Why quality is important – lessons from BMW and Waitrose

I had a strange dream last night. I had been asked to work at a trade exhibition selling BMW cars. Quite why I am not sure as I am no salesman, but I was asked how I would approach this task, to which I responded that all cars have a wheel more or less at each corner and for the most part were a simple mode of transport. So I said I would concentrate on the enjoyment and wonderful experience of driving a BMW, and of course their reliability, making them better cars and better performers than the rest. That of course is the BMW approach to marketing, and whilst I do not have one of their cars, clearly my subconscious as been imbued with their philosophy.

Some people I know, both clients and family, have been let down recently by people they trusted, and in all cases this has been because they were engaging amateurs and people not up to the task. I have mentioned previously that it is no good employing anyone to provide services to your business who is not a full time professional in their area. Part-timers and co-opted amateurs will not be up to the job and indeed it is not fair to ask them to do it in the first place, because it will all end in tears; ours and those who have failed us, and there will be bad blood.

What I have been thinking about is that we need to engage trusted and recommended people to support our businesses, and we need to be the best in our field at what we do. We need to be different from the rest, to have something special as far as our prospects are concerned so that they want to be our clients. We need to be the Waitrose experience, top quality products and services for which we can charge a decent amount and have our clients or customers and clients come back to us again and again. Jim Connolly would explain it better actually, so why not ask him?

In this difficult market it has been hard to avoid grabbing at every piece of business even where the reward is not great. I have done my best in the last couple of years because it is no good working hard without proper profit. I already provide a quality service. I am going to try even harder to live up to the philosophy of providing perceived quality in the coming years. What about you? What do you think?

© Jon Stow 2009

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
This entry was posted in Business planning, Customer relations, management, marketing and tagged , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badge