service could reflect badly on a quality product and vice versa.
- Competitiveness, Businesses may wish to use pricing in order to undercut the cost of its competitors. Businesses may also want to take on new locations and footfall in order to maximise profitability.
- Supply Chain, Business may cut costs and use cheaper suppliers, however unethical or environmental considerations could be overlooked and come back to haunt businesses later.
- Reliability, A product that is unreliableĀ or prone to failure may mean that customers look elsewhere for new products, defined obsolescence could damage the perceived quality of the product as well, If it were to fail after a certain time because of a weak part, customers may feel frustrated having to buy new ones.
- Brand Image, For some customers a brand could be vital to what product they purchase, If a brand is damaged, it could affect the sales of businesses massively. Some businesses may also struggle to maintain a positive reputation if the business specialises in cheap services, such as transport or hotels and may not be too affected by bad publicity as the cheap price point means the demand for the product does not change (it is inelastic).
- Quality Control could also mean that products are of a constant high quality and should in tern allow a business to work effectively on producing high quality products for the consumer, who will hopefully repeat purchase. Kaizen and Total Quality Management can allow a business to excel at creating a quality product that is lean and high quality as it forces the product to be a standard that the business expects and what the customer wants.
- Brand Awareness, A customer who does not know a product exist may not buy it, additionally any customer who recognises a product may choose to buy it over a generic product because of it. Advertising and promotion can artificially create the connection between the customer and the brand of trust and safety in a product, that this is the product they should buy.