7.06.2011

Perceived Quality and Market Share

Last week, I had a phone conversation with Robert Fantina, co-author of the recently released book, Your Customers' Perception of Quality: What It Means to Your Bottom Line and How to Control It, about customers' buying habits and what they consider value-adds. Many attendees at conferences I attend often state that their companies' products and services are of very high quality, yet they struggle to maintain market share. Shouldn't the quality speak for itself? I posed this question to Robert, and here is a summary of his answer:

Unfortunately, many companies do all the right things in terms of quality, including reducing their defects to near zero, eliminating call waiting times, etc., and still struggle to hold onto their customers. Repeatedly, this appears to be because their customers do not perceive them as delivering quality.

High quality in products and services is vital but insufficient; despite high quality, customers may still perceive quality to be inferior. What is causing that perception?

The answers to that question are many and complex. Unfortunately, it appears that a variety of concerns experienced by customers translate in their minds into ‘poor quality.’ For example:


  • A customer that buys a product though a third-party distributor and has problems with that distributor, may view the quality of the product as poor.

  • A customer who loves his/her product, but then struggles to find some information on a difficult-to-navigate website, may begin to view the quality of that product as poor.

  • The company that orders 1,000 widgets, and receives them all individually wrapped, and must discard/recycle all that wrapping, may say that quality is poor.

While it is clear that none of these issues in any way reflects the actual quality of the product, they can influence customers' perception of quality. And if their perception of quality is poor, the actual high-quality of the product is meaningless.


Do any of you suffer from this situation? How did you recover? Have you experienced an instance in which the delivery of a product or service affected its popularity? How did you discover this?

24 comments:

Ben Benjabutr said...

It's possible that marketing doesn't incorporate quality as a selling point when they do marketing campaign.

Logistics Guy said...

Then quality management should involve more with product design issue.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

we´re studying the way people make their judgements about quality with this tool taken from the marketing tools. it is called perception mapping. initially we are doing it qualitatively and we want to know which is the attention area of the product that influences the judgement. it also tells us if its not about the product and it is about something else. what do you think about it ?

dissertationmonster.co.uk said...

This post is awesome! Thanks to the author.

bestresearchpaper.com said...

Writing is pretty good, let me learn a lot. I realize there are many places insufficient!

Learn More said...

Fabulous post! I really enjoyed that!!!

dissertationmojo.co.uk said...

Definitely a Nice piece of work Thanks for your work.

buy a dissertation online said...

This is nice post which I was waiting for such an article and I have gained some useful information from this site.

sewa mobil semarang termurah said...

Amazing, So much wonderful sense can be reflected in this blog, Thanks for sharing

handrywonk said...

A wonderful and unique articles, I love reading and I am always searching for informative information like this! Thank sepatu crocs murah

Anonymous said...

I have really enjoyed reading your blog posts. Any way I'll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you post again soon. http://www.seolos-angeles.com/

Anonymous said...

I really fun with your Blog, I would like more information about this, because it is very nice., Thank You click here

pengolahan air bersih said...

Thanks for posting this. Your blog is so interesting and very informative.Thanks sharing.

Anonymous said...

Very nice post. I just stumbled upon your weblog and wished to say that I have truly enjoyed browsing your weblog posts. www.rental-mobil-solo.net/

Anonymous said...

This is a smart blog. I mean it. You have so much knowledge about this issue, and so much passion tirtawisesa.com

Anonymous said...

I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed reading your blog posts. memebeautyshop.net

Anonymous said...

Nice artcle, very informative....... thanks for sharing . click here

Anonymous said...

Today is Violet Folklore’s 5th anniversary! It was on September 19th, 2008 that Sasha and I, after weeks of talking about how we’d work it all out, plunged forward and set up our Etsy account. We had met at a local herb class the previous year; I remember noticing Sasha right away on the first
www.lincolnmaineusa.com |

http://www.bestof-denver.com |

agencyeden |

www.software4airlines.com |

www.wrwelcomehome.com |

belarusforjournalists.info |

http://www.thedetailsmovie.com |

sdbridgetobenefits |

marchofdimesillinois.org |

pandoraschmuckshop.com |

Unknown said...


To be honest, you are really impressive.This is what we say a good working, an elegant thought
cheap essay writing uk

toko bunga cirebon said...

It is very useful for me. Thank you so much for sharing. Keep your great post.

Unknown said...

Any news about the mod?
http://www.myhouseforkids.com |

http://www.travelodgeauburn.com |

www.wallofdeathworldtour.com |

www.monitoranycomputer.com |

travelodgeauburn.com |

bunga papan bandung said...

I needed to thank you for this excellent information!! Thanks dude

Anonymous said...

I am so much excited after reading your blog. Your blog is very much innovative and much helpful for any industry as well as for person. toko bunga di batam