The product-purchase experience

ANY MARKETER WITH EXPERIENCE AND WITS about him knows that a winning recipe in the kitchen or prize product from the pilot plant can fail for reasons unrelated to the product concept or even its delivery. Furthermore, product quality may tumble precipitously after the product has traveled through the distribution channels for a month or two.

Don't minimize this matter of quality variability! A product purchased in the store may little resemble the product fresh off the line. Certainly, quality runs the gauntlet from the rigors of the process, the distribution chain, a retailer's handling, or a consumer blunder. Every product on your roster should be "real world" tested.

One way to do that is through a quality audit, which has become familiar practice with companies like Kraft, Tropicana, Nestle USA and General Mills. How valuable can the practice be? Several years back, RQA Inc. a Darien, Ill.-based company providing such service, earned "Supplier of the Year" honors from beverage giant, Ocean Spray for this service.

RQA-the company acronym derives from its service of "retail quality assurance"-has expanded its large base of work with American food and beverage manufacturers to global service as companies grow more sophisticated in their understanding of the roots of failure and success.

"Retail quality audit data is used for marketing assessments, competitive benchmarking and quality assurance. We'll evaluate package and product quality, age, shelf displays ...you name the variable," says Mary Ann Platt, executive vice president of RQA Inc..

"The product may also undergo extensive laboratory testing to determine changes in quality and taste characteristics. We often buy product from different processing operations at supermarkets in different regions of the country to determine plant variability."

"We also find that taste perceptions change with age," says Platt. "Sometimes it's a shelf-life issue. Is the flavor of a six-month-old product as good as that of a month-old product? You need to know what happens to your product and how the consumer really experiences it."

"Quality audits give us the extension of looking at a product as it is when the consumer purchases it," says Karl Hoppe, senior manager, quality assurance, of Tropicana Products Co., based in Bradenton, Fla. "It allows us to extend our quality monitoring after the product has left our plants. It's an extension of the diligence we do while the product is within our control."

Quality tests may simulate what happens to a product in the distribution chain. Taste and quality inside the package are not the only factors measured. Visual appearance and packaging may have equal impact on purchase. Are there leaks in the package? Is a label on straight? RQA assists the effort by retrieving samples and performing analytical tests.

"The quality audit lets us see our product as the consumer does," says Nancy Hornbrook, senior quality engineer for General Mills' Big G Cereals division, quality audits, "We see what consumers really are getting. It is another tool." Hornbrook says RQA helps extend awareness of product in the marketplace and what happens to that product over time. With smaller staffs burdened with greater demands, the service plays a bigger role than ever, helping to match product data with store impact.

Frequently, clients will couple quality audits with product pick-ups in regional tests of 1,000 to 2,000 consumers for sensory evaluation. "We correlate consumer response with our analytical work," says Platt. Such tests may disclose regional consumer preferences and special product formulations for consumers in those areas.

Provided by: RQA, Inc., International Retail Quality Assurance & Retrievals