Customer Satisfaction - Marketing Metrics And Its Benefits

Question: To properly evaluate a marketing strategy and the way it performs, it is essential to measure market activity using marketing metrics. Marketing metrics are discussed throughout this unit, many metrics can be found in your textbook. They form an important aspect of marketing reporting; increasingly, the Australian Marketing Institute (A.M.I.) is helping member companies use these metrics. Metrics also form the bases of academic research (see Google Scholar and your textbook for examples), with these research articles reporting results on the use of these metrics. Your task is to define customer satisfaction and the measures (metrics) associated with customer satisfaction. Discuss the benefits of these measures to organisations. You are required relate your assignment to a personal experience; apply and discuss the marketing metrics on customer satisfaction to this experience. Give this experience a context by choosing a company (Australian or overseas) and suggest how the marketing manager might use the defined measures (metrics) to improve customer satisfaction in their organisation. Answer: Introduction The market strategy deals with preparation of plans, methods, techniques, etc in order to excel in the competitive and fragment market. Many organizations centers customer to build their market strategy so that they can gain higher profit and sustainable market share (Davis, 2012). In this content, the current assignment will be focusing on the customer and the different customer satisfaction and measurement metrics adopted by the organizations. Marketing Metrics and Its Benefits According to Carr (2012) marketing metrics is considered as a measure to analyse the business operations of the company to know how much they are capable of satisfying the customers. The marketing metrics can be taken up as measures in order to define diagnose causes, phenomena, media impressions, etc so that they can evaluate the trend of their growth. Apart from that Kotler (2012) defines that marketing metrics is concerned with evaluating the marketing strategies so that better plan can be developed in order to meet the future demands and requirements of market and customers. The marketing metrics can be helpful for the organization to analyze their business condition so that they can design their business strategy in order to succeed in the market. The marketing metrics can help the organization in improving or tracking return on investment of their marketing strategies so that incurred cost can be decreased and better result can be gained (Poston, 2012). On the other hand, the marketing metrics can be effective in building marketing strategies. Moreover, the organizations can be able to know where they may need to spend their money and where they can cut the money so that a balance can be maintained in the business operations and supply chain (Arens and Rust, 2011). The company can be able to predict their future budget that may be required for advertising, producing products, etc. The metrics can be useful in knowing the measurement technique that can be helpful in adopting methods so that profit percentage can be engaged (Mamula, 2012). Moreover, the company can be able to take better decision that can benefit the overall organizations. Further, Pilling et al. (2012) discussed that marketing metrics can be helpful in: Quality: The organizations can be to improve their quality of product and process in order to have competitive advantage. The organization can measure their loopholes or errors that may be present in business process or product development and can deliver solution to improve the error (Schulze et al. 2012). Costs: Apart from quality, company can assess the costs that may be required for business growth or in other term, the organization can identify the cost that may go waste and provide no value to consumer (Bailey, 2011). Customers: The metrics can be helpful in giving the idea about the consumer buying patterns or dissatisfaction point of customers related to particular product. Therefore, through the use of marketing metrics organization can evaluate the requirements of customers and their preferences (Ginty et al. 2012). Teams: On the other hand, the organization can also measure the performance of their staffs in given situation. The organizations can use metric such as six sigma or balance scorecard method, etc to assess the productivity and employees performance (Poston, 2012). Customer Satisfaction As per, Wong et al. (2011)customer satisfaction is considered as the marketing terms that is capable of measuring the product or service delivered by the firms. Apart from that, Wood (2011) define customer satisfaction as a metric that helps the business owners or marketers to formulate their strategy in order to improve and manage the business operations. The customer satisfaction provides indication to the organizations that whether their product or services are successful or failure in the market. For instance, if customer rates the product of a company 4 out of 10 then it means that customer is not satisfied. Apart from that, Chris Adalikwu (2012) mentioned that satisfying customer can be effective in decreasing the level of customer churn. Moreover, measuring customer satisfaction would help in placing the process in right place that can increase the total quality in providing customer service. If the consumers are a loyal customers to a company say McDonald can help in increasi ng their sales and revenue and net profit (Ginty et al. 2012). Therefore, it would be valuable for the company to decrease the negative word of mouth. Thus, in order to please the customers, an organization can use the following metrics to gain the higher benefit: Navigational Metrics: This metric is concerned with the advertising in order to navigate the information about the product or service to the customer in order to gain higher profit. However, if the people do not respond to the advertising then it can lead to complete failure and it can affect the company financially (Maricic et al. 2012). On the other hand, company can distinguish between two advertising such as social media and TV commercial and if social media is more powerful then company can eliminate the paper media to reach out to customers. Customer Experience Rating: The organizations can measure the experience of customers via transactional surveys or relationship. This would help in knowing the preference of customers. If the rating given by the customers I below mark then it can directly affect the company and vice versa (Pilling et al. 2012). Through this rating company can be able to know the loyalty and preference of the consumers. Website Total Visit: This would help in understanding the number of times the customers log in to the main website of the company. If there is drop in the visit then the company may need to change their strategy or company can employ marketing channel to investigate the reason behind such drop. Therefore, it can help organization to make necessary changes in website or in their product in order to increase higher traffic (Kumaravadivel et al. 2012). Customer Retention Rate: The organizations may not be able to retain their customer if their buying cycle is lengthy. The company can determine the customer average value through customer retention rate. On the other hand, customer retention rate is useful in knowing the success of company in employing the strategy to retain customers. Therefore, if customer is able to increase the retention rate, the company can increase their profit level and can engage new customer base (Edward and Sahadev, 2011). Customer Value: Through this metric, the organization can analyze the total return on investment. The company can be able to decide the companys annual goals if the company is able to provide better value to consumers. Therefore, company can design their strategy so that better quality of product can be gained in order to increase customer base (Livne et al. 2011). Resolution Time: The organization can assess the performance of their workers in providing rapid and accurate solution to the consumers. If the complaint resolution department of the company is not capable of providing accurate and timely solution then the company y may lose their loyal customers that can lead to negative word of mouth (Skruch, 2011). Therefore, better resolution time can help in recruiting person that can deliver best service to customer and makes healthy relationship with them. Advantage and Disadvantage of Customer Satisfaction Metrics Up to date feedback: The organizations can be able to acquire current feedback of customers through email surveys or online surveys. This would help in knowing the insight of consumer so that better decision and strategy can be made in order to engage customers (Ecsdev.org, 2015). Benchmark outcome: The organizations can be able to compare their past performance and current performance to know the success or failure level. Moreover, on the basis of past result company can set benchmark for future. The company can make require modification if any changes needed (Bear.warrington.ufl.edu, 2015). Track Changes: The metrics can be run multiple times to know the changes if occurs in the buying pattern of the customers. Therefore, metrics can help in tracking the changes over period of time so that positive can be carried forward and negative can be improved (Unc.edu, 2015). Disadvantage Customer Burnout: The customer satisfaction metric can irritate the consumer if is conducted in quick time. As a result, customer may not be interested in completing the survey that can end up to customer burnout. Therefore, the organization may not be able to measure the customer satisfaction accurately (Mit.edu, 2015). Anonymity Issues: If many companies conduct surveys then it can generate fear among the customers that they are being tracked. Due to this, customer may not provide complete information and it can affect the company to increase their sales or income. Therefore, it may be hard for the organization to receive proper response from consumers (Unc.edu, 2015). Experience With an Organization and Metrics Impact My experience with Donut King, Australia was quite bad or say negative. Donut King is a fast food chain of restaurant and my experience with this organization was upsetting (Lagarde, 2013). On 1st January I ordered hot dogs and soft drinks and the staffs of the company delivered product late in evening in spite of ordering at 300 hours. The workers were casual in their approach which upset me. This incident led a negative feeling in me towards the company and their customer service. On the other hand, the manager of the company did not apologized to me even after making complaint. The unethical behavior of the workers changed my view of the company which I was previously holding. Apart from that, I would say that company did not employ the term metrics well in their business process. Moreover, the company did not take up any lesson from their previous fault and according to me the performance of the company declined. Apart from that, the planning of the company was not in place. The Donut King did not apply any effective measurement technique to understand the consumer behavior and what they require. Therefore, this failure can hurt company hardly and as per me the company may lose their customer base if significant changes are not made in the business process of the company. Marketing Metrics to consumer satisfaction Customer Fulfillment Metric: The Company was not able to provide better service to me that lead to dissatisfaction. I was not able to receive my order on due time and if I would have to give rating out of 10, I would rate 6 for their service. There is no question about their quality of food but unprofessionalism in service decrease their overall rating (Sunset.usc.edu, 2015). Brand Awareness Metric: According to my experience, if the company continuously declines their service level then it can directly affect the brand value of the company. On the other hand, it can be tough for the company to increase the brand awareness (Huang and Sarigll, 2012). Customer Attitudes Metric: As per my experience, the attitude or behavior of the customers can be negative if company does not increase their service level. The lack of communication channel can result in ineffective customer attitudes. The company may need to study the consumer behavior in order to engage large customers (Miceli et al. 2013). Recommendations In order to improve the level of customer satisfaction, the Donut King has to improve their: The company has to involve employees that can provide timely service to the customers. The employees can be assigned task individually so that they can focus completely on their part. Therefore, it can help in increasing the service level and gaining satisfied customer. Secondly, the company can provide training to their workers in order to handle the customers more efficiently and effectively. This would help in delivery quality and accurate service to consumers. The company can fire the employees that hold unethical approach with the customers. Therefore, it can help the company to have effective and productive team work that can increase the brand value of customers. Lastly, the company has to understand the requirement and behavior of consumers so that best and superior service can be provided. On the other hand, it can help the company to make better future strategy and meet the requirements of people effectively. Conclusion The marketing metrics is effective in aligning the strategy of an organization towards the particular goal. The company can have better planning process and can monitor the changes in market and their business operations. The customer satisfaction metric is effective in understanding the loyalty towards the company. Lastly, my experience with Donut King has been shared and I have suggested some suggestions that can be useful for the company. 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