In order to organize their operations and guide them towards their objectives, companies usually choose a management model. But be careful: the management model should not be confused with strategy .

If the strategy has to do with defining the future, the management model is the way in which that future is achieved .

The management model that we recommend using in online stores is that of total quality and continuous improvement . Let’s see what this is about.

Total quality and continuous improvement

The model intends to generate a chain reaction: quality, productivity, cost reduction, market conquest.

Quality is given by the set of attributes of a product  that give it the ability to satisfy the needs of the consumer. The product that a customer expects to receive in an online store is usually made up of the following attributes:

• product itself.
• Communication and customer service .
• Logistics .
• After sales services.

If the person does not experience satisfaction in any of those characteristics or attributes, then the quality will worsen. This means a bad consumer experience.

We call the voice of the client the representation of these demands through concrete expressions and keywords.

The voice of the customer can be contrasted with the company’s internal data to evaluate the performance of your processes. These internal data are represented by indicators and make up what we can call the voice of the process .

For example, if the voice of the customer tells you regarding logistics: “I need the fastest delivery”, one of the indicators that you have to look at in the voice of the process will be the “Average days of delivery”. Perhaps the processes that interfere in this indicator are the production of the good, order processing, etc.

If you focus on improving your processes related to the main attributes for quality, you will improve your productivity and customer satisfaction .

Thus, the model ensures that by focusing on product quality , in its broadest sense, productivity will be improved and costs reduced .

This can be seen in the following example: if the product was not what the customer expected or arrived defective,  what is known in ecommerce as reverse logistics will occur . This is the work that has to do with attending to the claim and making the return, causing expenses in administration and logistics.

If management is focused on total quality, these events will occur less frequently and costs will drop.

If you improve quality, the conquest of the market will come naturally.

An excellent user shopping experience can make them buy from you again and surely recommend your brand.

In turn, the reduction of costs will give you the possibility of lowering the price, occupying market segments that were controlled by your competitors.

Although we mentioned that it is given by the attributes of a product, quality is found throughout the organization and is considered a cultural change focused on reducing waste and achieving total quality.

And the continuous improvement?

Continuous improvement is a process approach, an attitude that involves the entire organization  and that should be promoted by brand owners.

Fostering teamwork, change and permanent learning are the keys to continuous improvement.

It is often applied a lot in digital marketing , where we find the following stages that are constantly repeated:

• Plan: for example, increase sales by 30%.
• Implement : Through a campaign in  Google Ads .
• Measure : what happens with the ads that have a click through rate (or CTR – number of clicks that a link gets with respect to its number of impressions-) of 15% (lower than expected)?
• Fix – Maybe it can be fixed by adding negative keywords.

Then you have to plan, implement, measure and correct again and again in this intention to make the processes more efficient and constantly learn from the environment.