A Need for Survival
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Authors
Authors: Sanjib Dutta & Anil Kumar Kartham,
Senior Faculty Member, Faculty Associate,
ICMR (IBS Center for Management Research).
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How to Retain Customers and Provide the Better Service Contd...
Laura opines "It is extremely important to keep in touch with your competitors on a regular basis and keep them loyal to you. The best way to do this is through relationship building.
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And, today to remain successful the strategy you must hold how to keep your current customers while growing your customer base. That is how you stay ahead." Responding to the needs of a customer base with increasingly global sourcing, manufacturing, sales and distribution operations is a huge challenge. Laura further explains, "A key element is that if a customer is dissatisfied for some reason, you should make good on the issue as quickly as possible. It has been shown that dissatisfied customers who have their problems taken care of are more loyal than satisfied customers. That bodes itself to make sure you treat customers well and with respect." From a Different PerspectiveCustomer comes in two states- profitable and unprofitable. According to Laura, "There could be a time when you need to fire a customer. In other words, there are times when a customer will cost you more in returns, repairs, customer support, etc, than you bring in revenues. If you are able to analyze the situation customer by customer, you may want steer them away from your company. This is a part of running a profitable business." |
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Dr. Tony Alessandra, a management consultant, says retaining customers is all about differentiating ones products and services from others. Differentiation is a key to survive in this cut-throat competition and such differentiation can be of price, quality, and service. Dr. Tony Alessandra adds that conflicting is a general affair with the customers as customers want the value for money beyond any excuses. Therefore, the organization must have the policy to resolve the conflicts with customers as bad experiences with them will lead to indirect losses. He suggests that for conflict resolution the organization should handle the person first, then the problem, show empathy and must apologize. This will cool down the temper of the person and then an appropriate solution is to be found out. If the mater is not solved the customer must be paid the compensation for the bad products and services.) Another good example of this is of Cadbury. A couple of years ago, chocolates from Cadbury's were found with cripples and in unhygienic condition. There was a revolt against the firm. What it did was - it apologized to the peoples and promised that it would never happen again. It also took all its stocks which were present at that time in the market.
Conclusion
Change is inevitable, i.e. changes are bound to happen as time passes on. It is up to the companies how they manage to change themselves with the changing trends of the customers in order to sustain in this ever changing business environment. Most of the successful companies today, like Gillette, Southwest Airlines, Home Depot, 3M, Hero Honda, BMW, Dell to name a few, survived because they kept changing their products, strategies and tactics according their customers tastes from time to time. There is no fixed set of rules in business which will carry you through all the times. Business today is entirely dependent on customers. The larger your customer base, the more your business will grow. So, companies should use customer service as a unique and secret weapon to win the battle. Failing to follow your customers' needs and wants and further not delighting them, will take the companies nowhere.