Why producers mustn’t lose sight of product quality

Product quality is rapidly becoming an important competitive issue for today’s enterprises. Several surveys have voiced both consumers’ satisfaction as well as misgivings with the existing levels of quality and service of the products they buy.

Almost everyone would agree that the quality of a product is important, but not everyone has the same idea of what constitutes high quality.

National Standards bodies world over lay emphasis on quality standards and services to protect consumers in their various jurisdictions and strengthen their markets and trade.

At the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS), the situation is not different. We collaborate with diverse industry stakeholders to develop standards that ensure quality products are imperative and remain uncompromised.

As we join the rest of the world in celebrating World Quality Day tomorrow, it is important to note that most businesses will not succeed if they cannot build customer trust. Countless potential sales are lost when brands fail to make deeper connections with prospective buyers. In contrast, when you gain the confidence and loyalty of consumers, you have more freedom to make decisions such as raising prices.

Ensuring high-quality products and services is one way to help you get consumers to appreciate and believe in what you have to offer. There are times when businesses always ask us to develop standards that would help them strengthen their relationship with their customers.

Let me say, the only way to carve out your niche effectively to market and grow your brand is only by ensuring the quality of your products and services is top-notch.

The willingness to grow is proof you care about more than just making money. Your brand will become stronger and more relatable, and you will find even more ways to expand into new markets and reach new customers.

At the same time, we would be doing many businesses a disservice if we would not explain to them the importance of investing in a robust quality management system. For one, a Quality Management System is a set of business practices comprising the planning and execution of delivering a product.

System includes the principle that helps to prepare a product for its launch, such as customer focus, leadership, research and evidence-based decision-making.

At KEBS, we are keen to collaborate with enterprises to keep up the quality and safety of their products by guiding them on standardisation and the need for quality control in their production processes. Suffice it to say that quality control involves testing units and determining if they are within the specifications from raw materials testing to the final product.

The purpose of product testing is to confirm compliance as well as determine any need for corrective actions in the production process. Good quality control helps business entities meet consumer demands for better

products as well as save quality related costs such as rework. Many companies have struggled to access the export market because of substandard products in those markets.

If I were to advise companies that find it expensive or somewhat difficult to invest in quality products and, therefore are often lured to take the retrogressive substandard route, I would tell them that marketing studies have proved that companies that produce high-quality products obtain more repeat businesses. Spending more time and money upfront perfecting a product before it hits the market will minimise customer complaints and returns.

It is common for retailers of high-quality brands to invest a considerable amount in finance, time and logistics to persuade consumers in purchases. The more successful companies are at the onset of launching a product, the more likely they are to persuade repeat loyal customers.

In efforts to achieve factual customer feedback, it is prudent to ensure that extensive market research is undertaken to firm up the product’s quality and fine-tune it to customer expectations.

Essentially, let us aim to embrace quality in products by safeguarding our health and wealth, consequently placing us in a competitive global arena.

— The writer  is the Director, of Standards Development and Trade – Kenya Bureau of Standards