The art of keeping customers happy

Business success in today's competitive markets requires a high degree of understanding and respect of the customers. The customers are demanding and have more money to spend and a wide collection of goods and services to choose from. In the midst of stiff and fierce competition and the increased number of retail outlets providing a variety of products, customers have become accustomed to patronising multiple outlets. Retailers have recognised this trend and are of the view that customer satisfaction plays a role in the success of business strategies. Therefore, it has become important for retailers to try to earn customer satisfaction. To satisfy our customers, retailers must be able to listen to their feedback and improve services and goods to keep the clients happy.
The customer value and customer satisfaction theory explains how to create a good relationship with customers and why it is so essential to find loyal customers and also retain the old ones. In this changing environment, it is surprising that the retailers who holistically integrate digital touch points into a coherent customer experience exhibit better sales growth. Customers are beginning to expect retailers to have integrated services across touch points. This is not a fad. Marketing-orientated companies attempt to create customer value in order to attract and retain customers. Their aim is to deliver superior value to their target customers. In doing so, they implement the marketing concept by meeting and exceeding customer needs better than the competition. Attracting and retaining customers can be a difficult task. Customers often face a bewildering array of products and services from which to choose. A customer buys from the firm that offers the highest customer perceived value - the customer's evaluation of the difference between all the benefits and all the costs of a marketing offer.
Traditionally, companies have relied only on differentiation of products and services to retain their customers and also to satisfy the consumers. However, times have changed, due to fierce competition from new players entering the market, imitation of new features and an increase in the number of new offers, customers have acquired new choices and they have also become more price-sensitive, which has forced marketers to adopt differentiated and customer-oriented strategies in order to enable them to stand out in the competition and gain a competitive edge. The unique change, which may bring difference these days, is the Customer Service. Customer satisfaction is a measure of how an organisation's total products perform in relation to a set of customer's expectations. Customer satisfaction depends on the product's perceived performance relative to a buyer's expectations. If the product's performance falls short of expectations, the customer is dissatisfied. If performance matches expectations, the customer is satisfied. If performance exceeds expectations, the customer is highly satisfied and delighted. Most of the companies make a big mistake, when they are not paying enough attention to their customer satisfaction. Keeping customers satisfied is the best competitive advantage against competitors.
Customers are loyal, prepared to pay more and are excellent external marketers. Creating a seamless experience between channels allows customers to make decisions about how they engage with a retailer based on what is most appropriate and convenient for them. The key to success, however, is carefully planning the journey between these channels to prevent it from becoming confusing. Looking at the customer experience holistically is the key to choreographing an integrated experience.
The customer experience can be broken down into discrete units called 'Moments'. The key attribute of a Moment is that it is completed on a single touch point, for example, 'checkout' or 'browse category'.
Once a Moment is completed, it is highly possible that the user will move to another channel. This movement between touch points should be planned carefully and the users' context and situation picked up when they arrive at their destination touch point. In today's competitive retail sector, customer demands are bound to increase from time to time due to the improvement of service quality in parallel with product varieties. Due to the tremendous growth of the service industry, in which the retailing sector plays an important role, it is vital for retailers to understand the degree of importance of listening to the inner voice of customers' needs to create and increase the level of satisfaction. Ultimately, effective satisfaction leads to prospective long-term relationship and loyalty through repeating purchase and recommendation, which helps retailers maintain their market share and position. Consumer´s needs have become sophisticated and it is imperative that grocery stores look for building long-term and stable relationships with their customers as a way of driving satisfaction up, since satisfaction does translate later into loyalty and retention. The service industry, in particular, the retail market, has been vital to the world economy and undergone the ever-intensified competition during the crisis and economic turndown period. The modern retail industry is booming across the world. Therefore, it is essential for retailers to use strategies, which focus on satisfying current customers. Exceeding the value offered by competitors is the key to marketing success. Consumers decide upon purchases on judgments about the values offered by suppliers. Once the product is bought, customer satisfaction depends upon its perceived performance compared to the buyer's expectations. Customer satisfaction occurs, when perceived performance matches or exceeds expectations.
Expectations are formed through post-buying experiences, discussions with other people and suppliers' marketing activities. Companies need to avoid the mistake of setting customer expectations too high through exaggerated promotional claims, since this can lead to dissatisfaction, if yje performance falls short of expectations. Customer satisfaction research is focused on a company's current customers to clear up functionality in proportion to customers' expectations. The volume of, or repeatedly happening, purchase does not always tell about customers' satisfaction. Customers may buy products, because there is no better choice available, or he / she does not know any other alternatives. In this case, a customer is not committed to a company or a product, but moves over to another alternative as soon as it will be available. Research measures total customer satisfaction and also divisions of it, e.g. products, price, quality, customer service etc. Most important is that research is reliable, repeated often. Results are analysed and problematic points are solved.
Customer satisfaction should get paramount importance in any firm's marketing strategy. It is through satisfaction of customers that firms remain afloat and prosper. Customers have become an important part of any firm, especially those in the grocery retail sector, and many researchers have also placed emphasis on the importance of customers. Zairi cited in Singh: "Customers are the purpose of what we do, and rather than depending on us, we very much depend on them. The customer is not the source of a problem, we should not perhaps make that customer go away, because, our future and our security will be put in jeopardy". That is the main reason why organisations today are focusing on customer satisfaction and loyalty. Customer satisfaction is one of the most central indicator, when measuring and analysing a company's success possibility now and in future. Research shows that the average business loses 10-30 per cent of its customers each year, but they often do not know which customers they have lost, when they were lost, why they were lost, or how much sales revenue and profit this loss of customers has cost them.
Dissatisfaction is clearly the fundamental reason for customer decay. But what causes customer dissatisfaction? There are gaps like promotional gap, understanding gap, procedural gap, behavioural gap and perception gap. It is obvious that it is really difficult for a company to bind a customer for a long period of time. Even a one mistake might spoil the whole relationship and the customer is lost for a competitor. The value of one customer's retention is incredibly high. Lifetime value is counted by the average spending with the business multiplied by the length of the time the business will retain the customer. Obviously the most important reason for doing business is that it will increase profitability. Measuring customer satisfaction and acting appropriately on the results will increase profitability. Success and retention of the loyal customers will be won by doing best what matters most to the customers. Totally satisfied customers are more likely to be loyal customers. However, the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty varies greatly across industries and competitive situations. Nowadays companies are ready to fight hard to retain customers. Competition is increasing and the cost of attracting new customers is rising. The best approach to customer retention is to deliver high customer satisfaction and value that result in strong customer loyalty and well-developed business relationship.
Now the question is: what is retailing? Retailing encompasses the business activities involved in selling goods and services to consumers for their personal, family or household use. It includes every sale to the final consumer. Retailing is also the last stage in the distribution process. Today the retail trade comprises a wide and varied number of outlets for goods and services. In order that retail exchange can take place, the retailer must offer to sell products and services that are valued by customers. Retailers create value for customers by offering the right merchandise, creating a pleasant atmosphere, decreasing shopping risks, increasing shopping convenience and reducing price by controlling costs. Retailers provide important functions that increase the value of the products and services they sell to consumers and facilitate the distribution of those products and services for the manufacturers to produce them. Retailers are the final business supply chain that links manufacturers to consumers. A supply chain is a set of firms that make and deliver a given set of goods and services to the ultimate consumers. To implement a retail strategy, management develops a retail mix that satisfies the need of its target market better than of its competitors. The retail mix includes the decision variables retailers use to satisfy customer needs and influence their decisions on purchase. Elements in the retail mix include the types of merchandise and services offered, merchandise pricing, advertising and promotional programmes, store design, merchandise display, assistance to customers provided by salespeople and convenience of the store's locations.
Every time a customer comes in contact with a store or its staff, they experience a service encounter or moment of truth. Every moment of truth is an opportunity to attract retail or enhance the relationship with the customer. Customer service is highly significant element of retailing. Customer service impacts the total retail experience. The main aim of customer service is to offer the customer the satisfaction he or she expects from the store as a result of patronising it.
Customer satisfaction is the basis on which any company operates and makes profit. Service quality creates customer satisfaction and the customers define quality. So, customer satisfaction surveys have to take place on a continuous basis and the results have to be reflected in the company's strategies and operations. Ever since the Great Recession, the US retail industry has become intent on conducting customer service surveys to figure out how to keep their shrinking customer base happy. Customers who are providing feedback that retailers need to make improvement in their services are wondering why they are not seeing any tangible response to that feedback. Nowadays customer satisfaction and actions according to feedback given are widely recognised as a key pressure. Satisfied customers are also likely to tell others of their favourable experiences and thus engage in the positive word of mouth advertising. So retailers can make unique changes by providing the best possible customer service and promoting brand ambassadors of retail brands for further market development.
The writer is a sales professional. ayanrgupta@gmail.com