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Profitable Customer Relationships
Until about two years ago I was a long-suffering customer of Sprint. During the time I subscribed to their service, there just always seemed to be a problem that needed resolution: Billing disputes over services I didn't subscribe to. Dropped calls even though I lived within their alleged coverage area. Expensive calling plans. Customer service people who weren't empowered to tie their shoelaces. I could not wait for my contract to expire so I could switch to another cell phone carrier and be abused by them instead.
So in preparation for writing this paper, I googled cell phone customer satisfaction surveys, and which company is right there at the top? None other than Sprint. For a moment I thought I must have misspelled Sprint. S-P-R-I-N-T. But no, there they were. Just to be sure I wasn't hallucinating, I looked at older surveys, and there was the aha moment. In May of 2008, Sprint's customer satisfaction rating had indeed fallen to an all time low. The same online article mentions "Sprint is embarking on an aggressive turnaround plan,...
I will refrain from making any comments about locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen; apparently they did manage to turn things around.
Why did Sprint lose focus on maintaining customer relationships? There are several possible answers. They probably were distracted by the Nextel acquisition. There is no doubt they were more focused on competing with AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and others. But having offered those possible explanations, another observation is in order. When a company's service is that bad, those statistics are symptomatic of a management team that just does not get it. They would rather spend from 5-10 times more to attract new customers than retain the ones they already had.
Well-run companies find ways to maintain balance between competitor and customer orientations. One such company is Marriott. The following management principles were established by J. Willard Marriott himself:
A businessman once said, 'A business succeeds not because…
Hamilton, Glen. The Top Ten Customer Service Principles. 2011. Retrieved on 19 April, 2011. <http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/The_Top_Ten_Customer_Service_Principles.html>
The Marriott Management Philosophy. Marriott website. 2011.Retrieved on 19 April, 2011 from <http://www.marriott.com/Multimedia/PDF/Marriott_Management_Philosophy.pdf>
Luna, Lynette. "Latest customer satisfaction survey ranks Sprint at all-time low." 20 May, 2008. <http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/latest-customer-satisfaction-survey-ranks-sprint-all-time-low/2008-05-20>
I think it is very important to create and maintain profitable customer relationships for any business, no matter how large or small. Some companies seem to think they have a monopoly on goods or service, and so they do not have to offer good customer service. I think in the end, no matter what the product is, companies who do not truly respect their customers will not last. People want
In contrast, Harley-Davidson is selling more of an experience and also a lifestyle change. For Harley, the open road and freedom is the catalyst of their unique value proposition. For Dunkin' Donuts, the trust they have created and sustain makes them a perfect choice for millions of consumers rushing to work in the morning who may have skipped breakfast at home. Harley-Davidson is all about a lifestyle change and freedom
just an isolated or siloed strategy. Gartner's definition is shown in Figure 1. Figure 1: Gartner Group's Eight Levels of CRM Gartner has defined CRM using both purely technologically-based approaches and the processes that occur in any company looking to serve customers. Yet the most important area of this graphic is the interaction of the valued customer experience and organizational collaboration. At the store level of the example of the manager
The majority are in the Developing Phase (45%) with just 3% in Optimizing. This indicates that there is a strong need for greater integration of social networking, permission marketing and customer information management in many e-commerce strategies today. The results shown in Figure 3 also indicates there is significant upside potential for companies who attempt to grow quickly through the integration of social networking, trust-based permission marketing based on
"Effective marketing is and will always be founded on a simple premise: customers are won by personalizing the communication between the seller and the buyer and customizing the product and service offerings so they directly appeal to the desires and needs of individual customers." (Ross, 2005) Trust is stated to be the single most important factor that can help promote loyalty and dedication to the common purpose of ensuring customer
Electronic Customer Relationship Management (eCRM) -- the application of Customer Relationship Management within electronic businesses Customer Data Integration (CDA) -- the process by which data is collected, assessed and integrated within the organization to maximize its chances of attaining its pre-established objectives Data mining -- the process by which a database is statistically assessed to identify customer patterns -- it transforms data into information Customer loyalty -- at a most simplistic level, a