Application To Customer Satisfaction: Importance, Methods, And Benefits Essay.

Coca Cola

Discuss about the Application to Customer Satisfaction.

Customer interest is mostly imperative to the sales procedure. Gaining customer interest is mostly done in the initial stages however; interest in the good requires to be maintained throughout the sales procedure. Once a company has gone through the procedure of gaining attention of customers, maintaining interest of customers and encouraging desire is imperative. There are several techniques, whichhelp to maintain customer interest towards the goods mostly depending on the technicality of the commodity (Walker, Fincham& Dickerson, 2014).

The report mostly provides an overview about Coca Cola and the importance of customer satisfaction to the Company. It is mostly a carbonated soft-drink company that is manufactured in Atlanta, United States. Businessperson Asa Griggs Candler, whose marketing strategies led Coke to its supremacy of the world soft-drink market during the 20th century, bought out the Company. The name of the drink refers to two of its original ingredients, which are kola nuts as well as cocoa leaves (Jakeman et al., 2014). However; the present formula of Coca Cola stays a business secret. The Company has on occasion introduced other cola drinks under the name of Coke. The most popular drink of these is Diet Coke whereas; others include Zero Vanilla, Caffeine-Free Diet Coke as well as Caffeine-Free.

The report provides a brief description about the meaning of customer and the customer satisfaction. It then provides a brief overview about the importance of customer satisfaction to Coca Cola and methods used by the Company to keep track of customer satisfaction. The report illustrates about the customer of the company.

A customer is an individual or trade that acquires the commodities or services manufactured by a business. Attracting customers is the major goal of most public-facing trades as the customers generates demand for commodities and services. Most of the businesses compete through advertisements or reduced prices in order to attract an even-larger customer base. According to Crook & Wood (2014),the proverb that the customer is always right is mostly followed by a business as it is considered that happy customers mostly continues to purchase commodities and services from companies that meet their demands. Several companies mostly monitor the relationship closely that they have with their customers.

A customer may or may not be a consumer however; the two concepts are different even though the terms are mostly confused. A customer is the one who buys products and the consumer is the one who uses them. An intermediate customer is not a consumer at all. An external customer of an organization is a customer who is not closely associated with the organization (Bell, Ledoit&Wolf, 2014). On the other hand, an internal customer is the one who is closely associated with an organization. Internal customers mostly include stakeholders, workers as well as shareholders. Coca Cola considers the preference of customer as the core value. For the Company it indicates the building of true relationships that generates sustainable value as well as profitable growth. In order to meet the preference of the customer, the Company follows five core objectives that include availability, affordability, acceptability, activation as well as attitude.

Meaning of customer

Customer satisfaction is a frequently used term in the concept of marketing and it is often abbreviated as CSAT. It is used to measure goods and services that are supplied by a company in order to meet or surpass the expectation of customers. Customer satisfaction is described as the total number customers or percentage of total customers, whose detailed experience with a firm is more than the specified satisfaction objectives. Customer satisfaction can only be accomplished if the customer has an overall good collaboration with the supplier. It is also considered as the part of the experience of customers that exposes behavior of suppliers on the expectation of the customers (Srivastava&Kaul, 2014). It is also an abstract notion that involves factors such as the quality of the commodity, the quality of the service provided as well as the atmosphere of the location where the goods or service is purchased. In order to gauge customer satisfaction, most of the businesses make the use of customer satisfaction surveys. It is required for an organization in order to interact as well as communicate with customers on a daily basis in order to increase satisfaction of customers (Zablah et al., 2016).

Customer satisfaction is mostly imperative to business as it provides marketers as well as business owners with a metric that they in order to manage and improve their business can use them. It is considered as a leading indicator of consumer repurchases objective and allegiance (Duze, 2016). Customer satisfaction is considered important to a business as it is considered as the best indicator of how likely a customer will make an acquisition in the future. It is important to ask a customer to rate their satisfaction on the scale of 1-10. A customer who will give rating of 7 or above can be considered as satisfied. On the other hand, if the customers provide a ratingof 9-10, they will be considered as customer advocates (Kärnä, 2014).However, scores of below 6 acts as a warning sign that reflects that a customer is not happy and he is at risk of leaving. Customer satisfaction is important to a business as it acts as a point of differentiation. Customer satisfaction is viewed as a major differentiator in a competitive marketplace where businesses competes for customers.  Businesses that are able to succeed in this competitive environment are the ones that are able to provide customer satisfaction a major element of their business strategy.

Customer Satisfaction

According to Peppers & Rogers (2016), customer satisfaction is also important, as it is able to diminish customer churn. It acts as a metric that can be used to diminish customer churn. By measuring and tracking customer satisfaction, a company will be able to put new procedures in place in order to raise the total quality of the customer service. The lifetime value of the customers is also increased as it helps to determine the amount of revenue that is generated by a customer in a business. The importance of customer lifetime value is required to acknowledge a successful business. The negative word of mouth is also reduced by customer satisfaction as a result, it is important to a business. A business often looses out customers if they are not satisfied with the customer service and as a result, they are not satisfied. It is reasonable to keep hold of customers than to acquire new ones. This is mostly required as it costs a lot of money to acquire new customers (Alexandrov, Lilly&Babakus, 2013).

The methods that will help to keep track of customer satisfaction are as follows:

Customer satisfaction surveys: One of the standard methods that help to keep track of customer satisfaction is the customer satisfaction surveys that make use of three diverse types of surveys:

In–App Surveys: With the help of this type of survey,a company will be able to accomplish a subtle feedback bar from inside the website of the company. Under this type of survey, the customers are asked for their opinion while theyare engaged with the company. These surveys are especially useful to measure some of the standard metrics of customer satisfaction (Kumar, 2016).

Post-Service Surveys: This type of survey helps to track satisfaction of customers that it mostly focus on the satisfaction of customers with a precise service that is received by the customer (Sorescu&Sorescu, 2016). This type of survey is conducted with the help of email support with a rating link in the mail. It can also be done over the phone however; sometimes it take more time from the customers.

Email Surveys: This method is more useful to keep in-depth track of customer satisfaction as compared to the above mentioned surveys. Itprovides customers with a lot of time in order to answer multiple queries (Kärnä, 2014).

Transactional Surveys: This type of survey is mostly referred to as event surveys that are mostly focused on the satisfaction of customers with a precise interaction as well as touch point. It acts fresh in the mind of the customers as this survey is conducted soon after interaction with the customers (Orel& Kara, 2014). This in turn helps to keep track of customer satisfaction. Providers who expertise in transactional survey mostly offers dashboards in order to monitor the results in-time.

Importance of customer satisfaction to business

In order to keep track of customer it is also important to determine the goals of the analysis. It can be done in the following ways:

Qualitative and Quantitative approaches:The company requires to have an idea about the types of question that they require to ask as well as the type of data that they require to gather. Qualitative data would include personal, emotional as well as subjective data. On the other hand, quantitative data comprises statistical records that show how often a customer revisits stores to purchase the particular good. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques have specific strengths and weakness that requires to be considered (Sorescu&Sorescu, 2016).Qualitative research proves to be helpful as it provides insightful information about the perception of the customers about the products. On the other hand, quantitative research provides more discrete data and results.

Primary Data Collection: Some Companies maintain that customer satisfaction is a key function of the difference between what the customers had anticipated to get from the commodity purchased and theinsightsabout what they received (Fallon, 2016).

The company, Coca Cola mostly exists in order tosatisfy the requirement of the customers. The Company mostly seeks to have a better understanding about the impact of Coca Cola business along the overall value cycle. The direct customers of Coca Cola includes outlets, such as leisure centers, cinemas, supermarkets, service station as well as several other retailers that sells soft-drinks. The end-customers of Coca Cola include thousands of individuals who consume soft drinks globally (Hossain et al., 2016).The customers of Coca Cola looks for a better understanding regarding the effect of the Coca Cola trade along the culture value cycle. The customers of the Company mostly look for methods that help to reduce costs as well as improve sales and profits and deliver an enhanced quality. The customers who are likely to purchase Diet Coke include baby boomers or women and adults who are health conscious. 

The customer satisfaction procedure that is used by Coca Cola are as follows:

Periodic Surveys: The Company makes the use of this survey that involves getting in touch with the customers and gathering feedback from them directly. There are several forms of periodic surveys, whichinclude email surveys as well as online surveys. This type of surveys is mostly conducted at regular intervals that range from weekly to yearly held surveys. The advantage that is associated with periodic survey is that the company that makes use of the survey gets direct feedback from the survey. However, the disadvantage that is associated with this survey is that if they are conducted at intervals, it might have an impact on the behavior being measured.

Methods to keep track customer satisfaction

Customer loss rate: The Company also makes the use of customer loss rate that measures the customer satisfaction. Several causes that lead to loss of customers include the quality of the product, logistics as well as incorrect commitments(Lun et al., 2016). It can also take place due to some alteration in the products or due to different products launched by the competitor.

Survey Monkey: It is considered as the leading online survey tool that is used by Coca Cola that helps to create any other type of survey besides customer satisfaction. With the help of Survey Monkey, Coca Cola receives a large-scale enterprise option. It also provides free, customizable surveys that comprise of data analysis as well as data representation tools.

Conclusion

It is imperative to track customer satisfaction as it helps to predict the future revenue. Satisfied customers are more likely to repeat the purchase of the particular commodity that meets their demand. However, an unsatisfied customer will tend to go elsewhere to purchase other products. Customer satisfaction also helps to outpace the competition. In drenched markets, customer satisfaction sparks competition for the loyalty of customers. It can also be concluded that it is reasonable to keep customer than to get customers. A satisfied customer spends more long term and it is easier to keep them happy rather than trying to get hold of a new customer.It can be concluded that customer advocacy is a very effectual form of marketing. A positive word of mouth is very important for companies like Coca Cola that has several competitors.

It can also be concluded that the present customer satisfaction tracking process used by the company is the Survey Monkey that helps to track customer satisfaction of Coca Cola. With the help of this survey, the Company is able to get the feedback regarding the fact that whether they like Coke more as compared to Pepsi. With the help of this survey, they are also able to keep track regarding how often the customers purchase Coca Cola. The Company also makes the use of customer loss rate that also helps Coca Cola to reduce the loss of customers. It also referred to as customer churn rate that gives details of the total customers who stopped using the product. With the help of this, the Company is able to acknowledge the causes that stop an individual to use the product. Periodic survey also helps the Company to gather data on present topics in pediatrics.

It is also recommended that the Company should make the use of monitor competitor performance beside the three tracking procedures.  With the help of this tracking process, that will help the Company to decide who has a comparatively better customer satisfaction. A mystery shopper is another way that helps to track customer satisfaction. With the help of this, Coca Cola will able to figure out how its product is represented to its customers or how its competitor’s product is represented to the customers. The mystery shopper will help to monitor competitor performance as they offer an accurate as well as reliable method of quality control that provides with a means to recognize both good customer services. Shoppers are chosen from the database as per their location as well as their appropriateness in terms of the sort of commodity programs. This will enable individuals to compare the performance of every outlet as well as reward that demonstrate the best customer service.

References

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