How to Interact with Customers - Essay Example

How to Interact with Customers 1. It is of considerable importance to mention that customers form the key pillar to the success of any business organization. As is evident, in order to succeed in the marketplace, it is necessary that the products and services offered by the business enterprises and organizations are actually taken up by the customers. However, during the process of consumption or usage of the product or service, it is very likely that the customers might face some kinds of issues with the product or service. This makes them turn towards the company people and representatives who can help them in providing a commendable solution to their problems. In this particular case, it has to be highlighted that the issues faced by the consumers on the purchase of the products of the company’s sales’ department needed solutions. This makes the customers and consumers of the products to call up to the customer service department. It is to be highlighted and mentioned that when the customers opt to call up the customer service executives of the company, they are in drastic and urgent need of help and support. The process of customer care executives asking them about their sales transaction details are bound to heighten the frustration level of the consumers and customers since, it adds up to the delay in getting the desired solution. It also needs to be taken into consideration that in some cases, it might so happen that the customers may not have the sales transaction details at their immediate disposal. This might result in the process of being avoided or getting delayed in terms of getting a recommendable solution to their problem. In order to tackle this issue, the company can focus on implementing technology based upgrades in its customer services. To start in the most traditional way, it can be said that the company goes for an upgrade of their entire customer support software. The new software should be having a feature which will allow the customer service representative to simply type the consumer name and id and thereby pull up the relevant details associated with their individual transaction. However, in the scenario, the company wants to quicken the process of tackling the issue, the company can focus on analyzing the customer queries that are commonly asked by the consumers and customers. It has to be said that the company will need to utilize the tactic of ‘listen and engage’. In order to start with the process of listening to the consumers and customer needs, the company needs to analyze the most frequently asked queries of the consumers. Once, the common queries are being identified, the company can focus on the process of designing a special section on the website with the label of frequently asked questions or (FAQs). The company can also opt for designing a user community based page, which can be integrated with the company’s website. While talking about positioning the page, it has to be mentioned that the page should be placed in the portion of the website which will talk about the frequently asked questions. Also, the consumers who have purchased products from the company’s sales department, has to be communicated about the existence of this page through email. This will help the consumers to deal with the product related issues, by asking fellow buyers and users of the same product. By having these particular features in the website, the company will be empowering the customers to troubleshoot their own set of product related problems on the basis of self help. The self help feature will help in a great way to eradicate the need of calling the customer service representative at all times. This is sure to provide a great amount of boost in regards to tackling of the issues related to the frustration level of the customers, since it will not be necessary from them to provide the details of their sales transactions at the first place. 2. In order to stay competitive as well cash rich and profitable in the marketplace, it needs to be mentioned that the companies and business organizations continuously needs to sell its products and services to the customers. However, it might so happen that after the process of acquisition of products and services from a specific firm or business organization, customers and clients might default in the process of making payments. It is of considerable importance to highlight the fact that as normal trends, such customers and clients are provided with various options that helps in making their payments. In the worst case scenarios, it has to be said that the value of the sales of goods and services made to defaulting clients are written off as bad debts and in most cases are considered as losses for the company. It has to be said that since the defaulting clients and customers become a liability for the company, the company becomes highly cautious in regards to their dealing with such clients. The companies and organizations while making any further sales to the defaulting clients and customers normally become more cautious in regards to their poor credit ratings. In this particular case, it has to be said that since the same defaulting customer is provided with a sale of a product for the third time, recovering the losses from the customer is extremely important. The company needs to develop an opportunity to help the consumer improve his credit rating as well as provide some intrinsic value to the organization itself. It has to be said that the issue is mainly with the low credit rating of the consumer. In order to deal with that issue, the company needs to pull up something like that of a myfico.com. Talking on those lines, it can be said that the company can pull up a website, which will be more like that of an online community. It has to be said that the online community’s main centre of focus should be to promote mutual interaction among various defaulters whose credit rating is low as well and the credit rating experts who can advise the low credit rating customers with ways to increase their credit rating. Also, in order to increase the efficiency of the interaction that happens between the customers and credit rating experts, the website should have the feature to promote strong feedback for highly relevant responses and discussions. It can be expected that this recommendation will help the company to tackle with this particular issue of the defaulting customer. 3. The world of modern day is living in an era of advanced connectivity powered by the internet. It is important to highlight the fact that the high levels of internet connectivity has resulted in the faster diffusion of various kinds of global trends amongst the consumers of the advanced as well as the emerging economies (Fingar, 2009, p. 28). Talking on these lines, it has to be said that a large amount of time is being spent on the internet by today’s highly technology friendly consumers. Because of the considerable amount of time spent on the internet, it has become a trend for various product and service based companies to engage in the process of value communication to the customers using the online environment, which is being actively formed by the social networks, online communities and blogs. Because of the increased emergence of the technology friendly consumers, the trend related to online shopping is picking up. As is the case in this cosmetic company, the sales of the lipsticks has been higher in the online media is comparatively higher than the traditional outlets. It is important to mention that for successful online promotion in the online media, the ability to listen and engage the customer at the right moment and on the right note is very necessary. In the first case, it can be assumed that the cosmetic must have been able to strike the right note with the online consumers. This might have resulted in the generation of a lot of positive feedback from the consumers as well as faster order conversion from the online store. It also can be assumed that in the previous phase, which generated a high online sale for the products, the company must have made the products presence felt in various community sites as well as through Facebook pages and Twitter forums. However, to repeat high sales of products from the same group of online consumers, the company needs to focus on the process of implementing a different approach. Rather than applying the tactic of listen and engage, the cosmetic company should revise its strategy to monitor and listen. It has to be highlighted that this will help the company to track the various feedbacks that are emerging from the same group of consumers. Talking in regards to the monitoring of the feedbacks, it is important to mention that not all feedbacks will be beneficial for the product and some might contain negative responses as well. By taking the negative consumer feedbacks seriously and simply working on increasing the level of satisfaction for the customers by resolving their individual issues, will help in generation of positive responses from the unhappy online consumers. This will also get as a conversion tool for unhappy consumers. Also, it has to be recommended that the company needs to implement the 1-9-90 rule in the social media platform (Peppers and Rogers, 2010, p. 231). Talking in more details, it has to be said that the companies need to focus on the process of targeting the 1 percent of the population who actively make posts in the various online platforms. It also needs to be mentioned that the company needs to track the responses of the other 9 percent of the online population who provide active responses to the 1 percent of the online population. It is highly relevant to mention that by following this rule, the cosmetic company will have an impact on the remaining 90 percent of the online population who had been the previous online customers for the lipstick product. It can be said that the combined application of the above mentioned strategies will help in a great way in regards to the process of generation of high online sales for the cosmetic company for the second time in a row. 4. Talking in regards to the particular case, it has to be said that the core offering of the customer service representative is to provide support services to the customers. However, since the top management of the company has focused on the process of generating value from the customers, it needs to be highlighted that the customer service strategy, that is being currently followed by the company has to be completely revamped. It can be said that the frequency of incoming calls from the customers to the customer service representatives has to increase, so that the customer service representative gets the chance to pitch the company’s product and services to the existing customers. For the purpose of doing so, a very important step will be to eradicate the existence of any FAQ page that might exist on the company’s website. It has to be said that by removing the option of self service for the customers, the customers will feel compelled to avail the option of calling the customers service executive to avail any help associated with the product or service. Once the customer service executive is being engaged, the concerned person gets the option to pitch the company’s additional services to the customers. However, it is of considerable importance to highlight the fact that for the purpose of successful conversion of the potential customer to a buyer for a new service, the company needs to focus on the process of providing adequate training to the customer service representatives in regards to various marketing tactics. Reference Peppers, D. and Rogers, M. (2010). Managing Customer Relationships: A Strategic Framework. USA: John Wiley and Sons. Fingar, C.T. (2009) Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. Washington DC: Diane Publishing. Read More