6.2.2

Measuring Quality

Test yourself

Measuring Quality

How a business measures quality depends on the product or service that the business produces. Different products will have different things that are important to measure. For a car, a business may randomly test the engines to make sure they have the correct horsepower. To measure quality, businesses can use:

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Customer feedback

  • Getting reviews from customers is a common way that firms measure the quality of a product or service.
    • For example, sites like Airbnb ask people who stay in properties listed on the website to rate them afterward.
    • TripAdvisor collects reviews from customers and some restaurants now have hand-held technology to allow people to review their experience instantly.
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Customer surveys

  • Firms will sometimes do more detailed customer surveys, asking them about their experience with the good or service.
  • Using customer surveys, businesses can find out if there are quality problems in any of their products.

Identifying Quality

To measure and identify quality, businesses can:

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Check quality in production process

  • Businesses can check the raw materials from the suppliers, take random samples of products that are in the middle of being produced (made) and take random samples of finished products.
  • It can be expensive to do this checking, but it means that defects are spotted before they reach customers. It also may stop a business bearing the costs involved in processing returns.
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Customer service and complaints

  • Customer service is a common way for businesses to identify problems that they have with their product.
  • Customer service is beneficial because it helps businesses to correct an issue that the business has not yet identified.
  • There are monetary costs and reputation costs from having dissatisfied customers.

Jump to other topics

1Exploring Business

2Marketing Campaigns

3Business Finance

4International Business

5Principles of Management

6Business Decision Making

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