Consumer - Product Assurance

Consumer-Product Assurance

In 1936, advertising first flooded the mass media. Most consumers didn't know how to make decisions when they facing so many advertise. They lacked a reliable source of information to help them distinguish hype from fact and good products from bad ones. So in this case, consumer-product assurance came into being.

Consumer-product assurance is a service working to put the rights of consumers at the heart of decision-making. It helps people make decisions when they need to buy products. It provides professional services to improve the quality and confidence of decision-making. The organizations which provide assurance service will publish reviews and comparisons of consumer products and services in related magazines or media based on reporting and results from their in-house testing lab or surveys of customer satisfaction, product quality and buyer behavior.

In my opinion, there are four key attributes that comprise assurance services.

1. Independent.

I think this is the most important element of the service. This organization which provides assurance service should be a third party that has no relations with producers and consumers. Therefore, assurance services must be independent.

2. Expert.

As I mentioned before, sometimes organization should conduct some surveys and tests. If they are not expert, could you believe the results of their researches? Of course not, so expert is indispensable to assurance services.

3. Fair.

As the one that our consumers most care about, the assurance services should be fair because they provide services for our consumers and care what we care about.

4. Nonprofit.

Nonprofit can ensure the assurance services be fair and in an unrelated state.

According to these key attributes, we conclude several advantages and disadvantages of these consumer-product assurances.

Advantages

To customers

1. Let customers get more information about products. These three organizations have global marketing information across a variety of industries and provide customer satisfaction research, market research, social media research, and performance improvement programs.

2. Improve confidence of customers. Plenty of information educates customers about how to become smarter in a complex and often confusing marketplace, so that they can buy with confidence.

3. Improve the quality of decision making.

4. Save money and save time. That's the most important reason why customers tend to read these magazines.

5. Reduce purchase risk. Information provided by these three magazines is unbiased and not influenced by government or individual companies. Prevent faulty products reaching the customers.

To companies

1. Invisible advertisement. Good reviews lead to an increase in sales.

2. Stimulate companies to improve products' quality and customer satisfaction. In order to increase sales, companies will try to come up with all kinds of ideas to improve quality of products and meet customer needs.

3. Promote healthy competition.

Disadvantages

To customers: Reviews or errors in the reports may mislead customers. Customers may find the products which they have bought are not so good as described in the reviews. On the contrary, the products which have negative reviews are probably the right choice.

Case: Controversy over child safety seats

The February 2007 issue of Consumer Reports stated that only two of the child safety seats it tested for that issue passed the magazine's side impact tests. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which subsequently retested the seats, found that all those seats passed the corresponding NHTSA tests at the speeds described in the magazine report. The CR article reported that the tests simulated the effects of collisions at 38.5 mph. However, the tests that were completed in fact simulated collisions at 70 mph. CR stated in a letter from its president Jim Guest to its subscribers that it would retest the seats. The article was removed from the CR website, and on January 18, 2007 the organization posted a note on its home page about the misleading tests. Subscribers were also sent a postcard apologizing for the error.

On January 28, 2007, The New York Times published an op-ed from Joan Claybrook, who served on the board of CU from 1982 to 2006 (and was the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from 1977 to 1981), where she discussed the sequence of events leading to the publishing of the erroneous information.

To companies:

1. Negative or untruthful reviews may let companies lose numerous potential customers.

2. Malignant competition. In order to earn more profit, some companies may adopt vicious methods. They hire someone to pretend customers of their adversaries and give negative reviews about adversaries' products.

Case: Sharper Image sued CR

In 2003, Sharper Image sued CR in California for product disparagement, over negative reviews of its Ionic Breeze Quadra air purifier.

In February 2002 issue, CR reported that the Ionic Breeze Quadra air cleaner "proved unimpressive" and that its tests "found almost no measurable reduction in airborne particles." The company complained, maintaining that CR's tests, based on the industry standard for measuring clean-air delivery rate (CADR) were inadequate. Sharper Image replied that the Ionic Breeze