Customer Care?

From the onset of the Wall Street era to the onslaught of Internet media, marketing remains the indefatigable rage. Sellers swamp us with mailers, spam, inserts, bumper stickers, billboards, commercials, product sidebars. The power of the word, the power of visibility, the power of presumed peer pressure or one-up-manship—so seek the muscle marketers. Get the ball rolling in the applicable target group and the craze will commence, so they presume, so they aspire. And, they are correct, particularly regarding “trend” marketing. Glitzy trends, however, are short-lived, often by design, and are not enduring benefactors for a substantial part of the business world. Trend marketing is designed to promote compulsive purchasing by “consumers”, and in the long run, does not promote a healthy economy.  Because, like the word “politician”, marketer is not in itself a dirty word, I want to delineate from the beginning a distinction between basic marketing and trend or myth-marketing. There is a significant difference in philosophy and ethics that is ultimately instilled in the moral fiber of a culture by these marketing practices. Commencing with marketing basics, this is the first segment of a series that will address these issues.

The consumer, that element of humanity we humans are reduced to by the marketing world, has taken on a preponderance in the scale of human worth. But perhaps it’s time to reflect—consumer or customer? Is there a difference? Consumer weights the value of a person on the volume of goods that person can afford, or on the person’s credit rating, or often on focused attention, however fleeting it may be! But customer, of what value is a customer? A creature of a bygone era? Is this creature worth putting on the scale in today’s marketing world? The customer once had some dignity and was served by the merchant or proprietor. Is that just a quaint artifact reflecting an era where preferred clientele were lords and ladies with velvet pocketbooks of gold coins?

In today’s world, the motto “the customer is always right” can chime a sour note to a wary merchant who has been abused by a few scheming buyers. As merchants struggle  to keep their establishments afloat amidst the high cost of doing business, what sort of clientele relationship will buttress their efforts over the long haul? Should merchants reckon primarily with the forest of consumers? Or, one by one, with the individual saplings and sturdy oaks that populate that forest? Will a vast array of marketing analytics provide a viable blueprint for success? Or is there a simpler, time-honored adage, such as “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”? Yes, there may be a few criticisms to this “ethic of reciprocity” based on the differing preferences of individuals, but in its practical essence of kindness and courteous behavior, it holds its own, and it bears rewards.

To most people today observing the worldwide financial upheavals, the elements of macro and micro-economics seem as cryptic as calculus based physics. Even so, the new order of economic and marketing gurus is turning the marketplace into their market to promote their own pricey formulas for a successful commercial enterprise. But stop! In the face of a world gone loopy, maybe it’s time to ask whether the mechanics of the marketplace are as esoteric as some experts would have us believe? Since many of these experts or their protégé have been and still are at the steering wheel, it would seem that lowly merchants, proprietors, and wannabes should reconsider the options these so-called marketing leaders pose. Or, instead of analyzing the analyzers, an important key to success may be a simple back-to-basics approach based on our well-worn adage. Here are some questions that may bring focus to a rewarding and simpler approach to business as usual:

First, determine the market —

1. Is the product or service for a local community or larger global marketplace?
2. Is it needed and affordable to a substantial target population in the designated market region?
3. Is it needed by a minority target population that has the means to pay?
4. Is it consumable enough to warrant ongoing production?
5. Or, if it has a long life, does the need equate with willingness to pay the high price of production?
6. If the product has a long-life or is needed only by a minority group…

   RANT The U.S. automotive industry, well informed more than three decades ago, underrated the gasoline consumption issue, and now expects consumers, even those who don’t buy their products, to bail them out.

   • Can it be produced as part of a family of products based on a comparable production process?
   • Or is it composed of elements already in production that can be acquired and assembled?
   • Or, if it has a long-life, can the product be produced in context with other products with a much higher margin of profit.
7. Importantly, will the product or service meet or exceed the current level of technological, environmental, or other relevant expectations?
8. Can the product or service be readily modified to keep pace with and anticipate future trends?  Or could its production escalate economic and perhaps unethical dilemmas?

Second, with the market identified, determine the most favorable means to develop awareness for and distribution of the product or service —

1. What are the similarities in the lifestyles of the target population? What are their interests?
2. What is the primary social media of the target population?
3. Can information about the product or service piggy-back with other services already effectively in place?
   TIP To get the word out rapidly on a new item, and if the product is consumable and priced reasonably,  consider something like this: when the customer buys the first one, have an option to have a 50% Off gift card for the product sent to a friend of that customer—no other strings attached!
4. Can a word-of-mouth strategy be an element of the product or service or of it’s packaging?

Third, from the get-go, make customer care a top priority —

1. Is the product of acceptable quality? Is the service performed with experienced precision and care?
2. Is the product manual or service literature written in simple and clear terms and easily accessible?
3. Is there a fact sheet? Is a trouble-shooting section applicable to the product?
4. Can a customer-service website address be stamped on the product?
5. Is there a contact toll free phone number or an email address? And, importantly, will the call or message be readily answered or returned by a completely courteous representative able to resolve issues?
   TIME SAVER Customers can serve themselves if common  Q&As are anticipated and accessible, or as soon as they arise, are added to an accessible fact sheet.
6. If product maintenance or a service involves customer care at a business facility:
   • Is the waiting room and restroom clean, pleasant, and supplied with any of the following that might apply: current magazines, TV, WiFi, children’s table, water fountain, free coffee, soda machine?
   • Are the staff friendly, tolerant, courteous?
   • Is at least one employee designated as the customer service manager and fully equipped with appropriate information, well trained and intuitively able to address a customer’s core issue?

Hey, if these basics are part of your game plan, you most likely have the potential for a successful enterprise. Notice that customer care is the last, but definitely not the least of the three basics. Without this essential element woven throughout, a business enterprise will have a weak fabric and with sufficient competition, will certainly unravel. Consider that if the U.S. automotive industry had made customer care a top priority from the research and development stage all the way to local service facilities, they would be today in much better touch and graces with potential customers. Folks would be happily cruising around in long lasting American made fuel efficient vehicles. Dependency on foreign oil would be minimal, and our government would not be complicit in bailouts and unethical production of currency.

The next segments of this series will focus on marketing myths and marketing tips.