Contemporary Strategies in Customer Satisfaction

By

S. Aravinth
Senior Lecturer
K. Niranjanaa Devi
Asst. Professor
Management Studies
Karpagam College of Engg.
 

1.1. CUSTOMER

A customer is the most important visitor on your premises; He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him; He is not an interruption on our work; He is the purpose of it; He is not an outsider on our business;  He is a part of it; We are not doing him a favour by serving him; He is doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to do so.
                                                                                                                   - Mahatma Gandhi

A customer relation is the considerable strategy which has been now followed in various industries. Because if we consider expanded concept of product which includes all goods and services, we have the following marketing functions of a marketer:

a. Contractual: The searching of buyers and sellers.
b. Merchandising: Matching the products to customer needs and desires (the market requirements)
c. Pricing: determining the optimum price.
d. Promotion: Persuading the buyers to favour the firm and its products.
e. Physical distribution: The transport, warehousing and inventory control.

Marketing functions are performed by the manufacturer and all middle men in the machinery of distribution. The marketing process has four components. They are:

a. Marketing Management
b. Marketing channels
c. Marketing functions
d. Market demand.

1.2. CUSTOMER SERVICE

Economists tell us we live in a "Service Economy". So everyone is exposed to – and giving – lots of service. With all that experience with service, our customers have a pretty good idea of what good service in.

The expectations of the customer is getting higher and higher everyday. So the firm like Bakery has now trying to analyze the expectations of their customers. Once, a customer had experience with the bakery that he has been asked about the bakery and service which has been rendered to him.

The person who has been satisfied with all the type services provided to him, and he gave a positive opinion to the bakery owner. Firms that provide outstanding customer service, and they also want to maintain a good relation with the customer. For Ex: - when you offer a treat to your dear most the optional bakery has given a wondering service means a mere arrangement will give much more to the person who gave the treat got the benefit.

So a consumer in one time has been converted to customer. It is depend upon the bakery how it is going to maintain a good relation to retain the customer in future also. Those who only provide good service might survive. Everyone else is doomed. And the firms should not a exaggerating their proceeding towards the job. The relation that you give to the customer service is the main operating principles and the specific processes that combine to give your customers a warm feeling of satisfaction, maybe even joy, from interacting with the organization.

1.3. THE RELATION WITH THE CUSTOMER

A Customer relation by the way of service could be receiving a quick, friendly greeting in a bakery or a retail store and getting the vision of good house keeping in the bakery. It would be a helpful sales person with Cleanliness of the sitting area and having a pleasant smile of the owner and the supplier. A warm and cool list of the varieties and the time spending inside the bakery should be a pleasant one. No more hassle experience on consumption or purchasing or packaging. A very nice finish of your consumables and no heating bills with a pleasant smile and a thank you send off.

These are the ideas which have been provided by many researchers for the satisfaction of the customers. And to be sure, customer service is all of these things and more. In all bakeries they exactly doesn't know about what is customer service and satisfaction of the customer. But all persons inside the bakery who work for to maintain the relationship to retaining them for long term basis.

Those tasks include one or more of the following; 1. Opening prices to customers. 2. Entering customer orders into a computer. 3. Telling customers the status of their orders. 4. Explaining them about the varieties available. 5. Proper and timely services. 6. Resolving billing questions. 7. Investigating or approving credit. 8. Collecting overdue bills. 9. Change the product if it contaminates. 10. If door delivery, the delivery should be very perfect. While, these are all the customer service functions, that may be best handled by every supplier and supervisor and the owner of the bakery.

1.4. HUMAN TO HUMAN APPRAOCH

Customer relations is everything that a baker or a retain organization does – and everything it doesn't do – to create Personally Pleasing Memorable Interactions (or PPMI) with the company's many different constituencies. Truly great service pleases a customer according to his or her individual preferences – so much so that the customer feels special and remembers the interaction with the company, and wants to come back for more again and again.

Customer service injects humanity into a business transaction. There are two vital components to every interaction you have with a customer.

1. The purchase or transaction
2. The relationship

Good customer service always builds the relationships and completes the transaction. As it is also the relationship that often builds more sales. Every Business interaction involves the twin dimensions of business: the transaction and the relationship.

1.5. CUSTOMER (BEYOND BUYER)

When we think of customer service as encompassing all the activities that can create Personally Pleasing Memorable interactions (PPMI) with many different very important People, you certainly include the work done by traditions, more narrowly – defined customer service departments. For those departments to be most effective in their dealings with customers, a broader idea of what customer service is needs to take hold to the organization. Customer, as the dictionary defines it, translates into buyer. And while buyers are might important, it is absolutely indispensable, to your company's success, how the industry or the retailer might treat your buyers depends largely on how your company treats lots of other important people like the fellow employees, for instance.

Three interesting things to purchase from a retail industry: -

1. You make delivering great customer service the responsibility of many more people beyond those in the customer service department.
2. Your company tends to give better service to many more people.
3. Far more people begin to think of your company and talk about it as one that really cares and provides really great service. And that should encourage more people to buy from you.

1.5.1. Great Expectations

Giving good service along will not yield a good customer service which will bring the satisfaction. All retail / FMCG / Bakery / Hotel - are trying to provide excellent service to the people they serve. The consumers of every description are being exposed to lots of service from many, many service providers. All those organizations are trying to distinguish themselves by the quality of their service. That means organizations now compete on the basis of service. So customers – spoiled by all that service – can tell in a microsecond the difference between outstanding service and good, mediocre, or bad service. To compete on service today – and that's what you've got to do – you need to be rally, really, realty good at it. There is a clear relationship between the level of service and customer loyalty.