As a result of this column you and your organization will: Understand, quality refers to the product or service and the way it is designed, delivered, sold and maintained. Explore demanding high end customers having extremely high standards and ability to pay for customized solutions. Examine lower end markets and less demanding customers with fewer and less complex requirements to satisfy. As Intel founder Andy Grove said, “Whatever can be done, will be done. If not by incumbents, by emerging players. If not in a regulated industry, by a new industry born without regulation. Change and its’ effects are inevitable. Stopping change is not an option.” With change comes opportunity and with unlimited change comes unlimited opportunity. The customer always demands the very highest quality for the very lowest price. Quality is what the customer says it is and is willing to pay for. Here-in lies great advantage! Quality refers both to the product or service and to the way that it is… Designed Delivered Sold Maintained Change creates an opportunity to introduce a relatively simple, affordable product or service that creates access for customers who historically lacked the money or skills to get important jobs done.

Change also offers opportunities to help customers do more, and to do it more easily, efficiently and effectively, rather than forcing them to change their behavior and “settle” for what’s available.

In Michael Dell’s words, “Our entire business, from design to manufacturing and sales, was oriented around listening to the customer and delivering exactly what they want.” With 800 numbers and the Internet, Dell Computer created a strategy of mass customization, shipped directly to the consumer and thus bypassed distributors. This is what cuts costs allowing the customer to realize more bang for their buck.

Every market consists of multiple customer tiers.

• At the high end are demanding customers who have extremely high standards and the ability to pay for customized solutions. In this market, customers are consistently willing to pay premium prices to trade up to new, higher-performing products or services.
• At the low end of the market are less demanding customers with fewer and less complex requirements to satisfy. Teenagers, college students and people in developing countries will often accept performance imperfections when a new product or service becomes inexpensive enough to make it easier to do something they could not do in the past.

Ever increasing customer service opportunities exist because, as companies serving the high end introduce innovations and improve their products and services, they eventually exceed the performance that some of their customers can use. Demand diminishes and prices on previous improvements begin to fall.

Asking a new question can create new customer service opportunities. For example, do airlines want to own engines? No. They want planes in the air. An enterprising engine manufacturer understood this concept and started selling power by the hour. The real need wasn’t for the engine; the need was for reliable power.

Also, the same customer service opportunity can look entirely different to different organizations. Founded in 1976, the University of Phoenix seeks to reach non-traditional adult learners more cost effectively. It offered an on-line M.B.A. program in 1989, and one hundred fifty students enrolled. Five years later, it had more than 150,000 students.

Conversely, Columbia University, which was founded in 1754, started marketing expensive, on-line, non-degree courses in 2000. Columbia did not match the job lifelong learners hired education to achieve, and failed.

Remember, companies never succeed when offering people a less cost efficient way to get a job done. You must capitalize on unlimited customer service opportunities by improving high end demand with customers willing to pay for customized solutions, or capture the lower end market by enhancing lives of less demanding customers having fewer requirements to satisfy.

Remember, quality is always what your customer says it is and is willing to pay for.

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