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Just as important, consumers are noticing a difference. In a TIME/CNN poll of 1,000 adults conducted last week by Yankelovich Clancy Shulman, 52% of the consumers surveyed said they believe the quality of U.S. products has improved in the past five years; 30% said American goods stayed the same, and only 15% said they had grown worse. A majority of respondents said U.S. companies are making better clothing, appliances and telephones than their foreign rivals. But only 44% feel the same way about U.S.-brand autos.
While the survey reflected confidence in American products, it underscored the sentiment that "Made in Japan" has become as sterling a recommendation as the Good Housekeeping seal. Asked to rate a country's general quality of goods, 94% rated U.S. products good or very good, compared with 85% for Japan and 64% for West Germany. But Japan had the most devoted core of U.S. consumers, with 42% placing the country's products in the very good category, compared with 38% for the U.S. and 28% for West Germany.
The welcome mat for foreign goods was laid down by American companies amid the heady postwar growth of the U.S. economy. During the 1950s and 1960s, demand for U.S. consumer products was growing so rapidly that many American companies cut corners on quality. All too soon, car door handles started falling off, clothing came apart at the seams, and television sets burned out. The backlash began as early as 1960, when TIME reported, "Buyers loudly complain that familiar products are just not so good as they used to be -- and the figures tend to bear them out." Recalls Robert Stempel, president of General Motors: "We used to talk about 'commercial quality,' which meant that you expected to have a certain amount of defects."
Today that philosophy is dead. Says Stempel: "We have seen what better- quality competition can do to you. We are building cars now that we wouldn't even have thought about building ten years ago." American consumers dictated the changes. Faced with an expanding array of choices, buyers began demanding not only greater reliability but also excellence in technical innovation and design. American consumers learned to appreciate the fine points: the solid sound of a BMW door closing, the brilliant clarity of a Sony Trinitron, the tiny bubbles of San Pellegrino water.
At the same time, changing American life-styles helped boost demand for quality. Now that both husband and wife in most families work outside the home, no one has time to hang around repair shops. Says Feigenbaum: "Busy people are intensely frustrated when something doesn't work right. They will not buy your products -- any of your products -- again." In the TIME/CNN survey, consumers were almost unanimous in saying that the most essential quality of a product is its ability to function as promised, closely followed by durability and ease of repair. Attractive design and technical innovation were important to most consumers too but were secondary considerations to the basic demand that a product be just plain reliable.