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Are You Cheap Or Nasty

15 February, 2010 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

You get what you pay for

Product quality and cost are correlated; “you get what you pay for”.

It is easy to cut costs, just reduce the quality of what you offer:
1.  Take longer to answer the phone
2.  Close the local branch
3.  Supply Spam instead of Ham

Unfortunately the customer wants what the customer wants:

  • If you give them too little they will cost you money, becoming unreasonable, complaining, phoning back and leaving you.
  • If you give them too much they will cost you money, taking your offer without a word of thanks and expecting it next time.

So the cheapest you can be is when you give the customer exactly what they want, when they want it.  Nothing more and nothing less.

Being cheap is hard work, but it is better than being nasty.

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Image by AJ Cann

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: cost saving, cost versus quality

About the Author

James Lawther
James Lawther

James Lawther is a middle-aged, middle manager.

To reach this highly elevated position he has worked in numerous industries, from supermarket retailing to tax collecting.  He has had several operational roles, including running the night shift in a frozen pea packing factory and carrying out operational research for a credit card company.

As you can see from his C.V. he has either a wealth of experience or is incapable of holding down a job.  If the latter is true this post isn’t worth a minute of your attention.

Unfortunately, the only way to find out is to read it and decide for yourself.

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