Chapter 28

She was amazed listening to what he was talking, she has been working on this issue and had always concentrated on the fact that it works fine before it reaches the customer, but never really thought about the second aspect of keeping in tough with the customer and request the feedback for future changes. She wondered why she had given it much thought until now; maybe because it had been a few years and she had expanded to a different location and is more comfortable to this idea, she still thought she should have implemented his second point earlier; better late than never.

‘In a customer-oriented small business, quality is defined by the customers. You may have your ideas about what a quality product or service in your field of activity looks like and that's a good starting point. But, in the end, what matters is not what you think but what your customers need, want and are willing to pay for. There is a process for ensuring quality and it can be applied to just about any activity. It involves recording the key qualities and characteristics that you want to achieve in your activity.

You then write down the key factors which will let you achieve these qualities and characteristics. Finally you decide on tests and checks which will satisfy you that the desired qualities and characteristics have been achieved. All through your activity you keep records of what happened and, at the end, if a particular test is not passed, you go back to those records, find out why and correct how you did things. This process, if carried out consistently, will always result in the desired results and will ensure the quality you set out to achieve’.