Discussion2
Kendrick18
Week2OverviewPP.pptxWeek 2 Overview
Principles of Marketing
MRKT 310
Overview for Week 2.
Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty,
Empowerment, and Management
Marketing is all about the customer!
2.1 Customers and customer communities
2.2 Loyalty management
2.3 Customer satisfaction
2.4 Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
2.5 Ethics, laws, and customer empowerment
The customer is so very important to marketing we are putting our discussion of customers right up front in the course. Since we are all customers, you should find this material very relevant to some of your own experiences with companies and their products.
We slow down a little bit for Week 2 and we have only five sections to cover as outlined above.
2.1 Customer and customer communities
Are consumers and customers the same thing?
Consumers are anyone who has resources to buy anything
Customer is a person who has a need for the product or service offering, may not yet recognize the need (potential customers) or has recognized the need and actively pursuing the purchase decision process (current customers).
We may tend to use these two terms interchangeably during this course. The above points highlight the differences between them. Clearly, consumers is a much larger group than customers; but customers aren’t just those who buy a product, also everyone who might have a need for a product. Marketers need to consider them as well when developing marketing strategy.
Customer’s role in marketing
Spread word of mouth messages (positive and negative)
Influence other consumer’s buying decisions
Provide feedback to company (positive and negative) suggesting product changes
Tell companies what they need
Complain
Modern marketing thought acknowledges the role of the customer in the marketing process. You probably notice how influential you are in your friends or family’s purchase decisions. You have probably filled out more than one customer satisfaction survey. You have probably checked out customer reviews on social media or the company’s website before purchasing a product. These are all ways in which customers are a critical component in the marketing of a product or service.
How to customers insert themselves in the marketing process?
Talking
Influencer panels
Consumer communities
Social media
We can figure out how we insert ourselves via talking and social media as briefly mentioned in the previous slide, the influencer panels and consumer communities may not be as well known to us. Some of us may have had the experience of being asked to be part of an influencer panel where you periodically fill out a survey or perhaps even participate in a group discussion (focus group). Consumer communities are a by-product of social media, and are formal or informal sites for consumers to speak with one another about our experiences. Smart companies will be looking for consumer communities and participate in them to ensure the conversation provides accurate information about a product, or use the conversation as input for changing how the product is marketed.
2.2 Loyalty Management
Not all customer loyalty is created equal
Attitudinal loyalty (good)
Behavioral loyalty (best)
Loyalty programs — rewards for frequent purchases and consumption
A loyalty program may be part of a larger Customer Relationship Management (CRM) program
It’s true, not all customers are created equal. We may like a product (good attitude), but the best customers are those who buy the product (behavior). Companies try hard to identify and communicate with those customers exhibiting behavior loyalty.
One of the most common ways this is accomplished is by a customer loyalty program. It should extend into a much broader program of Customer Relationship Management in which all touch points in a customer interaction are identified and managed and all data about customers is captured and analyzed.
Criteria for successful loyalty programs
Good performance by company
Responsiveness by a company
Shared identity among participants
Clear benefits
Community development
As you may have experienced, some customer loyalty programs don’t provide much in the way of benefits that you find meaningful. Here are the five criteria that comprise a good loyalty program from the customer’s point of view.
2.3 Customer satisfaction
A satisfied customer is one whose expectations are met
A delighted customer is one whose expectations are exceeded
Customer satisfaction strategies
Establish and communicate the ‘right’ expectations
Empower front line employees
Offer reassuring warranties and guarantees
Customer satisfaction surveys measure customer satisfaction
Dealing with complaining customers
While companies want satisfied customers, they covet delighted customers. At the heart of customer satisfaction is the relationship between what a customer expects and what the company delivers. If there is a difference, the result can be customer delight on the positive side; or customer dissatisfaction at the other end of the spectrum. You may have noticed a marked increase in the number of companies that have instituted customer satisfaction surveys, especially service businesses.
Companies should cherish complaining customers as it is one way customers give useful feedback. This feedback is part of the data used to modify a product’s marketing mix.
Sometimes the complaints are not really valid. Even this is important for the marketer because if the customer takes the time to complain, the company can take the opportunity to change the attitude to a more positive relationship with the company BEFORE the complaining customer can share his feelings with other customers.
2.4 Customer Relationship Management
Coordinated and integrated strategies for finding, retaining, and expanding profitable customers
More than just CRM software, although that is critical for capture and reporting of management information
Most valuable customers are the percent of customers who comprise the largest share of the companies profits
As mentioned earlier, a fully coordinated and integrated Customer Relationship Management program helps find, retain and expand the customer base of like minded customers. Constantly finding and filling the needs of your Most Valuable Customers can be much more cost effective than constantly replacing current customers with new customers.
2.5 Ethics, laws, and customer empowerment
Not all information is good information — caveat emptor — let the consumer beware
Sugging — selling under the guise of research
Phishing — masquerading as a legitimate company to get personal information.
Customer’s right to privacy of their data
Warranties and promises
expressed
implied
Copyrights to online material
While we are talking about the customer’s role in marketing, we take a little time to cover the topics of ethics, laws and customer empowerment. Social media and internet sites has drastically increase the amount of information available to consumers, yet not all information is good and consumers need to filter the information appropriately.
In addition, the growth of the internet has not allowed laws to keep up with it. Here we discuss some of the unethical practices that have arisen as a result. Data privacy will continue to be a constant battle for companies as hackers invent new and more creative ways to get our information. The implications of not protecting our data makes the news periodically with the Target breach one of the more serious in recent years.
Companies can create warranties and promises and deliver on those, both expressed and implied. That is within their control unlike data privacy.
Lastly, the internet has also created massive illegal use of information found online. For example, you will notice this course does not embed many of the learning activities mainly because those materials are copyrighted and we are limited to providing the URL.
Participation in Week 2 Discussion Forum
Submitting Writing Assignment 2
Completing Week 2 Quiz
All due Tuesday at 11:59 pm
Week 2
Assessments
The assessments for Week 2, as well as Weeks 3-8, will always be the same so that you can fall into a cadence with the course materials and adequately plan your time for completing the assessments.
Questions or concerns?
Be sure to take advantage of the General Discussion topic in the Week 2 Discussion Forum to ask any questions, get clarifications, or otherwise seek the advice and assistance of your faculty member.
As always, your faculty stand ready to help you with your study of marketing. Be sure to take advantage of their expertise by posting your questions or concerns in the Discussion Forum.
