Quality and Service - Yeah, Right!

One of the critical drivers of business success is having a unique competitive advantage. Most managers understand that to attract a larger share of the market, or find enough customers prepared to pay a premium price, they must provide something of greater value than their competition. For most managers, competitive advantage boils down to providing superior quality and service. Think about it. Is this what you are aiming for?

Now, striving for quality and service sounds to me like what Americans call "motherhood and apple pie." The purity of these things has an appeal that you can't argue with. But I have a problem with the concept. You see, whenever I ask my clients what their competitive advantage is, realizing that there can be only one "cheapest" competitor, they almost invariably tell me that it is quality and service. The trouble I have with that is, if everyone provides quality and service, where is the competitive advantage?

The problem with just saying quality and service is that the concepts are too vague. Think about it. Can you give me a definition of the word "quality"? It's not that easy is it. There is something intangible about "quality" because it is a relative term. When I ask my clients what they mean by "quality" or "service," they have the same difficulty. The danger is that their idea of quality is something less than their customer's. Unless you can define exactly what "quality" and "service" means to your customers, you don't have a tangible competitive advantage.

What does "quality" mean for your product or service? How is that different from any of your competitors? You need to get very specific. Merely generalising about quality and service doesn't give customer's anything to go on. Can you prove your product is better, stronger, faster, more reliable? Just presenting quality and service in general terms isn't enough to demonstrate a clear competitive advantage. Customers don't believe vague claims and they don't believe you, unless you can back up your statement with irrefutable facts. The same goes for service. What does better service mean?

Is it faster, more personal, more user friendly? How can you support your claims?

Whether you use these statements in your advertising or selling situations, statements that are specific and verifiable will always be more believable and therefore more effective, than vague generalizations. So if you promote your product or service on the basis of superior quality, start working on defining exactly why it is superior and provide measurable proof of its superiority. This will achieve one of two things. First, you may find out that your product or service isn't really that much different or better than your competitor. That's OK. At least you now know and can get to work on finding out how to make it superior. Secondly, if you can define your superiority and provide measurable proof, now you really have a competitive advantage which gives you a unique selling proposition to advertise.

Look at the following claims. "Our product is the best on the market." Or. "Our product was shown in scientific trials to be 37% more effective in ?.. than competing products." Which do you think would be more effective in advertising?

If you can't test your product or service to measure its superiority, you can provide independent verification of your claims in other ways. For example, using client testimonials is a very effective way of overcoming customer skepticism. When independent people talk about your product or service in a positive way, describing the benefits they have received, it is much more believable than when you say the same things yourself. It is even better if your customer is specific .

So, what is your competitive advantage? Don't say quality and service. That just doesn't mean anything to your market. Get specific, get the facts and be believable. Then use that unique selling proposition in all your promotions and selling activities to drive home your competitive advantage. You'll see a difference in your results that makes it worth the effort.

Greg Roworth is the Managing Director of Progressive Business Solutions Limited, a business development consultancy firm with branches in Wellington and Auckland, New Zealand. Greg has created a unique business development program that assists business owners transform their business from a state of total dependency on them to a state where the business works so well they don't have to.

Greg is also the author of "The 7 Keys to Unlock Your Business Profit Potential," which descibes the fundamental keys a business needs to achieve this transformation. Find out more, get 2 free chapters, or buy the book online at http://www.small-business-success.ws

MORE RESOURCES:

RELATED ARTICLES

Self-Marketing: The I Focus
Ever had one of those conversations where you wondered what the topic was and the only word you could identify was "I"?As a marketer, I often recommend marketing yourself. However, there comes a point, rather quickly in any conversation when the other person tires of hearing "I".

Is Your Logo Helping or Hurting Your Business?
The quality of your logo can mean the difference between success or failure. It can be that simple!Trademarks and Logos make up the most international language in the world.

Optimize Your Mailing List For Better Results
A list of customers who have previously bought from you is your most important asset. These are the customers who will provide you with return business, which is more profitable than the first sale.

Not So Stationary Stationery
The elements and functionality of the basic stationery system is changing. With the advent of email, fax, web and cell phones, stationery systems must be adjusted to meet the needs of today's business.

Effective Public Relations Essential for Personal Branding
Move over pop star "Posh Spice" Adams and English soccer hero David Beckham, the personal branding power of newly engaged Australian celebrity sports couple Lleyton Hewitt and Rebecca Cartwright could be worth up to $100 million dollars.In terms of public relations and effective public relations, their media performance this week in both print and television proves they have the potential to become a truly global brand and rival Posh and Becks on the world stage.

Brand Strategy - Brand Identity Guru
If you could have the secret recipe and all the manufacturing facilities of Coca Cola but not the Coca Cola brand-or have its famous brand but no facilities-which would you choose? It's not a trick question. But it demonstrates the power of the brand.

10 Secrets for Free Media Placement
Why pay a high priced PR agent when you can get free media placement to promote your product, service, or book?Follow these top ten tips for 2005 and it will be your most profitable year yet!1. Write an attention grabbing headline.

The Secrets of Starting Business Successfully
Starting Business Secrets will help you to start your own business successfully. The American Dream is, and always will be, to come up with an idea, start a business and become rich from your own efforts.

When Search Engine Marketing and Trademarks Collide
In the world of marketing, branding issues are always an important part of any campaign. Companies work hard for their name to be recognized as a quality organization and a leader in their field.

A Successful Failure
A successfully positioned business sometimes doesn't win a new client. And that, my friend, is the point.

Strategy and Tips for a Successful Logo Design
Visual processing is the most important way for gathering information for all human beings. A good design or graphics work is remembered for ages and that is what drives the multinational companies to spend millions of dollars on developing their logo and other branding material.

Brand Name Identity in the Oil Business
I submit to you that Brand Name Identity in the Oil Business is just a important today as it was when Mobil Oil and McDonalds were building their brands. Perhaps in the future it may even be more so.

Brand Image - Brand Identity - Brand Strategy - Brand Identity Guru
Consumers perceive and accept many brands within a certain trade group in different ways. By personifying a brand (How would you describe brand X if it were a person?) we can find out, that for instance consumers perceive brand A as a young, impulsive, lively, attractive, energetic woman full of ideas.

The Keys to a Great Logo
Logo, graphic, icon, logotype, typogram, logoform, image?call it what you will, a logo by any other name is the group of letters and/or symbols used in a consistent and unique way to identify a company. It is the most prominent and stable element of marketing, and should be planned carefully to fully reflect your brand.

The Role of a Visual Vocabulary in Brand Identity Design
Visual elements are a major part of your business's brand identity design. The keystone of that design is the logo, but in many cases, the logo isn't enough to convey all of your brand attributes.

All About Branding
In this article i will explain how you can make your brand an succes.Corporate branding.

Britney Spears Branding
How would you like to sell as much in one year as Britney sells in one day or in one hour? Have you put much thought into how marketing empires are created? If you're selling anything then you're a marketer and you should study the biggest successes to follow in their footsteps.We've all heard of branding, but do you do it? Have you branded yourself? If you have, are you expanding your marketing opportunities with your brand?Once you've created a name, built successful marketing campaigns and gotten people to know and like who you and your company are don't stop there.

Im Just Starting, Why Do I Need a Logo Design?
Businesses eager to open often give little thought to their identity. With so much to get done, designing an appropriate logo hardly seems like a top priority.

What is Private Franchising? It is Nothing Someone Made It Up
The Federal Trade Commission has an obligation to the general public, their stated consumer education mission and to the over regulated franchising industry and the small business operators running Biz Ops to separate the two business models by way of legal definition. Any failure to completely separate them will trigger additional problems down the road and cause the current on-going process of rule review to continue, without any formalization for decades.

McDonalds Supply Chain of Potatoes
McDonald's buys its potatoes from corporate farmers in Idaho not the commodities market; therefore it limits its exposure to price gouging that might have occurred by using the commodity exchange to get those potatoes. Starbucks is doing the same thing, but instead of having partnerships and coffee beans, they are all of in-house.