Small Business Owners - Are You Tracking Your Product Quality and Usage?
Why is it important to track the quality of your product or service and its usage?
When you consciously track your product quality and usage, you will make effort to improve and will attract happy and fulfilled customers. This in turn will lead to word of mouth advertisement for your product.
One of the impediments to the growth of Small Business is maintaining good Product/Service quality. While juggling too many activities, a Small Business owner may sometimes forget to pay attention to his product quality. Here are some easy and inexpensive ways to find out about the quality of your product and usage. You may make improvements, if needed:
You can survey your current clients. There are many Softwares available to conduct survey. Surveymonkey.com offers such software and is user friendly.
Your survey questions must focus on how you can improve the product/service quality. It may not be possible or even feasible for you to implement all the changes/improvements suggested. However if you have similar suggestions made by vast majority of customers, then it is a clue for you to improve upon existing product/service.
At times, even after buying the products/services, customers are not sure as to how to use them effectively. You could create a walk-through Video of the product/service and explain clearly how to use the product.
You can also send educative emails to your current customers periodically.
You could send monthly newsletters highlighting how your current customers have used and benefited.
You could do an analysis of your competitor's product and list the features and benefits that your product/service lacks. If feasible, you can have your quality control team take consistent action in implementing these features and benefits gradually over a period.
Finally, you should continuously make every effort to improve, but keep in mind that there are times you need to stop improving and stick to your product or service as it is. This is because your customers also want dependable and steady experience with your company's products/services.
Action Exercises:
1. Make a commitment to conduct a survey with your customers.
2. Collect testimonials from your customers and share with your current clients.
Copyright 2008 by Lalitha Brahma-Permission is granted to reprint this article in its entirety provide nothing is changed and the author's information box is included.
Lalitha Brahma
When you consciously track your product quality and usage, you will make effort to improve and will attract happy and fulfilled customers. This in turn will lead to word of mouth advertisement for your product.
One of the impediments to the growth of Small Business is maintaining good Product/Service quality. While juggling too many activities, a Small Business owner may sometimes forget to pay attention to his product quality. Here are some easy and inexpensive ways to find out about the quality of your product and usage. You may make improvements, if needed:
You can survey your current clients. There are many Softwares available to conduct survey. Surveymonkey.com offers such software and is user friendly.
Your survey questions must focus on how you can improve the product/service quality. It may not be possible or even feasible for you to implement all the changes/improvements suggested. However if you have similar suggestions made by vast majority of customers, then it is a clue for you to improve upon existing product/service.
At times, even after buying the products/services, customers are not sure as to how to use them effectively. You could create a walk-through Video of the product/service and explain clearly how to use the product.
You can also send educative emails to your current customers periodically.
You could send monthly newsletters highlighting how your current customers have used and benefited.
You could do an analysis of your competitor's product and list the features and benefits that your product/service lacks. If feasible, you can have your quality control team take consistent action in implementing these features and benefits gradually over a period.
Finally, you should continuously make every effort to improve, but keep in mind that there are times you need to stop improving and stick to your product or service as it is. This is because your customers also want dependable and steady experience with your company's products/services.
Action Exercises:
1. Make a commitment to conduct a survey with your customers.
2. Collect testimonials from your customers and share with your current clients.
Copyright 2008 by Lalitha Brahma-Permission is granted to reprint this article in its entirety provide nothing is changed and the author's information box is included.
Lalitha Brahma
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