STUDENTS' CORNER - 213

Life is relationships, personal and professional.

Importance and significance of customer retention are and have been the key goals of any business enterprise because as we know customer is the king of the market without investment and a large establishment. Retaining him with the company brings benefit to the company. But we know, do what you can, there will be some small number of customers who leave you. Marketing experts have analyzed and discussed at length the strategies that have to be adopted to retain the customer.

Market dynamics impacts marketing activities of a company. And one of the most significant marketing activities focuses on customer satisfaction. A satisfied customer does not bother about any other company’s product because he is satisfied with your product. First of all, the company must see to it that it makes product available hassle-free all the times without costing much though not compromising on the quality. There should not be any occasion wherein your customer was not given the product he asked for; psychologically, we know customer becomes habituated to the product and man that is any customer is a die-hard as for habits are concerned. It is difficult to assess the extent of disappointment a customer might be experiencing when he failed to get the product he sought for; it may be the first time and perhaps it will be the last time also that such denial of a product is posed to a customer; all the same, a small negative intervention in the experience of fulfilling a habit is not easily forgotten. That is why, the management experts talk about production marketing which underscores the fundamental fact that the product of the company must be accessible all the time with less cost though not with less quality. Product marketing which is integral to any marketing exercises lays emphasis on quality of the product. Therefore the first ‘Must” for customer retention is your product MUST be available cost effectively to the customer. The customer is not concerned with your difficulties of any kind, financial, administrative and logistics-related. He would simply say that it is the company’s issue and not mine.

Needless to say, the company must distinguish profitable customers and non-profitable customers. The non-profitable customers if not in great number can be discouraged though tactfully. That is, attention and subsequent evolution of a marketing strategy, a very arduous task, cannot be indiscreetly spent. One very obvious method of making the non-profitable customers feel discouraged is according obvious recognition to the profitable customers in the forms of gifts, of birthday greetings, and so on.  In Management institutions of repute, they make the Heads of Departments members in the then most prestigious Clubs on their own expense. This is considered a solid express of indisputable recognition of the person as the Membership in such a club is looked upon a very great social recognition.

We will see some more steps taken to attract the customers, some pulling initiatives.