Within this turbulent economy that includes quickly changing national priorities and reduced political cooperation, there is true chaos and havoc being wreaked on the federal landscape (Neumark, Muz, & National Bureau of Economic Research, 2014). Almost each agency grapples with increase performance mandates, reduced risk tolerance, and lower budgets. From this arises an environment of smaller opportunities, compressed margins, and lower labor rates. Because of these many businesses fail. What can companies do to survive the pitfalls of current existing market conditions? They need to create value.
Companies and businesses aim to provide value for their customers through additional services and benefits. For example, Amazon.com, Inc gives customers an excellent return policy where the company pays for return shipping and if a customer is unhappy with their product, they can get a full refund (Davis, 2016). Furthermore, Amazon.com, Inc, makes it easy for customers to speak to a customer service agent quickly from online, or over the phone. Such ease in communication makes an intangible value creation. Customers like having the ability to easily contact a company with a concern or issue. By Amazon.com, Inc providing excellent customer service, they create loyalty among their existing customer base. “With Prime, Echo and its ever-broadening Web Service’s business, Amazon is slowly but surely becoming the world leader in delivering on its brand promise: being the "Earth’s biggest selection and being the Earth’s most customer-centric company” (Davis, 2016).
That loyalty translates to higher rates of purchases and higher profits. While it costs resources to maintain an excellent customer service, Amazon.com, Inc takes into consideration what amount of money it would be lost if they did not have the additional value in their company. These things need to be considered when it comes to running a successful business. While some things can and should be implemented to generate value for the...
Furthermore, a determination must be made as to whether the addition of such value is enough to generate long-term profit.
For example, value=Contribution/Cost (Schiuma, 2011). When a product or service has a lower cost and higher contribution to customers/clients, it is very valuable. Cost can go both ways regarding cost to client/customer or cost to the company. Customer service is often free to the customer but can be costly to the company. Customer service is something many companies aim to strive for because by addressing customer needs, a company offers the highest contribution (Schiuma, 2011. Therefore, sometimes in companies like Microsoft, they may outsource their employees from countries like India, to provide value to customers, while minimizing their expense. A trend seen in many companies within the United States. “An increasing number of firms are outsourcing customer support to external service providers. This creates a triadic setting in which an outsourcing provider serves end customers on behalf of its clients” (Wuyts, Rindfleisch & Citrin, 2015).
In fact, it has become such a prevalent action because of the growing need to address customer concerns both online and over the phone. Customers want to be able to have the convenience of solving their problems online through chat or email and so companies must pay for this kind of service. Since it can be done remotely they look towards other countries where the pay for a typical employee is much lower than in developed countries like the United States. This creates value for companies because they can maintain their level of desired customer service, but also keep expenses low.
The findings reveal that customer-focused providers achieve higher levels of customer need fulfillment but this effect is contingent on their ability to serve end customers. In particular, customer-focused providers more effectively fulfill customer needs…
