» Quality Assurance

As a person that is in kind of profession that is involved in customer facing, you have to find a way to maintain your professionalism. There will be plenty of times in which there will be a customer or two that will try your nerves and attempt to get you out of your comfort zone. There will be plenty of times that you will want to yell back at the customer that standing there yelling in your face. You know you can not return the sentiment but you really want to. It is definitely amazing that many people are able to be calm in the midst of the verbal bashing they are receiving. Here are some tips to keep your professionalism.

Before you engage in any discussion that could result in an angry customer, stop and take a deep breath. Taking a deep breath will allow you take a second to think about what you say next. One thing that seems to result in a heated conversation is when people react purely on emotions versus taking a second to think. Typically when a person has a chance to think about what they want to say and also to calm down. This usually will result in a conversation with a customer that will actually have a positive outcome.

Ask the customer to hold on for one moment as you attempt to gather more information. Again this is just a tactic to defuse the situation and to bring both players to the same level. The customer might have a moment to calm down and calmly have a discussion. The key is come back to that customer with a solution. If there is not a solution for them have, you can fuel their anger. You are trying to stop them from being upset not make them more upset.

One last tip that can help you is if you are able to quickly find the solution for the customer and solve the problem right the first time. When a customer comes to you and tells you that they have been promised these things and nothing has happened. You have to now deal with the customer and their building aggression versus trying to take care of them on their first issue. Never send the customer away unsatisfied and solve the problem right the first time.

Tweet This Post 

I do not think there is anyone out there that likes to clean up the messes that are made by other people. We all want to ensure that we do our best the first time so that we do not have to fix the mistake made by ourselves or one of our associates. We work very hard daily to improve ourselves but sometimes we do fall short of the expectation that is laid out. Of course we do not aim to mess up but it just happens naturally, because in fact we are just human. So how can we ensure that we do what is asked of us right the first time.

First of all we need to make sure that everyone on our team is trained property and that they know what is expected of them. Every rep needs to know what they are supposed to do day in and day out. They are supposed to know if they pick up phone or a customer walks into their store. This should make representative feel great because they know how to serve that customer because of their training. Without their training the representative would be lost and that could be a train wreck for the business. The more time you spend with the rep perfecting their presentation the better they will be when it comes to taking care of the customer the first time.

You are not able to teach passion. The person has to have that passion deep within them and they have to want to improve or to ensure the business is doing well. When something new comes out that could improve the way a representative takes a phone call that rep should want to do their best to improve and to help the customers out that they speak to. In the self storage world, everything seems to change so often. With that said, if the rep has the passion to keep up with the changes and apply the new changes to their presentations, they will help make the overall company better. If they do not pick up on the new information quickly, that could lead to mistakes. You have to have people on your team that have the passion to want to take care of the issue right the first time.

When a mistake happens in any industry especially self storage, the person in charge needs to do what is necessary to ensure that mistake does not repeat itself. Depending on how bad the mistake was, a rep could be terminated, suspended or even demoted. Hopefully as a manager you do not have to face anything like that and you can just ensure the rep had the proper training then move on. Otherwise it is very important to have a policy in place for when a mistake happens so you can show that you do not want anyone else on your team to repeat this mistake. Holding your people accountable for their actions is very important and could make or break your business. If a representative knows they can make a mistake and nothing happens to them, there is a big chance that that mistake or another one will happen.

Tweet This Post 

It is hard to run a business when everyone tries to be in charge. Everyone might be entitled to their opinion but in the end, a decisions need to be made. What happens when there is a difference of opinion? What happens when not everyone agrees to the same solution? There has to be someone who decides what is best for the company. Not everyone wants to be at the top. Not everyone wants to make the hard decisions which could affect everything that the business does.

It definitely takes a particular kind of person to be in charge of a company. That person might be faced with all kinds of issues that the company needs an answer to. That person could be in charge of hiring and firing of the staff and also the bottom line of the company. That is no small job. It does not matter if the company is a small company bringing in hundreds of dollars daily to the company bringing in millions of dollars daily, the person at the top has a tough job.

The person at the top needs to understand and grasp the idea that the opinion of the customer is important. The customer will ultimately let the person at the top know whether or not they are doing what the customer wants. No one wants to hear they are doing a bad job but if that is what you hear from your customer, and then you need to do make the customer happy again. If you ignore the thoughts and opinions of the customer, your company could be in deep trouble.

Everyone at the top of their company would like some assurance that their quality is totally great in the eyes of their customers. They have to ask their selves how much they want to invest in the opinion of the customer. Do they go overboard trying to fix every single thing the customer does not like or do they only fix things that makes the biggest impact. Again the person at the top has some decisions to make. If you are at the top of your business, what would you do?

Tweet This Post 

The truth only hurts if you let it or if you are unwilling to accept it. You will have to face daily situations in which you will have to deal with the truth or the truth will affect you. How you deal with it is totally up to you. Somewhere deep inside you know that you have to face the truth sooner or later so why not deal with it sooner? If you are in charge of a group of individuals and your job depends on their opinion, then you really do have to face the truth on a daily basis.

As a good manager, you strive to do your best daily and hope that everyone appreciates your hard work. You are human so you will make mistakes but you just wish that the mistakes you make are not horrible ones. Good managers also value what their employees say and what ideas they will have to improve the workplace. A manager that comes into a business and rules with an iron fist is not a manager that will stay around long or get the buy in from his associates. Eventually the performance of the associates will not meet expectations due to the management style. This is of course the position does not call for a manager that very authoritative.

Everyone in a position of power should ensure that they are taking care of those people under them. What is meant by that is that the manager should ensure the needs of the employees are met. There are not many companies that do not have a performance review for their managers and even their employees. Those companies that do not have that kind of review are missing a large piece of the pie. Without knowing how each individual is doing on a performance scale, including management, how will they know how they are doing? They will continue on their work schedule thinking all is fine until they are hit with the truth.

The truth might hurt in terms of the performance of an employee, but that truth does not need to be so hurtful or blunt if they know what is expected of them. Every company is ran differently so it is hard to say that a company should have a performance review with their employees on a quarterly basis or a monthly basis. The point is that you should have them. Employees should always have a safe haven in to tell their managers how they are doing from their point of view. If a manager is unwilling to accept the criticism and the truth of how their employees feel about them, then maybe they should not be in charge.  Again, the truth only hurts if you are unwilling to accept it and change what is necessary.

Tweet This Post 

What would happen if you thought your business was doing very well but in reality there were huge issues that needed to be resolved? As a business how to do you really know what areas of your business need the most help? This question has been tossed around the business industry for quite some time. Companies have been trying to figure out how to maximize their customer service and make sure the quality of their product is outstanding. Someone had the bright idea to have a department that does quality control that can monitor the level of service that is given to the customer.

Businesses are always looking at different ways to have an edge over their competition. When one business is doing something well and their stock is rising, they are not always quick to announce what they are doing differently to account for this rise in performance. They leave many people and companies to speculate which can drive other companies crazy trying to determine the change in the other company. All it took was for a company to focus squarely on how to make the customers happy and what they can do better to improve their quality. No one wants to be known as a company that does not have a strong, quality product.

Trying to determine how to go about improving your quality or at least monitoring it, at times, can be a difficult process. First you have to determine whether or not you want to have people who work for the company doing the quality inspections. The other choice is having a company who specializes in the quality assurance field do all of your inspections. There are perks to both options.

Having a division of your company doing quality checks is a way that some companies go because they will have people in place that know the business. They can ask the right questions, they know the systems, and they know the people. So when they find something that is causing some quality issues, they can go to the right person to make the necessary changes. Depending on the size of the company, the head of the company might be able to save time and resources by adding these duties onto the current duties an associate had.

When a company decides to go with an outside company to do their quality checks, they are ensuring a couple of things happen. One thing is that they know the outside company will be fair and stick with the facts. Their opinion will not be compromised because they know the company or they know the people that their reports could potentially affect. The other thing they ensure happen is that all the reports and assessments will be done correctly, accurately, and they will not be distracted. When hiring an outside source, this is what they specialize in. They are not trying to perform multiple tasks within the same workweek that are not related to each other.

Your company has to make the right decision and hire a company or create a division that can ensure the quality of their products and service. No CEO or president of a business wants to be blindsided by negative customer comments that can in turn affect the stock prices. Every company that is considered a top company has some sort of quality assurance program to ensure things are running smoothly. Do you have a system in place to check your quality?

Tweet This Post 

All organizations from Etobicoke storage to Saskatoon electricians employ a wide range of scientific measures to ensure quality assurance also known as QA so that their customers are happy and satisfied with the quality of their products and services. Since majority of businesses are short-staffed, QA responsibilities are generally handed over to established market research companies. Such companies adopt several different techniques to determine how the company scores on quality issues.

QA Techniques

Ensuring QA is not an easy task. It requires the use of several methods to evaluate awareness of factors that constitute good customer service, to understand the fundamental principles of quality improvement, to recognize the significance of value and to discover innovative ways of improving quality processes at all organizational levels. Quality assurance thus demands using the proven principle of management decisions based on real-time facts. The ultimate goal of QA is to incorporate these principles and ideas into the company culture.

QA techniques refer to the deployment, development and maintenance of all systems associated with quality-enhancing business processes geared towards total quality management. It thus fosters a strategic approach focused on boosting a continuous course of incremental quality enhancements. QA methods also serve to establish a collaborative culture among different departments within an organization. In short, QA is basically a cultural initiative and an innovative style of management.

QA Processes

Quality assurance deploys several proven processes – the most popular one being mystery shopping. In this method, a trained QA professional – pretending to be a genuine shopper – visits a business outlet and casually examines the products, services and customer service factors. Since the employees at the outlet remain unaware of the real identity of this shopper, they behave as naturally as they normally do. In the meanwhile, the QA professional closely studies the attitude and approach of the business and makes mental notes of the quality aspects. Some mystery shoppers may even secretly record conversations within the outlet for later research.

Another popular QA technique is conducting customer surveys. Here, the QA professional interviews customers with a carefully researched and compiled set of questions related to the quality of products and services offered by the company. The responses of customers help the company in understanding customer requirements better and determining the areas that need improvement.

QA Advantages

The main advantage of QA methods is that they educate the company on the expectations of the customers and on how the company rates in terms of quality. This awareness helps the company determine the best ways to bring about changes that would ensure quality at all organizational levels. Results of analysis and testing protocols for QA offer a real documentation of customer needs when compared to a vague assumption by the company.

QA results also clarify what aspects the customers are happy about and what changes the customers expect in other aspects. If customers appear satisfied with a particular aspect of a product or service, the company must make all efforts to ensure that the particular quality aspect remains steady. On the other hand, if some areas demand improvement, the company must be willing to make necessary changes at the earliest. Improvements introduced may involve redesigning a product, value-additions to the existing services or even QA initiatives like improving the customer service provided by particular personnel at a store.

Today, there are plenty of established QA market research companies that offer excellent services of ensuring QA on behalf of other companies. In addition to evaluating the quality of a business, these companies also analyze competition and offer training programs.

Tweet This Post