4.2 Quality of Goods & Services Flashcards
All 19 cards in this deck
What do customers expect from the quality of a service?
That it is delivered to a good standard and reliably, for example a hotel room that is clean and ready at the promised time.
Give two consequences for a business of producing poor quality goods.
Any two of: customer complaints and returned products; refunds or replacements; lost repeat customers and sales; damage to the business's reputation.
What is a product recall?
When a business asks customers to return a faulty or unsafe product. It must pay for refunds, repairs or replacements, and its reputation suffers.
Give one advantage to a business of producing a high quality product.
Quality is a source of differentiation, attracting more customers and increasing market share. (Also: it allows higher prices and so a higher profit margin.)
Why does managing quality help a business control its costs?
Mistakes in production are expensive, so fewer faults means less wastage and fewer costs of replacing or repairing faulty goods.
What is quality control?
Inspectors checking products or services to find faults, often by testing finished products or samples, so that what customers receive meets the required standard.
What is quality assurance?
Carrying out quality checks at each stage of production, making every employee responsible for the quality of their own work.
Give one benefit of using quality assurance rather than quality control.
Every worker is responsible for checking their stage, so faults are spotted during production and faulty products are less likely to leave the production line.
Give one drawback of introducing quality assurance.
It requires a large amount of employee training because workers must check their own work, so business costs increase. (Also: it needs a change in culture and is time consuming.)
How can a business ensure quality when providing a service?
Train staff and employ highly skilled people, and build a culture where all employees focus on high-quality service — though this raises costs.
What does 'quality' mean in business?
Producing goods or providing services that are fit for purpose and meet the standard customers reasonably expect.
Give three reasons why quality is important to a business.
It protects the business's reputation, helps it gain and retain customers, and reduces product returns and recalls.
What is the main difference in aim between quality control and quality assurance?
Quality control aims to find faulty products after they have been made; quality assurance aims to prevent faults happening in the first place.
Give one advantage of quality control.
Any one of: it does not disrupt production, because inspectors check while workers keep producing; it stops faulty products reaching customers, protecting the business's reputation.
Give one disadvantage of quality control.
Any one of: it does not prevent faults, so materials and time are wasted on faulty products; inspectors' wages and testing add to costs; workers are not made responsible for quality.
Give one way a business can check the quality of a service it provides.
Any one of: a customer satisfaction survey; a mystery shopper, who poses as an ordinary customer and reports on the service received.
How can quality assurance motivate employees?
Workers are trusted with responsibility for the quality of their own work, so they feel valued and may work harder and better.
Can a cheap product be good quality?
Yes. Quality means meeting customers' expectations, so a low-priced product is good quality if it works as customers expect for that price.
Why is it worth spending money on quality to keep existing customers?
Winning new customers through marketing costs much more than keeping existing ones, and poor quality quickly loses them.