Retaining Customer Loyalty General Electric

Retaining Customer Loyalty

General Electric is one of the largest companies in the United States, and indeed around the world. In order to achieve and maintain this status, it is necessary for the company not only to maintain its strategies in terms of the competition, but also in terms of its existing and future customers. GE then has various strategies by means of which it maintains its loyal customer base both locally and abroad. The company's Web site, along with other sources, provides insight into what has been done to maintain loyalty in customers and to ensure an influx of new customers.

Customer Loyalty: United States

Most of the transitions towards ensuring a better customer experience in the United States have occurred over the last five years, since 2003. According to the GE Web site (2008), the company as implemented new tools towards the goals of customer-centric service and market-facing competition. These strategies, according to the Web site, include a variety of actions all focused upon making the customer's experience something unique.

This is done by directly involving customers not only in the assessment of the company, but also in the creative process itself. Dreaming Sessions for example allow the customer to participate in satisfying the needs of the future generation. They work together with the GE staff in order to create collective ideas for the future the success of the company. GE has also implemented the metric Net Promoter Score in order to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the company as perceived by customers.

This provides a sense of objectivity in the evaluation of the company. Customer feedback is also obtained by means of the GE Marketing Toolkit, which includes the five steps: Calibrate, Explore, Create, Organize, Realize (CECOR). Customer feedback is obtained in this process by means of questions that ask what customers need, want or prefer, and how the customer and GE impact are measured.

Customer feedback has also helped the customer to drastically reduce its cycle time.

Customer feedback has also helped the customer to drastically reduce its cycle time. This improved from 34 days to 17 days, and the variability in cycle time increased from 70 to 33 days. This has resulted in customer service request dropping by more than 40% (General Electric, 2008).

In terms of marketing, the direct involvement of customers in this process has helped GE to become more targeted in actually providing customers with what they need. NPS surveys for example demonstrated the need for clear and consistent communication with partners and customers. In its healthcare program, GE has implemented a physician practice credit box and other promotions to drive the success of the program concomitantly with GE's growth. The company's investigation also revealed the importance of working with its sister business, Healthcare Financial Services, in order to provide customers with the best service at the lowest possible price (General Electric, 2008).

Building Customer Loyalty on the Global Scale

The competition for General Electric on a global scale is even more fierce than locally. For this reason, the company has implemented a variety of methods in order to ensure the topmost quality of customer service. One of these methods is the implementation of ATG software in its call centers (Business Wire, 2005).

ATG (Art Technology Group) offers software for marketing, commerce, and service for companies who wish to optimize their customers' experiences and loyalty. General Electric created an English-speaking call center in India during 1997, which was known as the GE Capital International Services unit. As the company expanded, so did its call center, which resulted in offices being added throughout the world. The service was outsourced, and the GE Capital International Services unit was renamed Genpact, with more than 19,000 people globally counting among its employee base.

During 2005, Genpact purchased ATG technology to further improve the telephone support that customers have come to experience for 24 hours per day, seven days per week. In order to rise above competition, the company is committed to providing the highest quality of technical support to its clients, as demonstrated by its purchase of ATG. This software would result in reduced costs, increased revenue, and improved customer retention.

Specifically, the software gives the company the ability to reduce the time involved in solving customer queries and concomitantly increasing the volume of calls that can be handled. Furthermore, the queries and calls referred to higher levels of the company's management is decreased by centralizing the customers' access to relevant information sources. The quality and content of this service are also improved by analyzing daily interactions with customers. The service is made more efficient and accurate in this way. Finally, revenue opportunities are also increased by a feature that suggests up-sell and cross-sell possibilities.

According to Business Wire (2005), Genpact's RightAnswers' Knowledge-Pak libraries also integrate with the ATG software. These libraries contain answers to common problems, which helps technicians to quickly and efficiently provide customers wit resolutions to common problems. Concomitantly, workers can put greater effort into the more complicated problems with the help of the ATG software. Both uncomplicated and more complicated problems therefore receive due attention from technician and customers experience a higher level of service.

In this way, ATG provides the company with the capability to remain market leaders by means of excellent customer service. Genpact and General Electric as a whole understands that such customer service is at the basis of retaining customer loyalty and retention. Such excellence is maintained by means of the combined elements of the best people wit the best information. By means of ATG's technology, the call center agents provide customers with expert resources of information for any specific problem they may encounter. Such call center services also provide GE with a favorable image among customers, and inspire their loyalty.

This loyalty is monitored by means of a very simple pioneering questioning method that GE implemented during 2006 (Samuelson, 2006). Historically, customer satisfaction has been measured by three questions that solicit information regarding experiences with service, whether the customer will return, and whether customers will recommend the company to family and friends. General Electric however reduced these three questions to a single one, requiring customers to rate on a scale of 1 to 10 the likelihood that they would recommend the company to others. This has significantly simplified GE's ability to project future customer loyalty and satisfaction.