Quality: How do we measure it?

Just imagine yourself walking through a park on a sunny day when, all of a sudden, the mood strikes to get an ice cream. It's obviously no coincidence that there's an ice cream shop less than a few hundred meters from the park. You go there and you say to the employee working there: "I'd like three scopes of ice cream please; one chocolate, one strawberry and one vanilla."Unfortunately the employee is sorry to inform you that they're all out of chocolate and strawberry and that the only flavor they have left is vanilla.

At this point you are, without a doubt, disappointed that they only one of your three favorite flavors of ice cream but you order an ice cream nonetheless. Once you've paid you taste the ice cream and it turns out to be one of the best tasting ice creams you've ever had. Would you say you've experienced a "quality" experience at this point? Well in this particular case the answer's no. 

In order for us to better understand why in the above mentioned example there's no "quality" experience we need to broaden our horizons and look at how we measure quality. According to Merriam-Webster's dictionary the definition of quality is a high level of value or excellence. This is purely a definition of a word and by no means does this tell us how we can go about measuring quality. The ice cream tasted great so purely by definition you might say the ice cream was of great quality. This, however, doesn't necessarily mean that a customer experienced it as such. So then the main question becomes: How can we ensure that we deliver a quality experience to all our customers?

Each and every individual will have different expectations when purchasing an ice cream and, therefore, it is incredibly difficult to deliver a quality experience to all of your customers (but definitely not impossible). The only real way you'll be able to give a customer a quality experience is by asking him/her what they expect in order for you to meet their expectations. This principle applies in all forms of business with the exception of monopolies. If a customer has more than one choice and he doesn't experience quality at shop A, the customer will next time visit shop B and so on.

Most types of products & services that are offered to a consumer are also offered by other businesses elsewhere. It is that reason alone that it is extremely important for a business to manage the expectations of the customers if they want to succeed over its competition. How can you manage a customer's expectation? It's quite simple: You could always ask them ahead of time what they expect. Granted that you know your own business well enough you are then able to tell the customer that you, as a company, can meet their expectations and, thus, provide them with a quality experience enhancing the chance of repeated business. How you measure quality can be summarized in one sentence:

• What does a customer expect vs. what does a customer get

As long as these two match you can safely say that the customer has had a quality experience!