Aligning customer’s and firm’s perspective on quality

I’m currently re-reading Prof. Oliver’s monograph on consumer’s satisfaction. The chapter on quality reminded me of one striking example. Oliver explains that quality is to be understood differently whether it is approached from the consumer’s perspective or from the firm’s perspective. This may seem obvious but actually it’s not. If quality is considered an antecedent of satisfaction, both perspectives should be the same to be aligned with the marketing concept which emphasizes delivering satisfaction (not just products) to consumers and obtaining profits in return (Yi, 1990).

Actually experience and practice show that those perspectives are far from being aligned because firms use metrics and attributes to measure quality that consumers not always find relevant. I was leaning back in my seat while thinking about this and the example of airlines came to my mind.

Airlines have pursued for many years quality attributes which, although they played a role on satisfaction, where minor contributors to it with regards to other features like arrival on time, departure on time, luggage lost. Ryanair took advantage of this and built new processes around customer dissatisfaction to provide them precisely with the KPI’s they were needing.

By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab Dr. Pierre-Nicolas Schwab is the founder of IntoTheMinds. He specializes in e-commerce, retail and logistics. He is also a research fellow in the marketing department of the Free University of Brussels and acts as a coach for several startups and public organizations. He holds a PhD in Marketing, a MBA in Finance, and a MSc in Chemistry. He can be contacted by email, Linkedin or by phone (+32 486 42 79 42)