2007-Sep-18 - Customer defines quality

I read an article about what is quality and the side that we easily forget. It raises a good point about objective quality and subjective quality. Usually we disregard subjective quality and make bug-free, with lots of features, but customer hated products.

Why does the product with high objective quality still fail to satisfy customers? What should we focus on while testing to improve subjective side of product quality?

I remember another article about customer satisfaction. It says there are 4 levels of satisfaction, and the higher level must be based on all of the lower levels.

These 4 levels are:

1. Accurate.

    That means the product basic function must meet customer's requirement. Like a cell phone must have the function of dialing and answering a phone call.

2. Accessible.

    That means when customer wants to use the function, it can be instantly found and used. Like simply press a few numbers or just shout out a contact name, the phone call can be made.

3. Partnership.

    That means you have to let customer feel that you are on her side. Like if call center receives a phone call from a customer complaining that there's something wrong with her cell phone, call center should send out another cell phone for temporary replacement and ask the customer to send back the broken phone.

4. Advice.

    This is the highest level of customer satisfaction, that customer wants to learn. Like advising customer to use touch screen on a cell phone, which most customers do not expect to have this requirement.

We often talk about customer insight. Regarding the 4 levels of customer satisfaction, what a QA can control may be only the lower 2 levels. The higher 2 levels can hardly be TESTED, but are decided when requirement documents are made.

Obviously quality control starts from requirements analysis phase.