Customer Loyalty Essays (Examples)

Sampling Design

The study will utilize random sampling technique at three different grocery locations. The researcher will administer the study to customers who are shopping at the store. The researcher will ask the customer questions about what influenced their decision to shop at that particular store that day.

Data Collection Method

The primary data collection method for the study will be quantitative. Quantitative study methods are most useful when the data can be transformed into t numerical data point. This study will compare the importance of the factors being examined through a Likert-type survey questionnaire. Study participants will fill out and return the study results immediately to the researcher onsite.

Contribution of Study

This study will contribute to a better understanding of the importance of customer loyalty cards to the decision to shop at a particular grocer. The study will help manager, policy makers, and other researchers better understand how…

Customer Loyalty

Affecting Customer Loyalty

Customer Grade Course

This research study introduces a comprehensive conceptual framework of customer loyalty within the retail sector. It emphasizes on the perceived loyalty amongst fast moving consumer goods and attempts to explore the moderating effects of the various different factors that might influence them.

The researcher will begin by creating an understanding of the term "customer loyalty" and its significance importance in the retail sector. Additionally, the researcher shall also attempt to explore the purchase decisions made by the consumers and what really prompts them to be loyal to certain brands of product while simultaneously evaluating the importance of price, quality, brand or any other factor that might impact their loyalty status and purchase decision.

Finally, the research study will conclude by delineating the factors which impacts consumer loyalty at the same time trying to establish a means of measuring the impact of consumer…

90).

Pros and Cons of the findings

The authors of Zero defection: Quality comes to service found out that there was tripling of the profits generated by one customer from in the fourth year than in the first year and this shows the advantages of loyalty because it leads to increased profits. All this profit is lost whenever the customer defects from the company. This increased profitability with loyalty is also evident in the credit card finding. The customer who is newly acquired generates only the base profit when using the card at first but after the second year, there will be improved economics. The usage increases as they become more familiar with the services. The disadvantage of these findings is that the profitability puzzle does contain many pieces and a direct association with loyalty is never definite (Ranaweera, 2007, p.115).

One advantage in the findings from the article The…

Taken together, United Natural Foods is looking to create pull-based demand throughout its distribution channels and increase sales activity, leading to more profitability over the long-term. The focus on two of the three elements being oriented towards the consumer is deliberate to further pull products through distribution channels as well.

If they are not used, should they be used?

They are used as the analysis indicates, yet United Natural Foods could also augment these efforts by concentrating more on channel-based and retailer-specific promotions over the long-term, further ensuring a higher level of sales productivity as well.

If they should be used, explain why they should be used. If they should not be used, explain why they should not be used.

Each one of the elements or components of the strategy need to be used and expanded over time to more fully meet the unmet needs of the customers these communication…

The high tech approach to managing new product introductions is to create an online password-protected website, often called a portal, and quickly upload and share all information about the new product introduction this way. This approach assumes that members of the sales force both for the company and for the direct sales channels will actually log in and use the data presented. It also assumes that all members of the channel have Internet access as well.

The low-tech approach is more time-consuming and expensive, yet it does make the new product introduction very memorable. This approach involves sending out product introduction packages overnight, calling each distributor, dealer and salesperson to make sure they got it, and explaining it to them. This approach is very costly and can also suffer from information lag times if the products change rapidly.

The high tech approach is most appropriate with products that have very…

Much marketing research has been done on analysing customer behaviour and retention. As a consequence, it is crucial for online companies to create a loyal customer base, as well as to monitor the profitability of each segment (Reinartz and Kumar, 2002)

Definition of customer e-loyalty

Customer loyalty has been defined as "a deeply held commitment to re-buy or re-patronize a preferred product/service consistently in the future, thereby causing repetitive same-brand or same brand-set purchasing, despite situational influences and marketing efforts having the potential to cause switching behaviour" (Oliver, 1999). This general definition appears to apply to e-loyalty as well. Another briefer and more specific definition is provided by Anderson and Srinivasan (2003), who define e-loyalty as "the customer's favourable attitude toward an electronic business, resulting in repeat purchasing behaviour" (p. ____).

Since it is considered difficult to gain loyal customers on the internet without directly contact (Gommans et al., 2001),…

Customer Loyalty Program

In today's highly competitive marketing climate, the only way to ensure revenue is to retain customers; move purchasers to customers, and enhance the customer satisfaction index for all clients. Customer loyalty and customer satisfaction are not synonymous, however, and they have differing meanings to different types of customers. Usually, customer satisfaction is a quantitative measurement of client attitudes about products, services, branding, or delivery. Customer loyalty is both the behavior of the customer (repeat clients) or a strong and robust attitude about the brand or service that makes shopping habitual. It is this loyalty of behavior that has a direct correlation to sales and market share since, depending on product or service, the amount a quality of competition varies significantly (Hallowell, 1996). Research also shows us that the place to enhance these issues is that the retail point of purchase; this is the place in which all…

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.

pecifically, 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.…

The first one defines customer loyalty as a kind of attitude that is developed by the customers.The second one is behavioral (Yi,1990). Customer satisfaction, loyalty and profitability are therefore intertwined (Storbacka et al., 1994).

Conclusion

This study has attempted to the factors that create and fuel customer loyalty at CH2M Hill. The study found a string correlation between quality service deliveries (based on the principles of outperformanceTM) with increased customer loyalty. We can therefore conclude that the outperformanceTM model effectively improves the level of customer loyalty at CH2M Hill.

eferences

Baldridge (2010). An executive's guide to the criteria of performance excellence http://www.nist.gov/baldrige/publications/upload/Baldrige_20_20.pdf

Barnes, J.G. (2003), "Establishing meaningful customer relationships: why some companies and brands mean more to their customers," Managing Service Quality, Vol. 13 No.3, pp.178-86.

CH2M Hill (2011).CH2M Hill 2011 Sustainability eport Overview

http://www.ch2m.com/corporate/sr/_project-assets/CH2MHILL-Sustainability_eport_2011_Overview_A4.pdf

Dick, A., Basu, K. (1994), "Customer loyalty: toward an integrated conceptual framework," Journal of Marketing…

This information is necessary to presenting order to offer a clear set of data to potential buyers. Then, there is the second set of data, which appeals to consumer emotions. Owning the new Maserati car empowers the individual, offers him prestige and makes a fashion statement.

Another feature integrant to the market positioning plan would revolve around the limited number of automobile manufactured and sold. The fact that the car is only available within given restrictions makes it more interesting and desirable to the consumer. The fact that only few people will be able to own the car -- and that the potential buyer has the ability to become one of these few people -- further increased the interest in the Maserati vehicle. In other words, the company should promote the idea that the new car is a unique one and that the owner of such a product could also…

One excellent way to cut through the inflated metrics is to have customers actually define their level of sat5isfaction with the programs at an experiential level using SEVQUAL or any other number of research methodologies and programs (Norton, Pine, 2009). It is also critically important to have the metrics of participation coordinated with the financial metrics to ensure a high level of accountability is achieved and auditability of results as well (Murthi, Steffes, asheed, 2011). Often the most vocal opponents of any customer loyalty program point to the lack of traceability back to sales results and program development leading to actual sales and profits (Murthi, Steffes, asheed, 2011). It is best to anchor these two attributes together and have complete transparency and authenticity about what is going on in the customer loyalty program to ensure its success (Norton, Pine, 2009).

Conclusion

Customer loyalty programs can significantly increase profitability of a…

Domination of the high-profit vending segment.

2. Low-cost distribution system.

3. Revamping of its organization system.

Through consolidation of control over the network of bottlers the low-cost distribution system became a reality. The skills that were vital to management of the bottling end of the business were addressed through plants operations, regional marketing and distribution. Wise (2001) According to the AMR Research Supply Chain Top 25: "The basis of competition for winning companies in today's economy is supply chain superiority." The AMR report further states that Demand-driven supply networks (DDSN) have replaced the traditional push model that worked so well in the 20th century. The customer-centric model is what is termed a "pull-model" that, according to the AMR report does the following:

Embeds product innovation

Manages demand proactively

Utilizes stochastic optimization methods to deal with variability.

The result is: "A nimbler business that leverages intellectual assets and more quickly seizes…

This irritated the client, but the situation was the worst when he took the family on an international trip and found that their seats has been reassigned to the non-Premier areas of the aircraft with less legroom. This also happened on subsequent flights, and the client felt that he was treated like baggage. (Sturm, 2004) It has already been seen that this airline is concerned about their customers, yet the airline succeeded in irritating a customer with what the customer feels is "lack of gratitude." One is sure that what the airline staff did was according to the laws, but the client was unhappy. This is generally the result of not being able to communicate in a manner that makes clients happy. Thus methods of implementation are probably as important as the policies themselves.

Let us now look at another airline from the list. Delta Air Lines chief customer service…

Even customers who are satisfied with something do not always return to that specific business, especially if the business is somewhat out of the way or relatively inconvenient to get to (Jackson, Cunningham, & Cunningham, 1988).

Customer loyalty is generally thought to be achieved when a customer returns to buy something that they have bought before from the same company (Jackson, Cunningham, & Cunningham, 1988). There are many other ways to measure loyalty statistically, but it basically boils down to a customer returning to a business even though there are so many other choices available (Jackson, Cunningham, & Cunningham, 1988).

There are many ways to increase customer loyalty and it is significant to discuss some of them here (Rackham, Honey, Colbert, Fields, Hinson, Morgran, Morris, Sugden, & Tribe, 1971). One of the best ways is to meet or exceed many of the service standards that others in the industry have…

When comparing the theoretical wins of customers targeted with the budget upside program with its incremental cost, the difference is $1,927, which amounts to 4%. This is significantly less than the results of the frequency upside program, but nonetheless a positive value that resulted in profit. The initial investment in this program is also significantly lower than that of the frequency upside program.

Harrah's CM strategy is to focus entirely on customers and their potential behavior. It is assumed that everything Harrah's gives them has an effect upon customers' future gambling decisions. Hence, the Gold Card program is used to collect customer profiles, which in turn are used in it direct marketing efforts targeted towards customers who have shown the potential for loyalty. In this way, the programs are conducted in an integrated way to target customers who are most likely to be loyal in the future of Harrah's.

Specifically,…

Customer Relationships

Nordstrom, Inc. has long enjoyed a reputation for providing superior customer service. This paper examines Nordstrom strategies that the retailer employs to build customer relationships and promote customer loyalty.

Nordstrom is one of the nation's leading fashion specialty retailers, with 204 stores that are located in 28 states. It was founded in 1901 as a shoe store in Seattle, and today operates 115 full-line stores, 86 Nordstrom Racks, two Jeffrey boutiques, and one clearance store. Nordstrom also serves its customers through its website and through its catalogs (Gonzales, 2).

Nordstrom's business strategy has been called "greed through love" (deFelice). The 110-year-old retailer owes its success to customer-friendly policies that are well-known, widely admired, and frequently imitated in the U.S. retail industry. Nordstrom employees work to form customer relationships, and the company is known to have one of the most customer friendly merchandise return policies in the global retail…

All those nice customer-friendly marketing techniques notwithstanding, hite notes, customer-centered personalization can't work well without being linked with high-quality, high-visibility customer service.

Even some of the most successful corporations, like IBM, apparently stumbled along for a time, totally failing to "get it" when it came to customer-centric strategies. According to the industry publication Chain Store Age, in the early 1990s, a customer-centric culture "was foreign to Big Blue" - and to al-Mart - until fairly recently. The writer goes on to explain that when considering al-Mart and Target (two retail giants that are becoming "more alike than different"), "sameness" is a "trap" that happens when a company "takes its eye off the brand to focus on the numbers, loyalty goes by the wayside. It happened to Sears," the article asserts.

RESISTANCE TO CCS/CRM: In the Jossey-Bass book, Designing The Customer-Centric Organization (Galbraith 2005), the author suggests that businesses that hesitate…

For product management professionals in the B2C market, the challenges are even greater as the competition and speed in their markets is magnitudes greater than their B2B counterparts. Often consumer-oriented products have a high degree of seasonality to them, substitutes abound, and product lifecycles can be very short (Thorpe, Morgan, 2007). Determining the best possible market segments, defining customers as accurately as possible and monitoring the performance of go-to-market strategies is critical for a new business to succeed in consumer-based or B2C-oriented markets (Van Fleet, Van Fleet, Flint, 2010). Considering how competitive the consumer packaged goods (CPG) market is and the level of investment required for any new product to be successful, the need for accurate customer information becomes central to innovation (Kannan, Yim, 2001). The success of Proctor & Gamble in the CPG markets they compete in is evidence of how thoroughly customer insight, intelligence and market segment analysis…

Customer elationships

Managing relationships is one of the critical success factors in managing sales. What form might relationships between selling organisations and customers take?

There are many forms that relationships taken between selling organizations and customers. The most critical determinant of how the relationships and selling organizations is the business model of the company itself. For those companies whose business models are predicated on solving complex, intricate problems for customers, direct selling relationships are the most common. The reliance on a consultative, relationship-based selling strategy is often used by companies whose business models focus on complex, challenging problems other businesses have. This approach to selling often puts the role of being a trusted advisor at the center of the selling relationship strategies (Czerniawska, 2005).

In companies who have products that rely primarily on price and availability, the selling relationship are focused on direct selling, persuasive selling, and price-based selling (Leibowitz,…

This creates a strong customer base that can help the company through financially difficult periods and gives the company a leeway in terms of price control and product development. A company that can keep customers also tends to have a higher market share than its competitors. Customer care usually works its way back around and acts as advertising through the company, generally by word of mouth from satisfied customers. The more impressed a customer is with the service and care provided, the more likely they will be to recommend the business and mention its virtues to friends and family, increasing the customer pool through indirect advertising.

5.7 Warranties

To ensure that out clients are assured of their pick and choice, as the Marketing director I recommend that the company gives warranties to all the electronics that ordinarily our competitors would not give. It is noted by the research conducted by…

Customer elationships

For this study we take the example of Tesco PLC and study its website to get an understanding of the type of efforts that the retailer makes to create customer relationship.

In this assignment we would study the website of Tesco groceries - http://www.tesco.com/groceries.

As is evident from the website the primary aim of the company is to target those customers who are looking for low cost yet good quality of products. The number of offer that the company is offering in the website is testimony of the fact. Secondly, the company wants to appeal to the customers by providing them several facilities to increase the ease of shopping. For example the delivery saver scheme where the company would provide delivery of grocery products to the designated address for just 3 pounds or unlimited delivery of grocery for 25 pounds a month or savings in delivery charges t…

Loyalty'

"Thee aspects of Concept: Band Expeiences, Band Image and Custome Satisfaction.

I must discuss and give examples of how each band inspies loyalty. Name a few bands.

The seven bands that inspie the most loyalty, accoding to business website ("Main Steet") ae the following:

Dunkin Donuts

Facebook

Cheeios

Apple computes

Sam Adams

The Yankees

Each of these fits the definition of band expeiences as conceptualized by Bakus et al. (2009) as something which consists of sensations, feelings, cognitions, and behavioal esponses. Each of these factos too is evoked by cetain aspects of the band's packaging such as envionment, communication, and oveall stimuli. Band expeience, theefoe, accoding to Bakus et al. (2009) is synonymous to band image which essentially consists of fou dimensions: sensoy, affective, intellectual, and behavioal. When each of these fou concete dimensions is fulfilled, custome loyalty is the end esult since the custome has been satisfied in…

Loyalty

Lai, F et al. (2009) How quality, value, image, and satisfaction create loyalty at a Chinese telecom mpact of Culture on Marketing Strategy, 62, 980 -- 986

Lai et al. (2009) propose and test a model that examines possible associaitons between service quality, value, image, satisfaction, and loyalty in China. The investigation and analysis of survey data from 118 customers of a Chinese mobile communications company reveals that quality of service directly influences both the perceived value and the image perceptions of the company, that this perceived value and customer image of the company after influence customer satisfaction, that the image of the manager influences the value of the company, and that both customer's satisfaction and perceived value (as well as real value) of company are the basic factors of loyalty.

The research is reliable in that a significant number of customers were surveyed. Limitations, however, consist in the…

The employees should be firmly committed to the firm, they are the face of a firm (also its eyes and ears). The staff focus should be involved in the process management, also their measurement and knowledge as well as initial contact with customers, all contribute to the performance of the organization.

Firms need to provide results on a consistent basis, be innovative and should respond quickly to any changes in environment for giving exceptional results and satisfying customers. Further in continuous improvement, aspects such as redesign of processes or services, upgraded technology systems, proper paperwork should be focused upon. Continuous improvement requires all firms' members to look for opportunities to improve. Overall, the continuous improvement process involves customers, leadership, employees and quality. It is the customers who determine if the firm is providing quality. They are the judges of it. The leadership is useful for setting direction of the firm.…

2 of the respondents were self-employed and 11.2% of respondent were white-collar workers with 1.2% of respondents being blue-collar workers. The following chart shows the factor analysis results with VARIMAX rotation of traveler's perceptions of hotel attributes in the study of Choi and Chu (2000).

Factor Analysis Results with VARIMAX Rotation of Traveler's Perceptions of Hotel Attributes

Source: Choi and Chu (2000)

The following chart shows a 'regression analysis results of hotel factors according to Asian and Western travellers overall satisfaction levels.

Regression Analysis Results of Hotel Factors According to Asian and Western Travelers Overall Satisfaction Levels

Source: Choi and Chu (2000)

2.3 Loyalty

2.3.1 Definition of customer loyalty

Kandampully and Suhartanto (2000) define a loyal customer as "a customer who purchases from the same service provider whenever possible, and who continues to recommend or maintain a positive attitude toward the service provider" (p. 346).

2.3.2 Loyalty dimensions

There is…

anking and financial services includes such firms as investment banks, commercial banks, brokerage firms, and credit card institutions. The common it pulse throughout the daily operations of these organizations involves utilizing systems to communicate between branches and subsidiaries, establishing operations throughout the world, communicating with the end customer in order to facilitate transactions, and analyzing customer and market attributes in order to reduce uncertainties in such aspects as pricing policies" (p. 24). Some of the more salient issues affecting the financial services industry today are described further in Table ____ below.

Table ____.

Examples of utilization of information technology in order to enhance efficiency and productivity by the financial services industry.

Area Impacted

Description of Impact

Credit card institutions store, retrieve, and analyze vast amounts of demographic customer information enabling them to more accurately target potential markets for new products and also identify less-attractive, credit-risk customers.

This allows them to…

Business Ethics: Using Top Quality Parts

Today, every business recognizes the importance of its customers to enhance its longevity. Indeed, customers, even more than investors, are responsible for the strength or weakness of a business. If the customer base is weak and relationships are not up to par, it is more than likely that the business will also suffer. For this reason, businesses have certain codes of ethics when entering into relationship with their customers to optimize these relationships. This is echoed throughout business publications, since a high sense of ethics fosters positive and high quality customer relationships. This, in turn, will create a positive image of the company among customers, who will in turn spread the word regarding the excellence of the company. For this reason, On-Time Technology Products (OTTP) cannot in good conscience succumb to pressure, even from large investors, to save expenses in unethical ways, including using…

difficulty with customer retention for Storz & Bickel is that their chief high-end product, the Volcano Vaporizer, lacks "planned obsolescence."

I am using the term that was devised by Alfred P. Sloan for the Ford Motor Company, but this is now basically a strategy implemented by all major manufacturing corporations -- in some sense, the point of an iPhone 5 is that it will eventually be made obsolete by an iPhone 6, and thus customer retention strategies are built around maintaining brand loyalty. As Medeiros (2003) writes about the original planned obsolescence strategy: "Sloan's idea was that automobiles should change each year, and should each year become more expensive (at least to the cost of production)….Each year, the new-model cars would have more improvements added on, different engines, different styling, different comfort features" (287).

The problem is that this strategy -- which works well with Ford automobiles or Apple iPhones…

Customer Service

We shall, for the purposes of this paper, accept the proposition that we are moving from a culture that can be categorized as "you get what I give" to one where the customer is always right. In the real world, there are companies that do either, depending on their business model. But for the sake of argument we will assume the position of a company that is seeking to shift from the former to a more customer-centric vision of customer service. There are two elements to such a shift -- operational and cultural. Operations can be laid out in such a way that barriers to customer service that may have existed in the past are now removed, for example. Yet, because service is inherently customer-oriented, based on interactions, it is critical that the organization shifts to a customer-service-based culture. This is a massive cultural shift from an organizational…

Marketing Strategies in Costco's etail Stores

etail Store Loyalty

Besides being one of the leading U.S. retail stores, Costco has won the hearts of many customers. As a customer, I have maintained my loyalty to this retailer, thanks to their small, surprise gifts that often remind me to visit the store in a delighted manner. Often, these unexpected gifts reflect the law of reciprocity, meaning the company responds to my positive actions with a positive action (Dahmen, 2004). The gifts range from simple things like a digital card. However, I feel that Costco could improve their customer experience by offering a personalized, compelling and seamless brand experience. While seeking to satisfy consumers' demands, the retailer must focus on the degree of involvement that consumers have with their brands across channels. Therefore, Costco must deliver value to me to continue earning my loyalty. In the wake of e-.commerce boom, Costco needs…

Customer elationship Management

Over the last several years, customer relationship management (CM) has become an area which is helping firms to reduce costs and increase productivity. This is because it is focusing on offering small, medium and large sized businesses with number of solutions to streamline their operations. While at the same time, they are utilizing technology to integrate various solutions together. The most notable include: technical support, sales, marketing and customer service. (Brookings, 2013) (Buttle, 2012)

These areas are helping firm to reduce their costs and more effectively understand what is most important to their customers. This is when they can introduce products and services which are most in demand. These objectives are achieved by creating a single platform and adapting to the organization itself. This offers a firm with a customized solution (via the Internet) that assists them in understanding cliental and the marketplace. (Brookings, 2013) (Buttle, 2012)…

Customer relationship management (CM) is an essential component of organizational management. The purpose of this discussion is to focus on a CM strategy for United Behavioral Health a subsidiary of United Health Care . . United Behavioral Health is dedicated to presenting customers with high quality, cost-effective, managed mental health and substance abuse services to its customers. The investigation suggests that the company's core values have been successfully implemented into the company's CM Strategy. The current CM strategy utilizes technology to allow customers to voice their opinions. Currently the company's website ubhweb.uhc.com provides a page that offers help to members that are experiencing problems. In addition, it provides customers with "coaches" that can help whenever problems arise. The company's customers are currently divided into three different groups; the employer division, the health plan division and the public sector. We found testimonials of customers who were extremely satisfied with the care…

There are processes engrained in many healthcare providers that also protect the political balance of power and any change of these processes is seen as a demotion of political clout by senior managers. In many healthcare providers the accounting and finance departments are more concerned with managing their invoices and getting the bills out on time and accurate than ensuring a high level of customer service is delivered (Fishman, 2006). A second major factor in healthcare companies not addressing this issue of automating their systems is that there is the perception of new systems being a threat to the data itself; there is fear that once the date is put into the system it will somehow be lost or compromised. This fear of a lack of control over the data is often driven by information systems departments, who also fear their jobs will be taken over by the new system.…

As has been mentioned in the introduction, the four tactics that comprise this strategy include providing a dedicated and exclusive customer service manager to the largest accounts due to their complex, often urgent, and difficult-to-solve problems and requests; the use of value-added promotions and coupons including added services that by themselves would be only marginally successful yet when bundled with other tactics appears to be working; the utilization of segmentation strategies for isolating the unmet needs of customers and designing loyalty programs for them and developing product line extensions to fulfill those needs; and the development of event-based marketing programs to involve and include customers in the major decisions surrounding the company. Our CEO is a big believer in advisory councils and uses these both for market research and customer retention.

The company excels at execution yet relies on anecdotal and a very imprecise methodology for actually quantifying the impact…

Once contractors and employees recognize that CUTCO is interested in making changes, they will willingly provide the company with the information they need to better understand what the customers want and need, and how they can best meet their need. When people talk poorly of a company, customers will hear this news much more quickly than they will hear about the positive gains the company has made or intends to make. When people talk negatively word spreads much quicker. Because of this, CUTCO needs to make amends to the individuals it wronged, and provide an accurate description of its practices so it can begin building a strong customer base. Once CUTCO does this, it can then concentrate on its brand. CUTCO already has a good branding strategy; they must simply ensure this strategy aligns with their objectives and the objectives of the people and contractors working with and for them.…

It is possible to find examples of nearly every service business in existence using SEVQUAL or a variation of this methodology to quantify customer service performance. An interesting second development is the correlation found between customer satisfaction, market share and profitability (Anderson, Fornell, Lehmann, 1994). Based on the strength of this association many companies are investing heavily in analytics to evaluate just how effective their customer service strategies are in earning satisfaction in the short-term and trust in the long-term.

Conclusion

Values-based differentiation and advanced methodologies for measuring customer satisfaction are re-ordering the global marketing landscape today. The emphasis on analytics is what many multinational and global marketers are using to unify these strategies, with the core focus being on how to translate their many combined efforts into the role of trusted advisor (Dimitriadis, Kouremenos, Kyrezis, 2011). Trust is the most powerful differentiator there is and is also highly effective…

Tesco, the largest UK company, employs 260,000 people. This corporation has global aspirations and has come a long way in a relatively short period of time" (2003, p. 3).

According to the company's promotional literature, the employment figure for 2003 has almost doubled today, as shown in Table 1 below.

Table 1

Current Key Figures for Tesco

Category

Statistic

Staff worldwide

472,000

Staff in the UK

287,669

Stores worldwide

5,008

Total stores in the UK

2,545

Extra

13

Homeplus

Superstore

Metro

Express

OneStop

Number of markets

14

Which markets

China, Czech Republic, Hungary, India, Japan, Malaysia, Poland, Republic of Ireland, Slovakia, South Korea, Thailand, Turkey, UK, USA

Note: Facts correct October 2010

Source: Tesco Quick Facts 2010

Figure 1. Respective Number of Tesco Retail Formats in the U.K.

Source: Based on tabular data in Tesco Quick Facts 2010

A brief summary of the company's guiding corporate strategy is provided in…

Lastly differentiating on the extent of experience our customers have had with Internet-based software is useful in defining how much extra time is necessary for software application training.

Discuss your efforts to create customer intimacy.

As our company relies intensively on long-term relationships with customers, taking a very active approach to creating customer intimacy is critical to our business. Our approach is to first concentrate on total accountability for our software by having our CEO visit each and every customer just after an installation to show a high degree of support and accountability. Next, we offer each customer the opportunity to join a customer advisory council specific to their industry and special interests. At present there are three customer advisory councils which give customers an opportunity to discuss their concerns, interested in new product ideas and see what is presently in development.

How will you customize your offering for particular…

Mobile Loyalty ackground

The mobile telephone system is part of a global communication sector that has a number of distinct but interlinked elements. Whether one talks on a telephone, searches the net, emails, sends texts or downloads and participates in web-generated data sharing, one is using the mobile telephone network more and more, to the point where it and some of the competing companies appear to be reaching their service capacities. Or at least this seems to be the case when it comes to doing what these large providers should be best at: adding and keeping customers. Maintaining a loyal buyer base -- one that truly likes and advocates for the provider -- or at least happily retaining one beyond a small contract period is critical for any company that wants to be able to serve the global marketplace (Sharpley, 2009).

Underlying many of the customer service practices and promises…

Jones (2000) explains that "Competitive advantage can be gained through customer service management (CSM) when implemented as a comprehensive approach to centering the organization on the customer. To be successful in the CSM strategy, each area of an organization must see that, directly or indirectly, achieving its objectives contributes to the customer's overall experience with the organization (Jones (2000)."

The capacity for business growth as goals are met- if customer service is good loyal customers will begin to tell others about the company and the products and services that are available through the company (Bielski, 2002). When this occurs profit could increase and many goals can be met.

Weaknesses. The weaknesses of industry as it relates to customer service are as follows;

Lack of adequate customer service training/quality assurance- in many cases industry suffers because there is a lack of customer service training that is adequate enough to meet the…

Effects of CM on the Hospitality Industry

At a very strategic level, CM has made the hospitality industry much more attuned to the preferences, wants and needs of guests. It has also created a more responsive industry by capturing the needs of customers more efficiently and economically than was ever possible before. Specific areas that have changed the most include more of a focus on making multichannel strategies, from websites to Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, more responsive to the needs of the guest to provide feedback (Lim, Saldana, Saldana, Zegarra, 2011). There are also more effective analytics being used than ever before, creating greater insights into guest's patterns of purchasing not only accommodations but amenities as well (Phillips, Louvieris, 2005). CM's effect on the hospitality industry is very significant, bringing a strong customer orientation to the industry and also giving hoteliers and service providers much greater insights into…

Based on the attributes of luxury brand, the luxury brand requires special marketing strategy to achieve brand objectives. The strategy assists in developing global brand reputation as well as forming brand awareness within the global competitive environment. (Moore and Birtwistle 2005).

In the contemporary marketing environment, experiential marketing has become a cornerstone of marketing, and retailing for luxury brand. Experiential marketing is the technique of viewing consumer as an emotional and rational being who aims to achieve pleasurable experiences. (Atwal et al. 2008). Typically, experiential marketing offers customer memorable experiences in order to achieve customer satisfaction and competitive market advantages. The experiential marketing uses different tools to create the memorable experiences for customers. For example, experiential marketing organizes entertainment for customers in order to educate them, allow them to escape the reality, as well as giving them aesthetic objects or places to see. Experiential marketers use different tools to create…

In support of this overarching aim, the following objectives were also be used.

Objectives:

he proposed study has three objectives as follows:

1.2.1

o deliver a comprehensive and critical review of the relevant literature concerning the relevant issues.

1.2.2.

o administer a custom survey to various luxury hotel managers concerning their current branding strategies to identify commonalities and significant differences.

1.2.3.

o provide a synthesis of the secondary and primary research that can be used as a set of best industry practices for promoting brand awareness and customer satisfaction in the hotel industry today.

1.3

Statement of Study Problem.

A wide range of factors have been cited in the literature for the growth of branding within the hotel industry, with virtually all authorities agreeing that the basic motive for such initiatives is increased profitability and a sustainable competitive advantage. In this regard, Allen (2007) reports that, "What has recently come…

E-Customer Loyalty: Applying the Traditional ules of Business for Online Success, by Frederick F. eichheld, obert G. Markey, Jr., and Christopher Hopton. Specifically, it will contain a one-page synopsis and two-page critique of the material.

E-CUSTOME LOYALTY

This article goes into detail about what many consumers have known for a long time. The most successful merchants, both online and off, are those who recognize the importance of developing a good relationship with their customers, thereby creating customer loyalty and greater profits for their company. The paper argues that many online merchants do not recognize that many brick-and-mortar business rules still apply to their businesses online. "They often forget that the fundamental rules of successful business still apply" (eichheld et al. 173). The article goes on to discuss two particular companies foray into e-commerce, and their experience with building a profitable company online. It continues with information on how to build…

He also knew that Time Warner Cable has at times been known to zap televisions with too much voltage and a few had been damaged. This had actually been written about in the local press. In short, what made this situation unique was the knowledge the sales person had of the local market and the potential hazards to such a large investment in entertainment.

Second, the cross-sell strategies (Reinartz, Thomas, ascoul, 2008) at est uy also centered on making the flat screen television more integrated into my existing stereo system as well. As there is already an amplifier, receiver and a series of speakers in the room where the television sis going, the est uy salesman was able to draw and define an approach for me to integrate all the components together. At first I didn't believe him yet after I went back home and looked at the connectors on…

Superior Customer Value

eginning in 1998, Harrah's decided that it wanted to change its business culture from an operations-driven company that viewed every casino as a stand-alone property to a marketing-driven company with a holistic view of its properties and customers (light and Turk, 2004). The organization structure was revamped to become a national distribution network with a single, unifying brand. The company was then able to execute its corporate growth strategy, one that sought loyalty to increase same-store-sales growth. This required convincing gamblers to spend less at competitors and more at Harrah's. As discussed in this paper, enterprise collaboration, competitive positioning focused on customer service and gaming in the middle market, supply chain optimization, and regulatory considerations are all significant factors affecting Harrah's ability to deliver superior customer value.

Collaboration

Instead of building glitzy casinos with attractions such as volcanoes, sinking ships and replicas of the Eiffel Tower, Harrah's…

But in a world that changes so drastically in such short periods of time and in a market filled with fierce competition and customers which change and increase their needs on daily basis, achieving customer loyalty is quite difficult; ergo, Apple's need to develop and implement better and stronger CM policies.

Current Features of Apple's CM

Given the specific nature of their businesses and the fact that after the purchase has been completed, several customers need additional services, the Apple Corporation encourages all current and potential customers to address their questions and complaints to an Apple representative. The corporate website contains detailed information on how customers can contact a service support department within both Canada and the United States.

In addition, for a specified fee, Apple customers can benefit from AppleCare, a service of extended support for the Apple products. There are large numbers of Apple customers who declare themselves…

Managing the elationship Between Customer and E-Banking

Banking

E banking or the Electronic banking is an Electronic method of money transfer or the EFT. This is a means whereby, an individual transfers money directly from different accounts by use of an Electronic system. This service allows clients to make use of computers or electronic gadgets to access the accounts information and conduct the various transactions involved. The service is beneficial for customers working in remote locations or a workplace. Its biggest advantage is that the service is convenient to customers. A customer can access a transaction at any given time of the day whether at night or during the day. Other advantages of E-Banking include; lower operating system in that, the general operating costs for the E-banking system is usually lower for the banks. A customer registered for the Electronic banking system is guaranteed few errors during the transaction. The…

Management

The Challenge of Improving Upon Exemplary Customer Service: Apple, Inc.

For the purposes of this task, the organisation of focus will be the international giant, Apple, Inc. Apple is an organisation and a brand with international fame conjuring instant recognition and respect from global consumers for nearly four decades. Apple has an exceptional reputation for many aspects of their business practices such as product quality, product variety, and for the paper's purposes, customer service. As the paper will demonstrate and cite, this organisation has an outstanding reputation for customer service. Apple's customer service is ranked high both nationally (domestically) and internationally. Why choose an organisation that is so far ahead of most others? It is a formidable challenge to constantly and effectively improve upon excellence; this is the task that Apple puts before itself each year, and it is the same perspective from which the paper aligns itself.

Trends…

Nearly every major gaming and gambling, entertainment and promotional company relies on analytics to determine how best to choose which customers to retain, and which to let go (Todd, 2009).

Often the decision of which strategies to automate for customer retention vs. termination can be defined by integrating financial data with predictive analytics to create entirely new models of predictive financial value of customers (Sharma, 2008). Entertainment companies in gambling routinely use this approach to find the customers who are draining profits and also those who take a disproportionally high level of support and service to maintain (Baillie, 2003). Once the analysis has been completed of customer lifetime value by segment, companies can quickly determine the best possible approach to protect their most profitable customers and dis-incent others (Kapanen, 2004). educing customer churn through this technique shows significant potential, especially in industries that have relatively low lifetime customer loyalty.

Conclusion…

Technology on Customers in egard to the Following

The greatest change in technology has been in the delivery of information. This has impacted the developed and developing world alike. So the firms in U.S., for example, spend more on office-based functions of information handling which has been the major change and has dominated the patterns of development and brought about a change in the structure of work and growth. The modern business depends upon the way information is processed and made useful. (Allen; Morton, 1990) Based on that, companies have changed their strategies of manufacture and technology to suit the needs of customers.

The mobile bandwidth gave more impetus to the merger of the internet, music and the basic telephony and the 'mobile phone' has been converted to a workstation that has become multipurpose. Thus gadgets like PDAs, iPods, and camera phones, Blackberry and Wi-Fi have made the consumer technology's…

Nordstrom began as a shoe retailer, and eventually transition into a fashion and apparel department story, but all along it was the strong desire of management to provide "the highest level of customer service" with "top of the line, high quality merchandize" (Chapter 5). This paper points to the need for Nordstrom to continue to expand its great customer service, and the risks it might take in that regard.

Nordstrom and Customer Services

How can a great company known for exceptional customer service continue to provide that service and at the same time boost customer loyalty? Given the extraordinary measures that Nordstrom already has gone to -- and goes to -- how can they continue to provide services that go above and beyond what other upscale department stores? These are the salient questions for this paper. Ideas for continuing to provide great customer care services are provided in the following…

Due to the forces of globalization and modernization, the role of culture within the purchase decision is becoming less and less intense, but the role of the society is increasing. At this level, the decision to purchase is greatly influenced by the reference group, or the organization or team with which the individual identifies or to which he wishes to belong. In order to gain the acceptance of the respective group or to feel himself as integrated within the group, the individual will purchase those items which allow him to meet the expectations and goals of the reference group (Borrow and Bosiljevac, 2008).

2.4. The decision making unit (DMU)

The concept of the decision making unit is explained by ay Wright's (2004) Business to business marketing: a step-by-step guide, in which the author reveals the mechanisms behind the decision making process. The decision making unit is understood as the series…

Service

The Customer Is Always ight

In today's highly challenging and dynamic business world where most of the companies enjoy an online presence and Internet shopping has become a norm, customer service has turned into a major issue. In an article titled ' The customer is always right' written by Cory Goldman, the author explains how poor customer service on the Internet can result in loss of customers. Goldman cites the example of one shopper who went to a site to purchase anti-virus software but never received the product or email confirmation despite his frantic attempts to get an answer. The customer finally got some response many weeks later and found much to his disappointment that he had been charged twice for the product and also for online support. This shows that customer service on the Internet is a major issue of concern since it is so easy to get…

Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty, Management and Empowerment

I am not sure if I would be considered a most valuable customer at Verizon, but I am guessing not. I am a relatively low revenue customer for them, basically an average customer in terms of what they would make off of me. If you consider the different elements that go into a most valuable customer, they are the profitability, the timing of the revenue, the referrals that such customers can generate, their retention, the add-ons and the customer's brand, and feedback (Moltz, 2015). Of these, maybe on retention, but otherwise I would consider myself to be a generally average customer. Corporate customers are worth a lot more money, and there are consumers who are generally bigger spenders with add-ons and the like.

The lifetime value of a most valuable customer would be unknown. Corporate customers are the most valuable, and each of them…

Consequently, marketing efforts become more and more important.

Glyn Atwal and Alistair Williams (2009) for instance argue that the creators of luxury products have to use marketing efforts to identify new customers' needs even before the customers become aware of these needs. In other words, they have to "stay in front of luxury consumers" (Atwal and Williams, 2009, p.338). And in order to do so, the luxury products manufacturers strive to create positive experiences for their customers in order to inspire them and to stimulate their purchase decisions.

Otherwise put, in the context of luxury products, experiential marketing is growingly present and critical and this is due to the complex nature of the luxury sector. Here, the producers seek to transmit the image of high quality, product authenticity, as well as performance. However, aside from these statements, the luxury products must also transmit and sell a customer experience; and this…

Dilmah Tea

Stakeholder Analysis

Customer Segments

There are two ways of looking at Dilmah's customers. The buyers -- to whom Dilmah sells -- are the supermarkets and wholesalers that carry the tea. The other customer group is the end user. Tea is a mass market product that is consumed by a broad swath of the population, and to the extent that there is a definable "typical" demographic for tea consumption, this will vary by market. Initially, the company experienced difficulty in attracting interest from supermarket chains, which would then have had to utilize a push strategy to convince consumers to buy the tea. Over time, however, Dilmah was able to build its brand, making it more attractive to both supermarkets and consumers.

The global hot beverages market is worth $69.77 billion and the two major segments (coffee and tea) are both growing (PR eb, 2011). The growing demand, combined with…

At the second dealership, Carol felt the salesperson respected her knowledge about cars and answered her questions without talking down to her. She was very pleased with her purchase and told the salesperson she would be happy to recommend the dealership to her friends.

Kathy, a plus-sized lady who is sensitive about her size, was shopping for a dress to wear to her son's wedding. She went into an independently-owned dress shop that had come highly recommended. A young saleswoman "breezed by" and told Kathy to let her know if she needed help with anything, then promptly disappeared. Kathy felt overwhelmed by the choices among dresses and left the shop within a few minutes. She drove to David's Bridal, a move she had been resisting because she likes to shop independent stores rather than chains if she can. As soon as she walked in the door, Kathy was greeted by…

Identity is often part of a branding strategy: contrast the wholesome, clean-cut image of a wearer of alph Lauren Polo clothing or Abercrombie & Fitch with that of a Hot Topic teen. Consider Coca-Cola's all-American image vs. that of Pepsi's more teen-friendly branding as the drink of the next generation of soda drinkers. Pillsbury's branding of wholesomeness and home-cooked yet fast and easy to prepare meals and the 'cuteness' of the Doughboy, while iconic, does not necessarily stand out in the crowded atmosphere of today's marketplace.

Today's marketing atmosphere is far noisier than ever before and failing to stand out may not entirely be Pillsbury's fault. Developing new, iconic brands is more difficult than in the past, and few have succeeded with the possible exception of Google and Apple. Developing a unique image as an all-American baking company may no longer resonate as well with consumers as it did in…

DVD Rental

Improving Customer Service at Vista DVD Rentals

The Vista DVD Rentals store is at a crossroads. After a number of years in operation, the store is facing a critical turning point that could dictate future survival or the suspension of any further business. The transformation must revolve on vastly improved customer service. As is the case for most businesses in New Zealand, customer service has come to play an increasingly important role in Vista's relevance. Consumers have come to expect a certain level of accommodation on the part of a retail or rental operation and this imposes a high level of importance on the decisions that companies make with respect to the customer experience. Essentially, customer service can be defined as the set of standards, practices and procedures that shape the customer's experience through the course of a business transaction. This denotes two primary aspects of customer service:…