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Newsletter March 2004 |
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Customer Loyalty in a Global MarketWhere are you on your customer’s buying map? |
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Jay Kalawar, CEO, Business Transitions, Inc. |
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| When your customer calls in with a question or a complaint and finds herself directed to a call center 10,000 miles away, does she get the service she is expecting? How does this experience shape her future decision about your product or service; how does it impact her buying-decision map? | ||
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Customer service now is only one aspect of a global value chain; some or much of your product may have been manufactured and packaged overseas. What impact does this have on your customer’s emotional or logical decision-making process regarding buying your product and keep buying from you? The realities of an increasingly global marketplace fraught with intense cost competition, leave no choice for enterprise managers but to disperse their supply chain, of product development, marketing, sales, procurement, manufacturing, delivery and after-sales service, across the world. Each step of the supply chain puts its own impression on the product or service, which is eventually consumed implicitly or explicitly by the customer. Here is an example that shows not only how important it is to understand the customer’s buy-decision map, but also to juxtapose the competitive market-map to get practical measurable impact on profitability. A domestic airline in India retained an European airline to provide customer service training to its in-flight crew. Customer loyalty sharply rose in the cost competitive market because of the differentiation in the quality of in-flight service. Right sourcing of one critical aspect of the supply chain led to a significant impact on customer satisfaction and, hence, on profitability Key Success Factors in Customer Satisfaction Measurement What does this mean for successful measurement of customer satisfaction and loyalty? Basically, the questions that you ask your customers have to go beyond surface level perceptions. These questions need to reflect your competitive market context, the entire customer consumption cycle and probe the emotional and logical buy-decision map. |
Most customer satisfaction surveys stop at perception measurement. Such surveys do not measure factors that would give you insight into your customer's behavior pattern through the consumption cycle. Even understanding customer behavior is not sufficient to come up with practical business responses. Probing into customer’s emotional and logical buy-decision map is the key success factor in customer satisfaction measurement The value of perception-level customer satisfaction surveys, very low to begin with, deteriorate in relevance rapidly over time. Considerable insightful and analytical pre-work is required before launching a customer satisfaction survey or focus group assessment. Inference based analysis of survey results is equally critical. As global markets, competitive scenarios and customer profiles change, the survey and focus group content and process will also have to change. Customer measurement is not about putting together a questionnaire once, and then re-using it, even for short time periods. Such a practice assumes permanence both in the customer buy-decision map or the competitive marketplace, both of which simply are not good practice. At BTI, we have developed techniques to initiate and continually update your customer buy-decision map in the context of the realities of your competitive markets, to arrive at practical business solutions. Contact us at info@b-slate.com to discuss how we can assist you. Copyright 2004 Business Transitions, Inc |
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