Quality is Home One

July 30th, 2007 categories: Charlotte Area News, Real Estate News

MustangAnyone remember the old Ford Motor Company commercials with the tag-line “Quality is Job One” ? This and the “faddish” quality movement of the late 1980s and 1990s were a movement toward improving quality in American business. Peter Drucker was equivalent to Yoda when it came to quality. What he said was virtually gospel. The TQM (Total Quality Management) movement was THE thing. Companies paid a LOT of money to bring in consultants, send employees to training - you name it.

A key phrase that always seemed to be preached in these training sessions was “..exceeding customer expectations…” Tom Peters became rich with his “In Search of Excellence” books about companies that did just this. I, personally, loved these theories, books, etc. It always struck me as almost common-sense, but I found myself getting really jazzed hearing the stories of how companies succeeded in these areas.

So where am I going with this? Well, it’s been a concern of mine lately that the teachings of Peters and Drucker are now “out-of-style” When is the last time you heard either of their names mentioned? This past weekend, I was trying to buy an “economical” mattress set for my daughter’s college apartment. My wife and I were heading to a major department store when we saw a local mattress supplier. Being a sales person myself I enjoy watching other sales people at work, and hopefully picking up a few tips. We went in, were met immediately by a young sales guy. He introduced himself, we told him what we were looking for. I was very quickly impressed by his no-nonsense approach. He didn’t try to sell us a high-priced set, didn’t pressure, just provided good solid information.

One major issue we had was that we needed the mattress set delivered to another city about a 2 hour drive from his store, and we needed it delivered on a specific Saturday two weeks away. The sales guy goes over to his computer, comes back and says “..no problem, we can deliver it from one of our other stores in the area..” We are sold, and got to his desk to pay. This is where things broke down.

First he calls the warehouse that his computer told him the mattress would be delivered from. Whoever he spoke to told him it wasn’t that warehouse, it was another one in a different city. He calls that warehouse, and they tell him it is the warehouse he just called. Of course when he explained their computer system told him differently, they were not too concerned. After a few more calls, the best he could get was that “yes, it could be delivered, but only on a Thursday..” The fact that we could not be there to receive the shipment on any Thursday was no concern of theirs. We left with no purchase.

We eventually found an acceptable purchase at another store, but this was after a number of phone calls, and this store did not leave us with a feeling that this mattress set will arrive as promised (stay tuned here…).

I am always concerned with the latest trends in marketing, sales, service, etc. to help me be the best for clients. I’ve wondered for quite a while, now, about why “exceeding expectations..” is not considered a current trend.

This entire episode with the mattress just got me thinking again. I know a lot of companies say they are under pressure from overseas imports, therefore margins are too low to make special deliveries. I know real estate is primarily a service business, but I started thinking about the supporting cast that is involved in a sales transaction. The banks, attorneys, inspectors, repair-people, and on and on. I can quickly see myself in the mattress sales person. Know matter how well you do your up-front job, there is a entire cast of characters that can drop the ball, and I see now, often don’t care.

So what is my point? A few thoughts come to mind:

  • I still firmly believe in exceeding customer expectations. I really don’t care about the “economics” of driving across town to meet a contractor for a customer.
  • It bothers me that there seems to always be this uneasiness, that a ball will get dropped by someone during the real estate sales process. If you are constantly on top of people there is the perception that you are a control-freak. I think I’ll be okay with that label.
  • The age-old adage of building a team of good people around you seems more important than ever - perhaps vital?

Wow…I sooooo don’t want to sound preachy or like I have this all figured out, but it just seems to me something is missing in today’s market. Anyone else have similar thoughts?

This entry was posted on Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 6:01 pm and is filed under Charlotte Area News, Real Estate News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  2. Diana Blue Says:
    August 9th, 2007 at 7:06 pm

    From one control freak to another: keep up the good work! The crew is only as strong as it’s weakest link, and we have to do our best captain. Row on…

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