Today, it seems obvious that the key to manufacturing or developing a high-quality and successful product or service lies in the level of customer satisfaction.
But, strangely though, we can still find companies whose main purpose revolves only around selling their products or services, according to their own preferences and convenience and with little regard to the real needs and wishes of their clients.
Quality And Ease Of Use
To manufacture a successful product or provide high-quality service, software companies should meet the buyers´ expectations. No doubt, many organizations around the world, and especially in the West, have realized that implementing a quality policy that brings about continuous improvements and promotes customer satisfaction, is essential to reach that goal.
These rules also apply to the software manufacturing sector. Any software development process should be clearly in line with the end-users´ opinions and wishes. For this reason, maintaining an active relationship with the end users of the product or service via regular communication is of great help when it comes to identifying current market needs.
Likewise, it stands to reason that an adequate program design that makes it easy and flexible to work with, greatly improves the day to day productivity level of its users and minimizes, among other aspects, the time users need to understand the program. For this reason, the goal to be pursued by any software company, especially in the field of document management software, is to develop simple and easy-to-use tools. As such, active communication within the company is of great importance to ensure that the development team is aware of the market’s needs.
Main advantages
Developing end-user focused software offers a number of advantages, such as the value added to the product, which differentiates the software from competitors’ products. Knowing what the users expect and what their needs are, helps programmers to succeed in their objectives. Detecting design errors in later stages of the process incurs large costs. However, when the initial design is right, these errors are limited and the costs related to the initial investment are reduced, which is vital for companies. Maintaining active communication channels between the development department and the end user ensures that there is sufficient time to remedy uncovered customer needs. In addition, intuitive interfaces that allows users to easily manage the applications means that the time needed to learn how to work with the program is minimized. Moreover, these types of interfaces are easily adaptable to any end-user profile. And finally, consumer loyalty is another aspect that will enhance, as satisfied customers will recommend the product to other potential customers and tend to stay loyal to the brand.
In short, focusing on customer satisfaction is, without a doubt, giving the end users what they want, as it is the end user who sets the tone for the company´s evolution and that of its products.
Julio A. Olivares
DocPath CEO