With so many businesses competing in the same global marketplace, the quality of a company has never been more important.
Advancements in new technologies means prospective customers can easily compare an organisation’s products or services. As a business, it should be your priority to show why you are the leading providers within your industry, that’s why ensuring quality is at the heart of your company culture should be your main focus.
What is quality culture?
Quality culture simply refers to creating an environment where all employees genuinely care about the work they are producing and take the time to ensure the best is being achieved.
Quality over quantity in your company values
Many businesses can fall into the trap of valuing the quantity of customers or purchases over the quality of their products or services. Instilling quality into your company culture and values and providing the necessary resources is where your employees will naturally feel empowered to quality check their own work.
When it comes to the financial sector in particular, organisations who use external auditors find it actually helps to improve credibility as it shows you’re willing to go the extra mile to ensure you’re doing the right thing by your customers.
Accounting Today describes this culture as “first time right” where organisations adopt this mindset to achieve the best results first time. This can be done through auditing and quality assurance checks.
For example, the team at Mitchell Charlesworth are chartered accountants and business providers who understand how auditing can provide value to their clients and ensure brand trust remains strong. They’ve included the quality of their service into company values to make sure they’re delivering what their clients deserve.
Open and honest communication solves problems
When all members of an organisation feel like they can communicate openly, this fosters a culture of trust and enables everyone to review their products or services in an honest manner and understand any pain points or challenges that are present. Team members are then able to workshop these issues and collaborate together on a regular basis to make sure their work is in the best place possible.
Word of mouth matters
Many of our own purchasing decisions come from a friend or family member recommending a particular company to you, or, from in-depth research into their products and reading customer reviews. When you take into account that 74% of consumers identify word of mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decisions, it’s important to realise the extent of both positive and negative customer feedback and how far they can reach.
When you put a customer or clients’ needs first, you’re more than likely to receive positive feedback for your efforts. Despite this, it’s likely not all of your feedback will be positive, but that’s where users will reveal the issues they’ve faced. You can then garner the information you’ve received and put measures in place to fix the situation going forward.
Convert to quality assurance
Many companies globally use compliance as their “quality assurance”. Oftentimes they pass internal compliance checks but if you were to survey customers about their products, you may find that it doesn’t meet their requirements.
Introducing a culture that focuses on the quality of products or services, can only mean reaping the benefits for your business. Adopting this approach needs to be backed by key stakeholders and management and should be continually reviewed as an essential step to all employee processes.
By choosing quality assurance over quality control, you’re ensuring your auditing processes are conducted in real time and issues are solved prior to deployment. This way, not only will your customers or clients receive quality services, but your organisation can.
Read more:
Why You Should Place Quality At The Heart Of Your Company’s Culture
