Focus on Quality
I recently received a call from a retail store that hadn’t bought my honey in a while. As I got to their store to deliver the honey, the lady and her colleagues started complaining about the honey they bought from another company. The honey was so bad that a customer returned it back, saying that he was sold “sugar” instead of honey. They still had a sample of the “honey” and gave it to me to taste. Being the “honey connoisseur” that I am, I could tell immediately that the honey was adulterated. Though it was as thick as honey, it tasted like caramelized sugar and didn’t have the” honey smell” that most indigenous honeys have. Before I left the store, my honey bottles were back on the shelf and most likely the other honey would be returned back to the producers.
The reason for this story is that I have noticed a trend, where so much emphasis is placed on branding and packaging at the risk of genuine product quality. Don’t get me wrong, I am a firm believer in branding and all but the quality of your product should be your primary concern. The other honey was better packaged than mine. However, the quality just wasn’t there. Branding and packaging might get the customer to buy once, but it’s the quality of the product that will keep them coming back. This is what brings about brand loyalty, brand value, increase in market share and ultimately profit. As a business owner, how much emphasis do you place on the quality of your products you sell? As a motivational speaker, life coach, teacher, do you place emphasis on the quality of what you deliver to your audience? You cannot become a big player in your industry if you continuously dish crap to your customers. They might manage you for a while (especially when they have no option), but be rest assured that the moment something better comes up, they will gladly leave you for your competitor. This is when some folks in this part of the world will begin to say that their “village people” are doing them, when they are the ones that did themselves.
Having a good product does not mean that you should relax and be complacent. Always seek innovative ways to improve your product in order to increase customer satisfaction which will generally increase customer loyalty and earnings. #RoYE
