Quality Control: Customer’s Satisfaction

Quality control (QC) is of great importance to any company. This ensures that both products and services are according to the expectation of the customers. QC is therefore an important area which firms must pay due attention because customers are loyal to organizations that have strengthened their quality assurance department.

In this blog we are going to discuss Quality Control and how it affects the customers.

What is Quality Control?

Quality Control means inspection of products or services for, or detection of, deviations from the set standards, it entails several processes intended at the promotion of parity in terms of quality. Such activity may comprise inspection, test and monitoring activities. The important thing here is that there is an aim to achieve and there is to produce a final work ideally suited to certain requirements.

Why Quality Control is Important?

• Enhance Customer Trust: this is the reason when the customers most tend to rely on the brand. A loyal customer is always motivated to make future purchases in a store they trust. It also allows the customers to use the same brand. It is worth it because word-of-word lobbying is priceless.
• Reduce Cost: thus it is evident that the case of poor quality can escalate to higher cost. Their continuing returns, repairs or replacements may occur at companies. All these costs accumulate to the investor in a very short span. Still, these costs are kept very low by good QC since the faults are tackled before they make it to the market.
• Improves Efficiency: Quality control processes help in cutting cost and improving efficiency. Such problems, when recognized at the earliest, can easily be solved. This efficiency implies that the running of the business becomes easier and the customer happier.
• Meets Regulatory Standards: a good number of industries have standards set for them. Such standards are important to these businesses and quality control assists in meeting them. Failure to do so can attract fines or there may be some legal problems. To summarize, it is worth stating that QC checks that the product is safe and of good quality.
• Foster Continuous Improvement: oddly enough, quality control doesn’t mean that someone is going to solve them. It fosters or promotes the culture of benchmarking or keeping on improving on the state of affairs. QC results are used to evaluate patterns in companies that produce food. It assists them in decision making processes of the future production because they are able to read data in detail.  

Essential of Quality Assurance

• Quality Planning: this comprises selection of quality that customer products should have. It will be the responsibility of the companies to define what is quality in the respective market. These steps lay down the basis of all QC activities.
• Quality Assurance: covers the idea of an organization. QA is centered on prevention of defects. It entrails organizational and procedural controls that are carried out during the production process. QA helps make sure that mistakes are not made during a process, which would have to be corrected afterwards anyways.
• Quality Control Testing: A/B testing is a key element of QC as it provides the necessary insights in the processes that happen within the team. Some of the business reasons include carrying out tests to determine the quality of a product to be developed. This can involve some form of evaluation such as physical assessment, performance check and sometimes customer survey.
• Data Analysis: the measures involve collection and analysis of data. Defects and customer complaints should also be traced by the companies. This information is very useful in order to establish what kind of patterns exist and what kind of changes are to be made.
• Training and Development: quality control processes must be transparent and easily understandable for each of the employees. It’s good to revise every time because everyone will be informed and trained of a specific approach. It is therefore important to ensure that the individuals within particular departments are well equipped with information concerning the quality standard.

Improving the Quality Control System

• Define Objectives: the first suggestion you should follow is to identify qualities. What are your goals? This could for example mean reducing the number of defects or increasing the customer satisfaction rating.
• Develop QC Procedures: develop clear protocols for all the processes that are followed during the production. Describe how inspection and tests will be performed to achieve the best results. Make certain that these procedures are known by all the staff members.
• Train Employees: ensure training of the team on the processes of quality check. It is therefore logical to ensure that employees know their part in quality maintenance processes. Such workshops can share the updated information with the participants on a regular basis. 
• Monitor Performance: it is necessary to use measures for tracking quality performance. Observe data frequently so that you can have a clue about the trends. It helps in continuous monitoring so that changes can be made as soon as they are necessary.
• Gather Feedback: encourage customer feedback. A survey and a review are both useful in increasing one’s understanding on a given topic. Utilize this information for any modifications that need to be made.

Case study: A Real-life Account of Implementing Quality Control

For example, we will consider a firm that manufactures electronics- ABC Electronics. Manufactured products in this company had high returns rates resulting from product defects. It was for this reason that they opted to improve the system on quality control.

• Step 1: Identifying Issue: ABC electronics integrated the evaluation of return information. They discovered that most of the returns were as a result of defective parts. The idea enabled them to know where to target their QC.
• Step 2: Implementing Changes: new regression analysis basically gave the company a new QC procedure. They put into practice better and more standard tests while manufacturing the products. They also gave training to employees regarding the quality standard to set.
• Step 3: Monitoring Results: within the six months period, it was evident that the rate of returns by the clients had reduced by 30% at ABC electronics. The score of the customer’ satisfaction increased notably. New customers recognized the company’s reputation, thus more sales were made.

Conclusion

This is an important aspect since customer satisfaction is very vital in the growth and development of any business. It creates people’s trust and increases their loyalty to the organization and its goals besides having reduced expenses.

Therefore, when effective QC processes are put in place, it will bring out efficiency and the process of continuous improvement. In today’s environment, one cannot talk about the company’s successful future if it does not focus on quality assurance. 

FaQ

Also Read: Do the Right Thing: A Guide to Ethical Decision-Making