Opinion Quality beyond its process

You can have multiple ways to look at quality customers want (QCW).

January 22, 2012 02:59 AM IST First published on: Jan 22, 2012 at 02:59 AM IST

You can have multiple ways to look at quality customers want (QCW). Appearance,functional experience and trust of any product are QCW parameters. When you see a cart vendor shining his apples,you know its not just an ephemeral emotive factor. An apple looking good gives quality assurance. Its appearance seduces you to buy it. When you devour the apple,experiencing its succulent taste as functional quality,youre simultaneously convinced psychologically about the high quality of this breed of apples. But on biting,if you didnt like the quality of experience,youll stop eating it and lose confidence in it. So only looking good is never enough to win the trust of quality. From looks to the bite function up to the root that allowed quality growth,all have to be orchestrated for the customer to experience quality. There could be a catch on bite enjoyment,which can be disastrous if the produce is bad. Or another nuance could be customers preferring a different type of taste. One quality parameter cannot be suitable for all. Thats because customers have four types of requirement: expressed need and desire,and unarticulated need and desire. Products in a category always require different pricing segments. For example,a womans handbag can cost Rs 200 from street vendors and up to Rs 200,000 from Louis Vuitton; both are available within a short distance in the same market. Today we also have trendsetters like Apple,Google,Facebook,Nike and Samsung among others,that influence every industry. Theyve changed the customers habit in everyday use products. If you use the QCW framework,it will oblige you to very specifically diagnose the customers psychographics in micro detail. Lets look at the four types of customer need.

Expressed need: Womens consciousness about hair is more imperative than mens. Can she ever accept going bald? So any therapy on hair care is an expressed need. Science can continue to evolve on how to protect hair fall because there will always be market scope here if the scientific believable factor with naturalness is tangible. This market often faces a traffic jam with multiple lifestyle advertising showing beautiful women with abundant hair. But is it so easy for the brands in this category to make customers believe without proving their tangible benefits? Customers will never pay attention if products in expressed need areas are not disruptive and scientifically proven.

Expressed desire: When children learn to walk,their first desire is to run. Professionals set the running trend; people follow them in the hope of overcoming health issues. Thats when intelligent industries put the treadmill in the market. Continuing running from open natural surroundings to a treadmill in the gymnasiums limited space is the real conversion of expressed desire. This expressed desire,which is another angle of QCW,can be further uplifted to become more desirable. So the treadmill can be made to calculate performance,even putting a touch screen TV system for continuous addition in the expressed desire category. Unarticulated need: After Thomas Alva Edison invented sound duplication in the 19th century,the entertainment industry expanded with endless varieties of music. When we have so many collections of vinyl records or CDs,will we ever listen to them all through different playing instruments? Will we ever have the time to go back to different periods of our music collection? By simplifying all applications,Apple iPod responded to this unarticulated need of experiencing any part of ones own musical collection anytime,anywhere,with a finger tip. We can carry diverse,unlimited musical entertainment in the pocket. Apple did not invent any musical paradigm,merely catered to an unarticulated need. If perfectly designed with simplification,any unarticulated need product can make obsolete a lot of standard systems in the world. The iPod practically killed the cassette Walkman and CD player. You as an entrepreneur can always create a new habit by giving birth to a new unarticulated need in any domain if you have the urge to grab societys latent trend. But you have to submerge yourself in a continuous QCW bath.

Unarticulated desire: You cannot ignore the human desire to see everything big. Thats why inventions like the magnifying glass,binoculars,telescope,even the microscope,have been so successful,and used for diverse purposes. All these enlarging habits already exist. Taking habit and putting it in the telephone screen is unarticulated desire. By inventing the picture or text enlargement system in the mobile phone,Apple fulfilled this unarticulated desire. With two fingers,you touch an object on the screen,move your fingers apart,the picture will enlarge. This action feels truly hedonistic. This trend has become like a need,so people have the tendency to see if this progressive enlargement is there in other products where there is a virtual screen.

The possibility of transferring some habit in one industry to another industry can change the whole category. If QCW drives your quality process and discipline in your enterprise,you can address perceptible value in any of the four needs of the customer.

Shombit Sengupta is an international creative business strategy consultant to top management. Reach him at http://www.shiningconsulting.com