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The product quality bar is where you have a diverse set of products in your company sorted by company and by product type and by client type and you define exactly what the quality target you need to hit on those items is. If you took products in the HR industry, for instance payroll or workers’ comp benefits, the issue is not what clients say the quality needs to be, it’s the actions those clients take at different levels of quality. So the quality bar refers to what a client would leave for, what a client would stay for and what a client would pay for – all of which is organized by product line.

The best-of-breed clients segment their clients. It could be that you segment your clients by size, or by the type of business, or whatever makes sense in your client base to segment your clients. Then, within that client base, you take your products and define what is the quality bar you need to hit by client and by product, and then relentlessly measure what factors cause actions you desire and actions you don’t. Tracking things that way gives you exquisite focus around the current state, the desired state and what must be done to close the gap between the two. Best-of-breed companies manage to the gap in the quality bar at all times, which is why they have better client retention and why they retain revenue.