Beyond Product Quality Investment

Satisfaction research and investment is not without its opposition. There are some that believe that companies should invest more in other aspects of their business, rather than focus their attention on the satisfaction of employees and customers. Some researchers believe that instead of satisfaction, the majority of all companies should invest in product quality, with the expectation that both employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction are directly linked to product quality.

Yet there are several problems with the idea that these are so closely linked that other satisfaction efforts don’t matter. Some of these include: Returning Investment to Employees Even the opposition of satisfaction research understands that a great product doesn’t necessarily improve employee satisfaction. Instead, they believe that the increased revenue for the company will improve employee satisfaction.

However, this assumes one thing that most companies are unwilling to do: that companies will distribute their profits amongst the employees. Very few companies are willing to spread the wealth in a way that will contribute to greater satisfaction levels. Most companies want to earn some revenue, and some have a greater responsibility to shareholders.

Low level employees, especially, rarely see much benefit from an improved product quality. Becoming the Perfect Product is Subjective and Uneasy While it would be great if companies could easily create the perfect product, there is a lot of subjectivity as to what truly makes a “great product.” Companies can invest millions into developing the perfect product, but they may not be able to completely compete with their competitors or they may easily make a wrong turn. If that happens, not only will the product suffer, but the employees and customers will still be left unsatisfied.

Contributing Factors to Satisfaction Many companies have far more factors that are going to contribute to satisfaction that could affect the company’s success. For example, for employees to see a bump in satisfaction, customers must spend more money.

But in jobs that have significant person to person contact with employees, the employee may at the present time be unsatisfied, treat the customer poorly, and eventually turn the customer off buying the product despite the increased quality. This is just one example of other satisfaction factors that are not going to be addressed by targeting product quality alone. These represent just a few of the possible problems with the idea that investing solely in product quality is going to affect other aspects of satisfaction.

Is there likely a link? Absolutely.

But one shouldn’t assume that focusing on one while ignoring the others is going to be effective.