Value for money

Given the choice, customers prefer to pay less than more and look for a good deal, which is a healthy habit. Shopping around before making a decision to buy something is wise. Going for the cheaper option or bargaining for the last possible price doesn’t always pay off though. I have learnt that going for the cheaper option often makes me have to go back and that I have to buy another brand after all as good and cheap don’t always go together. Customers will do well to inform themselves about the products and services they are buying, comparing prices and quality. Quality that lasts may be cheaper in the end. Electric appliances are a good example. There are many different kinds of dividers available in the shops and the prices also differ considerably. The cheaper one is guaranteed to fail though with the sockets not firmly holding the plugs, resulting in loose connections and sometimes dangerous situations. The same is true for many other imported items, which may be relatively cheap but are of low quality, like lights for example, or bathroom appliances and construction materials in general. Many houses and buildings are designed well but poorly finished with materials that don’t last long and need to be repaired or replaced sooner than later. Locally produced items often don’t meet high quality standards either, with cupboards and sinks for example finished off poorly and crooked. Similarly, in the service industry it often doesn’t pay to go for the cheaper option either, like when hiring consultants or technicians for example. That is not to say that the more expensive ones will automatically deliver better services, not at all. But it will pay to double check references and to make clear arrangements before closing the deal.
So customers have a responsibility themselves to make an informed decision before pulling out their wallet or signing a cheque.
On the other hand, business owners have a responsibility to deliver quality products and services to their clients. If they want their clients to come back that is. In an open market economy with competition to deal with, it is especially important to find the right balance between the quality of the products and services offered and the price charged to the customer. A simple reasoning is that quality sells and customers will come back for more, even at a higher price. Poor quality on the other hand leads to disappointment and customers will stay away. It is surprising though how often business owners try and cut down on quality and risk leaving customers dissatisfied. A few weeks ago for example, I went to a restaurant, known for its Ethiopian cuisine. One of the dishes we ordered was cabbage (“gomen”), the leaves of which are often cooked and mixed with meat. Instead of the leaves of the vegetable though, we were offered more of the stem and shoots of the plant instead. Most of it was left as it was and so we ended up paying for something that is normally thrown away. I thought of it is greediness on the part of the restaurant owner. I mean, it is not difficult to make a profit on food items in a restaurant here, as ingredients and the labour costs of the cooks and waiters are relatively cheap. It is the presentation, ambience and service that make it worth its while for people to go and eat in a restaurant. For the restaurant to cut down on quality in this way is close to being greedy to customers and very unnecessary.
Consistency comes in here as well. I have observed many times that a new restaurant is very popular for a while, after which there is a sudden decline in attendance. Why is this so? The usual answer is that the quality and service have gone down. Why not maintain and improve on the service all the time and offer new choices on the menu? People get exited by variety not by routine. Keep up the standard and consistently seek for ways to improve. Customers will come back to check out what is new. Sometimes I suspect though that people open a business as they have noticed that there is profit to be made in that certain sector, but they don’t really have what it takes to run that kind of business properly. They may not have the required knowledge and the skills or taken the effort to be trained in the specifics of their new business, the operations of equipment and their maintenance. I know of examples, whereby investors recognised the opportunities in a specific sector and bought the equipment to manufacture the goods. However, factors related to the different altitude, temperatures, humidity, availability of raw materials, etc., caused the equipment not to function optimally. As a result the machines are now standing idle. My advice is to acquaint yourself well enough before starting a new business. Alternatively, hire experts to support you here and have your staff trained. With the millennium hype buzzing around town and many hotels and guesthouses in the making, I hope their owners will know how to run them properly and provide value for money to their visitors instead of leaving them disillusioned about what Ethiopia has to offer in the hospitality industry.
There is of course also the other side of the coin. Do we as customers appreciate what it takes to manufacture quality goods in Ethiopia? It is not easy, when you have to compete with all kinds of cheaper, sometimes low quality imported products. If we seriously want our local manufacturers to develop and grow in this era of globalization, they need support. In that spirit we can invest in our local producers, paying fair prices, so they can maintain and improve their quality and offer value for money. Value for money will pay in the end, both for the client and service provider, while low quality will cost and so cheap becomes expensive instead.