We all have needs, requirements, wants,
expectations and desires. Needs are essential for life, to maintain certain standards or essential for products and services to fulfil the purpose for which they have been acquired. Requirements are what we request of others and may encompass our needs but often we don't fully realize what we need until after we have made our request. For example, now that we own a mobile phone we
later discover we need hands free
operation while driving and didn't
think to ask at the time of
purchase. Hence our requirements at the moment of sale may or may not express all our needs. Our requirements may include wants - what we would like to have but
its not practical.
For example, we want a cheap
computer but we need a top of the
range model for what we need it
for. Expectations are implied needs or requirements. They have not
been requested because we take them for granted - we regard them to be understood within our particular society as the accepted norm. They may be things to which we are accustomed based on fashion, style, trends or previous experience. Hence one expects sales staff to be polite and courteous, electronic products to be safe and reliable,
food to be fresh and uncontaminated, tap water to be potable, policemen to be honest
and people or organizations to do what they promise to do.
In particular we expect goods and
services to comply with the
relevant laws of the country of
sale and expect the supplier to
know which laws apply. Desires are our
innermost feelings about ourselves and our surroundings, what we would
like most.
In supplying products or services there are three fundamental parameters which determine their
saleability or usability. They are price, quality and delivery. Customers require products and services of a given quality to be delivered by or be available by a given time and to be of a price which reflects value for money. These are the requirements of customers. An organization will survive only if it creates and retains satisfied customers and this will only be achieved if it offers for sale products or services which respond to customer needs, expectations,
requirements and desires. Whilst price is a function of cost, profit margin and market forces and delivery is a function of the organization’s efficiency and effectiveness, quality is determined by the extent to which a product or service successfully
meets the expectations, needs and requirements of the user during usage (not just at the point of sale).
The inherent characteristics of a product or service created to
satisfy customer needs, expectations and requirements are quality
characteristics. Physical and functional characteristics such as weight,
shape, speed, capacity, reliability, portability, taste etc. Price and delivery are
assigned characteristics and not inherent
characteristics of a product or service and are both transient features whereas the impact of quality is sustained long after the attraction or the pain of price and delivery has subsided.
Quality characteristics that are defined in a
specification are quality requirements and
hence any technical specification for a product or service that is intended to
reflect customer expectations, needs and requirements is a quality
requirement, Most people simply
regard such requirements as
product or service requirements
and calling them 'quality'
requirements introduces potential
for misunderstanding.
|
