Measuring & Identifying Quality
Business: AQA A Level (2023 Specification), topic 4.4.1
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:
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.
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:
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.
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.
Test yourself on Measuring & Identifying Quality
What can companies use to measure quality from customers?
Airbnb ask people who stay in properties listed on the website to rate them afterwards. What is this an example of?
How do companies measure quality?
Primarily, why do companies sometimes ask customers to complete detailed feedback questionnaires?
Which of the following is not a benefit of quality checking in production?