The meaning of quality

[Cornish Steve]

Years ago, I used to work for a prestigious software company in central London. The caliber of the staff (with the possible exception of me) was second-to-none. To this company, quality was a technical term - for example, the number of errors per line of code.

After that, I worked for a very international company with a real knack for winning business in the telecommunications industry. To this company, quality was, in essence, the degree of satisfaction experienced by the customer.

Initially, I sided with the first company's definition of quality. As years have gone by, however, I have changed my opinion; I now agree with the second company's definition. In the end, it's better to have a satisfied customer (or a raving fan, as one well-known writer puts it) than a technically elegant solution. In fact, I suspect that many labs are filled with technically elegant solutions that will never sell.

I'd be interested to hear the views of other forum members on the definition and the importance of quality.

[www.sitepal.co.uk]

I'd be interested to hear the views of other forum members on the definition and the importance of quality.

Quality is providing the best you can

Best

Tony

[MinuWeb]

I'd be interested to hear the views of other forum members on the definition and the importance of quality.

Quality is providing the best you can

Not really, as some people provide the best that they can and never get anywhere near a quality product / service

[Pilfo]

Quality is to take something, and make it better!

Pilfo

[MinuWeb]

Quality is to take something, and make it better!


That would not make the something a quality item, would be more of an "improvement"

[mumper]

Quality is exceeding your clients' expectations.

[MinuWeb]

Quality is exceeding your clients' expectations. Is it ? If I buy a mercedes I expect it to be a quality car, without exceeding my expectations.

[Rob Holmes]

For me Quality is the measurement of a grade of excellence.

The excellence can cover many fascets of (using Steves example above) business some internal, some customer facing, it covers attitudes, intentions, infrastructures, procedures, product performance, product stability, behaviours and probably more that I'll think of later.

Rob

[mumper]

vshosting wrote

Is it ? If I buy a mercedes I expect it to be a quality car, without exceeding my expectations.




[quote]

Why do you expect a Mercedes to be a quality car?

[mumper]

ooh, made a hash of that one :D

[epiphany]

It's quality if it's close to being as good as the best :)

[MinuWeb]

lol,

I was using a Mercedes as an example of a car that people would expect to be high quality. (model dependant of course :D)

Also, anyone care to say what they feel the difference is between "high quality" and "high standard"

[Russ]

My old friend Collins says that quality is a degree of excellence. Personally I judge quality by "that little bit extra" the exceeding of standards, going the extra inch for someone or something, ultimately it probably boils down to expectations and as most of ours are inevitably going to be different what is quality for one might not always be for the other....

[Pilfo]

Incorrect quote...should have been:-

Quality is to take something good, and make it even better!

This is a famous quote by Colonel Eli Lilly.

Colonel Eli Lilly (1839 - 1898) was a soldier, pharmaceutical chemist, and industrialist, founder of the Eli Lilly and Company pharmaceutical firm.

Colonel Lilly served in the U.S. Civil War, fighting for the Union. He attempted two other business ventures, including a Mississippi plantation, before trying his hand at pharmaceuticals. Eli Lilly founded his pharmaceutical company, at 15 W. Pearl St., Indianapolis, Indiana, in May, 1876. Following on his experience of medicines used in the Civil War, Col. Lilly committed to producing only high quality prescription drugs, in contrast to the common patent medicines of the day.

Pilfo

[Jayne]

Quality is keeping your customers happy, what ever that takes. The customer is always right :D

The customer expects a high quality service and high quality goods, so this is what you must give them. It's the little things that make the difference, like remembering their names and asking how they are! They are not just customers, they are like friends :D

Jayne

[Russ]

Your so right Jayne!

I hate it when I spend a night out in a pub and still have to tell the barstaff what I want to drink at the end of the night or if I go to a shop and the staff are more interested in chatting to each other than serving. There is a chain of resturants in America called Outback where the service is excellent yet you go to one in the UK and it sucks, why is that?

[MinuWeb]

Quality is keeping your customers happy, what ever that takes. The customer is always right :D

The customer expects a high quality service and high quality goods, so this is what you must give them. It's the little things that make the difference, like remembering their names and asking how they are! They are not just customers, they are like friends :D

Jayne This is true, but how about the type of business that has one time clients, they can also offer a high quality service or product. You can also look at a painted and say that it is quality work. My favourite beer has "premium quality" written on the can, yet it never asks me how I am nor remembers my name (doesn't help me remember others names much either :? )

[Jayne]

Crap Staff :lol:

The best type of staff for those type of businesses should be bubbly people who like to flirt with customers. My Mother works for me and she is the Queen of Flirt. Good staff are like actresses or actors, all for show :D Customers want to go away feeling special.

Jayne

[Cornish Steve]

ooh, made a hash of that one :D

By writing this statement, you implied a definition of quality: Getting it right the first time. The only problem is, what is right?

Quality is exceeding your clients' expectations.

Personally, I think your definition is close to the mark. The problem is, how do you measure quality according to this definition? If you cannot measure quality, is it possible to improve quality?

In my original post, I mentioned that one British company defines quality as the number of errors per line of code. The problem is that many errors go undetected, so should we count only detected errors? In reality, the company that detects the most errors during development might actually have the highest quality code.

I've never been fully sure of the difference between quality control and quality assurance. One definition is that quality control is built into the process whereas service assurance is an independent auditing function.

[MinuWeb]

The problem is that many errors go undetected, so should we count only detected errors? In reality, the company that detects the most errors during development might actually have the highest quality code. This is true, but another company might make code with more errors that has does a better job for the customer, so which would be higher quality from the customers point of view ?

[Rob Holmes]

This is true, but another company might make code with more errors that has does a better job for the customer, so which would be higher quality from the customers point of view ?

The one's whose site makes more money for the customer ?

Rob

[Jayne]

Quality is keeping your customers happy, what ever that takes. The customer is always right :D

The customer expects a high quality service and high quality goods, so this is what you must give them. It's the little things that make the difference, like remembering their names and asking how they are! They are not just customers, they are like friends :D

Jayne This is true, but how about the type of business that has one time clients, they can also offer a high quality service or product. You can also look at a painted and say that it is quality work. My favourite beer has "premium quality" written on the can, yet it never asks me how I am nor remembers my name (doesn't help me remember others names much either :? )


Since when has beer been able to talk? And even if you have a one time client, I bet you speak to him more than once, so forgetting his name wouldn't be very nice :D

If I said black, i'd bet you'd say white, Mr VSHosting :lol:

Jayne

[ebonybailey]

I'd be interested in VsHostings view, instead of taking a pop at everyone elses views, and opinions.

To the question in hand, the view is surely in the eye of the beholder, how can we say what is good quality other than from our own experiences, what one customer may find value for money and second to none care, another may find under achieving depending on their experience.
I think making every posibble negative into a positive is the best you can offer. You will never please everyone.

- May I suggest not taking VS Hosting as a client, he'll never be happy.

Michael

[Jayne]

Mr VSHosting is just a pussy cat really :lol:

He just enjoys a good debate as we all do, something to get his teeth into. Isn't that right Mr VSHosting :D

Jayne

[ebonybailey]

Jayne

You too good for your own good you are.

[Jayne]

Jayne

You too good for your own good you are.


Most of the time :D I have horns on my head at 4.30am! Ask my husband :D


While your here, How much does a pay per sale cost to get a web site going. Cannot find out on the web, or looking in the wrong places. Looked on a site called Amazon but didn't understand it much.

Jayne :evil: (that's me) :lol:

[epiphany]

ah so your the legendary devil vampire!

Michael, Vhosting is just playing the devils advocate :)

[Jayne]

ah so your the legendary devil vampire!

Michael, Vhosting is just playing the devils advocate :)


Yes, that's how we make devilishly good buns :lol:

Jayne

[MinuWeb]

I'd be interested in VsHostings view, instead of taking a pop at everyone elses views, and opinions.

To the question in hand, the view is surely in the eye of the beholder, how can we say what is good quality other than from our own experiences, what one customer may find value for money and second to none care, another may find under achieving depending on their experience.
I think making every posibble negative into a positive is the best you can offer. You will never please everyone.

- May I suggest not taking VS Hosting as a client, he'll never be happy.

Michael I am not "taking a pop" I am just explaining in my opinion why the definitions listed so far do not necessarily sum up the definition of "quality"

There are so many different examples of "quality" I don't think it can be summed up in a few words. Different people also have different views and expectations, so what is quality to one may not be quality to another.

Quality can be defined in production as repeatedly making a part to the same specification, however that could be a low standard which would not then be considered quality by alot of people. Quality can be a service that is very good, however this also can only be compared with other services received. If every baker remembered clients names, asked how they were etc then Jayne's bakery would only provide a standard service, however because they don't Jayne then provides a higher standard or quality service.

To some quality is doing that little bit extra, like the builder who cleans up a mess he makes, to others it is being unable to see flaws in an item. So really the definition of quality must vary depending upon the the subject and the context it is being used in.

Everyone that has given a definition in this thread is correct, but there is more to it than any one correct answer.

And if I should become a client of anyone here, don't worry I can be pleased, I just expect a quality service :D

[Jayne]

Hi Mr VSHosting,

We know most of our customers by name and Mark has done all his bread etc. before the customers get out of bed, so chats in the shop with them. My Mum also works for us, she could work for interpol in the interigation unit :lol: She can even tell you where most of them live and what they are going to buy before they do :lol:

We have a quality all of our own in our shop, :lol:

Jayne

[MinuWeb]

Hi Mr VSHosting,

We know most of our customers by name and Mark has done all his bread etc. before the customers get out of bed, so chats in the shop with them. My Mum also works for us, she could work for interpol in the interigation unit :lol: She can even tell you where most of them live and what they are going to buy before they do :lol:

We have a quality all of our own in our shop, :lol:

Jayne

Hi Jayne :D

Thats what gives your shop quality service (apart from the quality produce you sell :D ) what I am saying is that if every shop done this, it would be seen as normal and not quality.

Unofrtunately we tend to judge whether something is quality or not based more on previous bad quality service / products than good quality service products. It is just human nature, the same as people tend to complain about things when they are wrong but not compliment them when they are right.

[Jayne]

Quality is not going bankrupt :lol: (Quailty speaks for it's self, in our case the kerching of the tills)

Jayne

[MinuWeb]

Jayne,

it's funny what you said about remembering clients names, what they like etc. I have a good memory for names, and can remember most of my clients names and domain names, however 99% of my clients I have never spoken to and the only communication I have had with them is by the occasional support ticket in our helpdesk and by checking they have paid :D And I only know what about 6 of them look like......

Yet, even in a situation like this, most clients when communicating through our helpdesk start tickets with "Hi Tony" even though I probably won't be answering the ticket as We employ tech's for that. All out techs are told to sign tickets using their first name and reply using the clients first name. Doing this results in a friendly atmosphere between us and clients, and combined with accurate easy to understand replies from our techs aim to provide a quality helpdesk service to our clients.

[Jayne]

As a customer on the net side of things. To me a quality business is one that does what it says it is going to do, eg. If someone says they will phone me on Tuesday or email and they no not contact me that day, makes me think they are disorganised, plus it really anoys me. I don't like businesses on the net who hide things, like the prices, I hate having to click round the whole web site to find out how much something will cost. Honesty and trust is the things I look for, if they cock up, but put it right and are honest about it, to me that is quality.

Jayne

[Alpha]

I have come a little belatedly to this thread and it is one of the most interesting and enlightening threads I have ever seen on the forums.

The word quality is most often overused and overrated to the point of rendering it meaningless.

Quality is simply achieving a predefined standard. What that standard is can vary across a whole spectrum for example Tesco's offer its customers three different options in its stores to cater for the whole spectrum of its customers perceived requirements, a value brand (cheap!) a standard range and a 'premium' range. Each of these products is in itself a quality product but at differing levels of customer perception.

Many years ago at a company that i was responsible for managing the project to achieve 'World class manufacturing' we constantly derided the the BS5750 standard as potentially meaningless. Quite literally you could produce absolute rubbish provided that the processes to produce rubbish were fully documented and adhedered to and the company must then consistantly produce rubbish to the same high standard and would achieve BS5750.

Quality is a more ethereal perception of the customer. Taking Jayne as an example the bread, cakes and sandwiches that she sells are purely commodities (Most shops will sell them). The product is what will differentiate her from all the others selling those commodities, (providing them quickly, couteously, with light hearted chat, enjoyable surroundings etc). It is by hitting this that she could be said to be selling a quality product. If you put Jaynes shop against a high class restaurant for example would you then say that Jaynes quality is low? Of course not it is just meeting different requirements.

One of the best seminar/courses i went on was by an American manufacturing guru by the name of Hal Mather. Coming from a manufacturing background he had an inherent dislike of salesmen and accountants. When asking the audience 'Why are we in business?' the salesmen replied 'to satisfy the customer'. NO YOU TURKEYS was the retort. We are in business to satisfy the customer PROFITABLY. This statement has stuck with me ever since and should be a mantra for all businesses especially start ups.

The thing I find so strange about businesses in the UK in general is that we can take any formula handed to us on a plate and completelly screw it up. We will then proceed to complain that others are taking our jobs and livelihoods. Mcdonalds was the ultimate in 'World class' It developed a very standard product range with an excellent service ethic. There was no queing for food or tables, orders were taken very efficiently,staff were very polite and helpful, food provided quickly, the tables are spotlessly clean for you to eat on and the whole customer experience was very enjoyable (ok we will not go further into nutritional content).

How many can say that they have had a similar experience in the UK.

Service is slow, staff attitudes are often poor, orders are often deliverd cold or incomplete, the tables are dirty(not helped by the attitude of the clientele who seem to think that it is there to make as much mess as possible for someone else to clean up).

We can see other examples from companies all over the world. The Japanese have always produced extremely good relaible products for a mass market. The Chinese are doing similar things now.

I think I could carry on writing for an eternity like this but I'll shut up for a while and wait to see what others ideas are.

[Jayne]

Nice answer Alan.

It's not an easy question to answer, as there are so many answers. Maybe the answers are to ask your customers :D

Jayne

[Alpha]

It would be Jayne but often they are either not c yet customers or it is too late to do anything about it! :)

[SillyJokes]

I think Quality is a question of perception and is often linked to price.

You sometimes get more than you paid for but more often than not you pay for more than you receive. Then the cognative dissonnance kicks in and you kid yourself you got something quality because you paid more for it than your neighbour did for a similar item.

The line about a 'quality builder' being one who cleans up after himself made me laugh. I pay my builder considerably more than I pay my cleaner so in my book it's a very expensive extra and ought to be done as standard in any case.

I think something of quality should be that little bit nicer than the cheap version. You have to pay for quality because as the guy says - you need to satisfy your customer PROFITABLY.

[Cornish Steve]

The word quality is most often overused and overrated to the point of rendering it meaningless.

I totally agree. What can a company do to convince potential customers that its product or service is quality? For example, a gentleman in Japan is planning to sell our courses to local companies doing business with American and British companies. One of his first comments to me was that our prices are too low. The Japanese imply quality from price.

Quality is simply achieving a predefined standard.

I'm sure my local wireless phone company has standards: ensure callers to the help line are put on hold for no more than three minutes; ensure that visitors to our stores wait no more than ten minutes; ensure that replacement phones arrive by mail within five days.

I find these standards totally unacceptable. If a new handset fails to work, I am not prepared to wait five days while the company sends me a replacement in the mail. That could cost me a small fortune in lost business. (They used to replace them on the spot; now they refuse to do that.) To me, even though the company meets its standard, the standard itself represents poor quality.

Many years ago at a company that i was responsible for managing the project to achieve 'World class manufacturing' we constantly derided the the BS5750 standard as potentially meaningless. Quite literally you could produce absolute rubbish provided that the processes to produce rubbish were fully documented and adhedered to and the company must then consistantly produce rubbish to the same high standard and would achieve BS5750.

I agree wholeheartedly. Many years ago, I was told to follow standards that required reams of paperwork. I broke all the rules because, if I didn't, I would get nothing done. While standards such as ISO 9000 may force companies to think about the quality of their processes, I don't believe they guarantee quality. In some ways, these standards are simply a minimum cost of entry that makes it difficult for small entrepreneurial ventures to compete.

One of the best seminar/courses i went on was by an American manufacturing guru by the name of Hal Mather. Coming from a manufacturing background he had an inherent dislike of salesmen and accountants. When asking the audience 'Why are we in business?' the salesmen replied 'to satisfy the customer'. NO YOU TURKEYS was the retort. We are in business to satisfy the customer PROFITABLY. This statement has stuck with me ever since and should be a mantra for all businesses especially start ups.

This is an interesting quote. I would go further, however, and say that not all customers are right: "We are in business to satisfy customers in our target markets profitably." There would be little point in Jayne changing her processes simply because some visitors on their way to the local high-class restaurant complain about the quality of her paper serviettes.

The thing I find so strange about businesses in the UK in general is that we can take any formula handed to us on a plate and completelly screw it up. We will then proceed to complain that others are taking our jobs and livelihoods. Mcdonalds was the ultimate in 'World class' It developed a very standard product range with an excellent service ethic. There was no queing for food or tables, orders were taken very efficiently,staff were very polite and helpful, food provided quickly, the tables are spotlessly clean for you to eat on and the whole customer experience was very enjoyable (ok we will not go further into nutritional content).

How many can say that they have had a similar experience in the UK.

Service is slow, staff attitudes are often poor, orders are often deliverd cold or incomplete, the tables are dirty(not helped by the attitude of the clientele who seem to think that it is there to make as much mess as possible for someone else to clean up).



If that isn't a rallying cry to British entrepreneurs, then I don't know what is. Millions of unsatisfied customers are out there: Let's go get 'em!