A Need for Survival

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Authors: Sanjib Dutta & Anil Kumar Kartham,
Senior Faculty Member, Faculty Associate,
ICMR (IBS Center for Management Research).

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Serving the 'King' Contd...

Time and again, it has been proved that 'retaining an existing customer is always more profitable than creating a new one'. Laura Michaud (Laura), president of The Michaud Group and the author of the book From the Kitchen Table to the Conference Table: Family Business Communication, also feels, "We know it is much more costly to establish business with an unknown prospect than to continue to do business with your existing customers." Let us put it very simple and straight, 'if you like flowers you don't throw out the seeds". Here customers are the seeds which will blossom as flowers for the company in the time to come/long run.

Customer loyalty is achieved through the long-term relationships built over time and this is very critical for any organization. Understanding the customers' needs and anticipating what is that they require will give the competitive edge. Sending a feedback questionnaire to the clients/customers on how they would like to be served, gives an impression to the customers that the company cares for them. Here one to one marketing serves as the best option. One to one marketing occurs when there is a direct interaction between the company and the customer and the company can change the market customer equation based on that interaction.

An important thing to be remembered is instead of asking the customers about the quality of the product/service, the company can ask them for suggestions/improvements. This will please the customers and also the company will get to know what is lacking from their side. Many hotels and restaurants are following this type of method in order to make their customers more loyal towards them.

Customers feel delighted when they are offered some features they have not expected. Tucker also feels that the key for today's companies is to innovate, i.e. come up with added value/features in products based on the needs of the customers. The key here is to exceed the customer's expectation as serving a customer is no more an easy game today.

Today, customer's needs and wants have touched rocket heights and so you have to continuously match their standards. Customer satisfaction no more serves the purpose rather customer delight does. When it comes to serving customers online, there are some state-of-the-art tools and techniques which make the online customers happier.

These tools can be self-service, personalization, online consultancy, online training and rich content on the web. These things vary from low involvement and high involvement customer service as well as the relationship with the customers. Failing to delight the customers will lead the companies to the sad stories of Coca Cola, Marlboro, Revlon to name a few, the companies which lost majority of their market share due to sheer complacency.

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