Published by Programme B
It does not matter whether you sell a service or product; there is a need to improve how you do business continually. As a business owner, you commit to providing quality products or services. If that were the case, all products and services would not disappoint or result in complaints. The following are proven ways of improving quality.
Make a Commitment
Commitment to quality services and products has to start from the top. It needs to be reinforced all the time. Unless your business feels that quality is non-negotiable, your employees will feel the urge to compromise on quality and make tradeoffs. Quality decisions must not be situational. The quality must remain the same whether it is the start or end of the month.
Track Mistakes
If you want to commit to quality, you need to define what it is. For the manufacturers, this involves statistical quality control. You need to set up the product’s specifications and sample a given number of units. Standards ought to be set and if too much deviation occurs, you need to alter the manufacturing process.
In the service industry, it is a bit difficult to track quality. Even international organizations tasked with ensuring quality have found it difficult to create benchmarks. The best way is to determine the level of customer satisfaction as an extension of the quality of service. You can give customers a survey to fill after the service or use a net promoter score.
Functional Testing
This is a QA (quality assurance) process that bases its tests on specifications of the product or service. Functionality testing is commonly used in testing the quality of software applications. It helps in evaluating the compliance of a component or system. Ideally, it describes what a given system does. It is quite different from system testing as it verifies a product by checking it against the specifications or benchmarks.
Invest In Training
Some people argue that a business with a QA department is set to poor performance. This is because it demonstrates to other employees that quality is not their work or primary concern. Therefore, it is advisable that businesses train their employees at different levels and how they can improve quality. Training can take a wide range of dimensions. If you are starting up, each employee must be trained on quality issues from the first day. For an established business, current employees can teach new ones.
Have Right Attitude
It is unfortunate that some managers turn quality into an oppressive thing. Quality management does not have to be dreary or involve too much negativity. Such systems of management crash the fun and creativity out of the workplace. This attitude is not easy to adopt and lacks basic management practices.
Organize Quality Circles
Although your employees may not welcome this idea, organizing them into quality circles is quite an effective means of addressing and identifying problems. Quality circles are simply groups of employees who are tasked with assessing processes and providing recommendations.
By improving quality, costs are reduced and productivity is increased. Thus, you can reduce the prices of your products and services. This is likely to help you increase your market share and improve your long-term confidence. Therefore, quality control is not a necessary evil, but a competing strategy.