Does Quality or Brand Loyalty matter anymore? 

Does Quality or Brand Loyalty matter anymore? I can’t believe I’m asking myself this question with more than 20 years of experience in Quality Control and Quality Assurance. Now don’t get me wrong there are industries out there that Quality is still a vital factor and the need to have a zero defect culture is paramount. Some industries that come to mind are medical, defense, financial, aerospace, pharmaceutical, manufacturing just to name a few. But how about the tech gadgets that we walk around with every day? How about the apps that live on those gadgets? Is there a zero tolerance for defects? I think not….

I think what many firms have figured out is;

·      What is the acceptable level of quality a consumer is willing to live with as long as the product is bringing them the value they acquired it for. 

There is also a cost element to this I will get to a little later. About 6 years ago I visited a High School in Exton PA and held an hour long session with a Senior Class asking them questions pertaining to Brand Loyalty. I was more focused on loyalty in the Technology arena but we talked about a bunch of different product categories. 

I set the stage by using an example of a product I was involved with at work where we had implemented Skype on a Set Top Box so you could do a Skype video session with family and friends who had the same cable provider. I was so excited to get it installed at home and test it out. As I was walking upstairs to tell my 13 year old daughter about the new product I saw her out of the corner of my eye doing a 4 way video session on her laptop with her friends. I stopped and asked her what was the app she was using and she told me ooVoo. I asked so what about Skype and I got the ‘Dad that’s so old school’ answer.   My excitement was dulled and it dawned on me that what’s new today is old tomorrow. We talked in the class about brand loyalty from Technology to Clothing. And basically what I got out of the session is that kids today have very little brand loyalty and move from product to product easily. The only brand loyalty they may have is buying groceries at the same store as their parents do or buying a brand of car that their parents have had but when it comes to technology and specifically apps they move like the wind. Social media is the word of mouth of yesteryear. 

Now we did talk about quality also and their response intrigued me. As long as the product is cool and the defects do not interfere with the purpose of the app they are willing to ignore quality issues. I remember reading a book back in 2011 about how fast technology changes and how people change with it. The author did a survey back in 2000 and asked kids between the ages of 16 and 21 if they had to give up TV or the Internet which would they give up. From my memory I believe 80% said they’d give up the internet. He did the same survey in 2010 and 95% said they’d give up the TV. Our reliance on the Internet in today’s world is immense. I asked the kids in the classroom were they willing to live with slow internet speeds and I got a resounding ‘Hell NO’. So they are willing to accept a certain level of quality issues with their apps but don’t mess with their access and speed. I read something recently that said that Millennials would rather spend their money on an experience rather than buy stuff. It made me think back to the classroom exercise. They want a faultless experience so don’t mess with speed or access to the internet.

We talked a little bit about cost as well. I told them to imagine a spectrum of quality and cost. On one end you had a Ford Fiesta and on the other end you had BMW 330. I asked them to tell me what the differences are between both cars. They both can get you from A to B and back to A. They both have Stereo systems. They both have Heating and Cooling capabilities – you get the point. So I pushed a little further on quality and cost. The BMW obviously has better speakers which cost more and are of a higher quality but do I really need the BMW? Quality can cost more at the end of the day but you can still get from A to B and back to A with something of lesser cost but equal in terms of purpose. Again a new generation of minimalists not going all in on the top end, superior quality, big name brand items. That’s not to say that all millennial's are this way.

So does Quality matter? Absolutely it still matters it just depends on the category of product and what is the acceptable level of quality a consumer is willing to live with. And in today’s world with Enterprise Business Intelligent teams that have been setup to analyze, measure and adapt based on the data that is available to them they are getting really close to being able to predict what that acceptable level of quality is. 

I have also been asked a lot recently about does your quality approach change in the Agile, DevOps and DevSecOps arena. The end goal of getting a quality product out the door is the same but where I have seen companies fail from a quality perspective in the implementation of these approaches is not having the guard rails in place to analyze risk and measure quality. If the organization is not mature enough to take on DevOps, Agile etc it becomes a bit of a cowboy show with no checks and balances. So if you are in the process of adopting any of these approaches step back and look across your approach and ensure you have those checks and balances in place from a quality perspective!

Quality does and will always matter!