4.2 Quality of goods and services GapFill

Quality is important to customers. In particular they require it to be  highvariedconsistentlow so that whenever they buy from the business, they know what to expect. Quality standards for products will vary; for example, the quality (and price) of a supermarket own-brand pair of trainers will be lower than a pair of trainers from Nike. However, customers know what they will get for their money. In order to make sure customers always get what they expect, many businesses use  Ltdquality circlesPlcTotal Quality Management (TQM) when manufacturing their products. This helps to maintain their  advertisingcostsreputationbreak-even point and encourage customers to buy from them again.

A further benefit of maintaining quality standards is  fewer salesmore salesmore costless cost, but there is very likely to be an increased cost for  staff trainingopening timesadvertisingpremises. Businesses may choose to buy part-made products and other raw materials from a range of suppliers. It may be difficult to  requiredecideenquireensure the quality standard required from them. Customers only see the finished product and the name of the business they have bought it from. They could blame the business for a problem created by a supplier, and choose not to buy there again. If the business decides to expand through  franchisingorganic growthinorganic growthadvertising, it must ensure quality standards are still maintained as, again, customers believe they are buying from the business itself. 

Issuing  a special offeran advertisementa press releasea product recall due to quality issues will damage the reputation of the business. However, the consequences of not doing so could be very serious.