Price speaks!

I think it was a week ago, I saw a TV show about the fact that people relate a bottle's price with quality. The same product, when exposed with a higher price, sold more!

When we arrive at a hotel, and we see the prices of the things in the fridge, we may react in a number of ways:

- if it is much more expensive than in the supermarket: – these people are always trying to explore us! Dammit! I'll go and buy it in the corner's bar!

- if it is free: -they are making too much money with the room rate, otherwise they wouldn't cut us slack like this!

- if it is just a little more expensive than in the supermarket : - cool. These people are serious. They charge a fair price for what they provide!

Is it a good idea selling a bottle of mineral water for an amount three times higher than its regular price, and lose this message?

When a store puts 19.99 on the price tag, it is saying: I'm trying to fool you. I want to complicate your assessment. I'll do the same when I talk about the quality of my products!

I have learned the most delicious story about this game in Argentina. A company found out a way of replacing the copper-clad welding - very expensive - with a wire covered with a layer of colorless protection, much cheaper. The product's performance was practically the same.

If it was released it in the market with a lower price, it would deliver the message that it was an inferior product. The company released it with a price 20% higher than that of the copper-clad (similar to a copper coin), a SILVER ALAMBRE (wire) THAT IS ORO (gold).

It sold very well. A few weeks later, the company lowered the price by 10%. Sales skyrocketed. And the manufacturing cost was much lower than that of the copper-clad...

Personnel satisfaction survey

You need to know if your personnel is satisfied. Either because some are claiming salary raises, or because you are losing people, or because you need to let them know there will be no raise, or because it is said that only satisfied people produce satisfied clients...

Avoid the extensive collection of 60 questions applied every 2 years: use a more practical method, one which provides guidance for simple, necessary and effective actions with more frequent measurements, and which will be part of your routine.

Here comes the question... after all, what does it really mean to be satisfied? The most practical thing is to define satisfaction as the difference between what the person expects (or aspires to have, who knows) and what he or she perceives (feels, receives, believes) to have. It’s about this. It is as simple as that: satisfaction = expectation – perception. And it varies to the extent that expectations evolve (they talked about a raise, didn't they?), or perceptions alter (oh, now I understand how benefits work!)

If it is so, then I just need to seek to know what a person perceives, the things he or she values.

The survey takes 1 minute, I recommend to repeat it every 3 months, and to take the most important actions in the first week after the survey. I've been doing it for more than 20 years. It works. It makes me take important actions, solving problems I didn't even know existed; and it is easy to keep it inn operation, with quarterly control items, on my results chart.

 The image above shows how it works.

Every three months ask supervisors to apply the survey to their subordinates. It is common for all to be in the same room, answer the survey and hand the form in with their names on it; no one keeps any copy or notes on how they responded the survey.

Before handing out the first questionnaire, on a separate copy of the form the supervisor must write down how he or she thinks the subordinate will answer it.

In all surveys the previous one will be used as reference. In the initial survey, the previous one will be his pre-assessment.

The most important actions are originated when dealing with anomalies (strong changes between one survey and the other). In the example above, the biggest difference appeared in the leadership item.