How to Use Customer Service as a Competitive Advantage for Small Businesses?

Customer service is the provision of service being provided by the seller to customers before, during and after a purchase of any product. A customer is a person who buys products (goods or services) from a shop or a business organization. Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction — that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation. It is also the process of assisting another person or persons who buys goods and services from a shop. In order to make the organization effective and productive, all the employees need to develop a positive service attitude towards customers. The goal of quality customer service in any organization is to send a positive message with a good attitude to the customers to make them more loyal and happy thereby. Such a message must focus on addressing the needs Continue reading

Advertising Creativity – The Role of Creativity in Advertising

The creative part of advertising involves the process of selecting and presenting the messages. The business of conceiving, writing, designing and producing these messages is called advertising creativity  and the key wordsmith is called a copywriter or copy chief or copy supervisor. The success of advertising depends to a great extent on the quality of the message or copy of advertisement rather than the money spent on advertising. The conventional theory of advertising includes the concept of AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire and Action). Most of the advertisers believe that the message in advertisement copy must attract the attention and interest of the consumer if buying is to result. But they forget that only good advertisement copy or good message can attract the attention and interest of the receiver until and unless the much advertise product attributes have a strong impact on consumers. The consumers come to know the existence of Continue reading

Brand Building Process – Process of Building a Brand

The art of marketing is largely art of brand building. When something is not a brand, it will probably be viewed as a commodity. Then price is the thing that counts. When price is the only thing that counts then the low cost producer wins. But just having a brand is not enough. What does the brand name mean? What associations, performances and expectations does it evoke? What degree of preferences does it create? 1. Choosing a Brand Name A brand name first must be chosen then its various meanings and promises must be built up through brand identity work. In choosing a brand name, it must be consistent with the value positioning of the brand. In naming a product or service the company may face many possibilities: it could choose name of the person (Honda, Calvin Klein), location (American airlines), quality (Safety stores, Healthy choice), or an artificial name Continue reading

Distribution Objectives

Interrelated objectives: A firm’s distribution objectives will ultimately be highly related–some will enhance each other while others will compete. For example, as we have discussed, more exclusive and higher service distribution will generally entail less intensity and lesser reach. Cost has to be traded off against speed of delivery and intensity (it is much more expensive to have a product available in convenience stores than in supermarkets, for example). Narrow vs. Wide reach: The extent to which a firm should seek narrow (exclusive) vs. wide (intense) distribution depends on a number of factors. One issue is the consumer’s likelihood of switching and willingness to search. For example, most consumers will switch soft drink brands rather than walking from a vending machine to a convenience store several blocks away, so intensity of distribution is essential here. However, for sewing machines, consumers will expect to travel at least to a department or Continue reading

Relationship Between Marketing Research and Marketing Strategy

If the company has obtained an adequate understanding of the customer base and its own competitive position in the industry, marketing managers are able to make their own key strategic decisions and develop a  marketing strategy  designed to maximize the  revenues  and  profits  of the firm. The selected strategy may aim for any of a variety of specific objectives, including optimizing short-term unit margins, revenue growth,  market share, long-term profitability, or other goals. To achieve the desired objectives, marketers typically identify one or more target customer segments which they intend to pursue. Customer segments are often selected as targets because they score highly on two dimensions: The segment is attractive to serve because it is large, growing, makes frequent purchases, is not price sensitive (i.e. is willing to pay high prices), or other factors The company has the resources and capabilities to compete for the segment’s business, can meet their Continue reading

Marketing Channel Conflicts

Conflict is an inherent behavioral dimension in all social system including the marketing channel. In any social system, when a component perceives the behavior of the other component to be impending the attainment of its goal or the effective performance of its instrumental behavior pattern, an atmosphere of frustration prevails. When this frustration is not resolved by the other component, a stage of conflict may exist. More over if the other component also perceive it as the blockage in its attainment of goal then both the components become objects of each other frustration and the conflict arises. In distribution channel, the same is also applicable. Here the conflict may be sales man versus distributor, distributor versus wholesaler, wholesaler versus retailer and so on. Some time in bigger organizations the conflict may arise between product company versus supply company, sales department versus production department. This type of channel conflict are more Continue reading