Raising Quality

Your Products and Services

Your products and services

It goes without saying that your products and services are one of the most important aspects of your business. They are also your chance to differentiate yourself from your competitors, and they are the area of your business where you can do the most to meet and exceed your customers' expectations. There will be some overlap with your premises review, since the environment in which people experience your products and services will have an big impact on your customers' overall experience - especially for accommodation, food and many attractions.

Organising your review

As before you'll need to use your planning grid to write your areas and topics on the left, your scoring in the middle and your ideas for change on the right. Obviously, each organisation will have a different list of areas and topics according to the nature of their business. We've included a few topics to consider below, but you will need to think widely about your own products and services.

Consider all your products

Make sure you consider all your products. For example, if you are a B&B clearly your rooms and bathrooms are products, but so are your other public areas, your breakfast, any transport your provide and so on. If you're an attraction you'll have a range of services: the main and minor features of your attraction (you might want to look at these separately), your indoor and outdoor areas, your shop, café and so on.

If you are an activity provider look at your different activities separately as there are bound to be differences in quality of equipment, skill of instructors, appeal to different customer types and so on. Don't forget to include transport.

Food

Many establishments serve food as part of their products and services and for cafes and restaurants obviously this is their main offering. Food is valued very highly by all customers - even when the main reason for visiting or buying products and services is something else like business, culture or activities. It is one of the ways we treat and comfort ourselves, differentiate our leisure time from our routine time and also one of the ways we explore a region, and feel we have had a 'local' experience. Food tourism (people travelling and staying for the primary purpose of experiencing food) has seen a huge increase in recent years.

Quality improvements

Don't forget the whole purpose of making the review is to generate quality ideas. What else could you be doing? If you're a self-catering business could you source quality local food packs as an optional purchase? Could you provide details of nearby good take-away services (especially any that deliver). If you're a serviced provider could you make available recommendations for nearby places to eat (one establishment I stayed at had a folder of menus from nearby eating places and each had a page attached where guests who had eaten there could write comments).

If you're an activity provider do your sessions meet all your customer and potential customer types? Could you offer shorter or longer sessions, or particular skill levels? If customers come back to you for a second or third visit, can you keep them amused and keep stretching them? Have you done everything to make the changing and transport facilities as comfortable and clean as possible? Is there somewhere for customers to safely leave valuables? Can you take pictures or videos for them? Are your staff entertaining, as well as instructive?

Next step in this topic:

• Your business management

Or return to Making a Quality Plan