DIGI-SMART CONSULTING
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EVS-CFC-4005-1.1
CUSTOMER MANAGEMENT
(LEVEL 4)
3.00 days / 24.00 hours
Learner Guide (Version 1.0_13 May 2021)
Name
:
Vincent Ong
Date
:
07 to 09/03/2022
Trainer
:
Rudy Fang 91012098
LU1 ANALYSE INSIGHTS FROM MARKET INTELLIGENCE DATA AND
RELATED BUSINESS FUNCTIONS
What is Customer management?
Customer management is defined as the process of managing the relationship between an
organisation, its people and its customers over time. For sustained success, it is important for
companies to align their customer strategy with the company’s aims and objectives. The profitability
of a firm depends on its ability to identify, grow and retain profitable customers.
This can be achieved through combining a deep understanding of customer needs, behaviours and
value, with the ability to engage specific customers in the optimal way at various touch points. In
addition, this enables the company to optimise customer satisfaction and develop a relationship of
trust with its customers.
Organisations define their Customer Management Strategy with the followings:
https://customerconsulting.com/services/customer-managementstrategy/#:~:text=Customer%20management%20is%20defined%20as,the%20company's%20aims%20and%20objectives.
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Customer Vision
Customer Journey/Roadmap
Sales & Marketing Strategy
Customer Experience Strategy
Digital Engagement Strategy
New Channels to Market
Customer Retention
Business Case
Outsource Strategy and Improvement
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/benefits-customer-management-58015.html
Benefits of Customer Management
Businesses of all sizes need effective ways to manage relationships with customers. Smallbusiness owners, however, have an exceptionally keen interest in customer management,
because effective customer management means an improved client experience, a focused
marketing plan, increased revenues and stronger working relationships for small businesses.
1. Improving Customer Experience
Effectively managing your customers includes maintaining a good relationship with them, seeing
to their needs and answering their questions. All of these things add up to an improved customer
experience, which should be one of the goals of any small business. The reason for this is simple:
customers who are happy with your business will want to come back again and again; they will
choose to give you their money rather than spend it with someone else.
2. Focusing Your Marketing Plan
Closely related to improving customer experience is the idea of focusing your marketing plan. As
an added benefit of effective customer management, a focused marketing plan allows your
business to see both its strengths and weaknesses when it comes to meeting consumer demands.
If your relationships with your customers are strong, you'll be able to have honest conversations
with them about what's working and what isn't. The key here is to take customer feedback seriously.
If you are hearing from customers that they can get similar products or services from your
competitors at lower prices, take this as a warning to revamp either your price point or your sales
and advertising strategies.
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3. Building Relationships
Stakeholders are the people and groups that have a keen interest in how well your business does.
Customers are the most obvious stakeholder group, but potential customers are another group
that you can focus on. The benefit of managing to build these relationships is that your marketing
machine starts to work on its own accord, meaning that happy customers will spread the word
about the good products and service they received at your small business. Word of mouth, as the
old adage goes, really is the best form of marketing and can serve as a huge benefit to your
organization.
4. Increasing Revenue
Ultimately, your business, like other for-profit ventures, is concerned with its bottom line. There is
a clear correlation then between happy customers, increased sales and a thriving business. If you
are able to keep your current customers coming back for more, plus use these customers to help
you improve on your operations and marketing strategies, you'll be in a good place to keep your
business afloat.
5. More Business
Little things like friendly greetings, discount coupons and thank-you notes can go a long way
toward building long-lasting--and profitable--relationships. However, if a customer has a bad
experience with your organization, a Harvard University study found that an unhappy customer
will become a repeat customer 80 percent of the time if you act quickly to remedy the situation to
her satisfaction.
6. Spend Less on Marketing
Exceeding expectations is also one of the least expensive, and most effective, ways to promote
your business. Providing good customer service directly contributes to positive word-of-mouth
marketing--the holy grail of brand-building."
7. Better Work Environment
Customer service begins with you. Hiring and retaining service-minded people and properly
training them to provide excellent service is a good start, but don't stop there. Bad service,
including seemingly small things such as the way an employee answers the telephone, can
devastate a small business. Check in occasionally and use meetings, memos and incentives to
make sure your employees are doing their best for your business. A friendly, pleasant and relaxed
environment will make your customers happy and benefit you and your staff as well.
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/customer-characteristics-marketing-57902.html
Customer Characteristics for Marketing
1. Demographics
Demographics are the basic building blocks of marketing. You will often hear demographics being
referred to as "segments" of a market, because they refer to identifiable characteristics of your
customers. Demographics include traits such as age, gender, race and ethnicity, profession,
income level, education level and marital status. In other words, demographics are useful ways to
categorize your customers and potential customers based on their lifestyle and innate
characteristics.
2. Psychographics
The concept of psychographics is used by marketers to identify customers based on their
personalities, values and interests. These factors all influence the loyalty customers will show to
your business. Brand loyalty is important for small-business owners, because those businesses
often are competing against larger, more-efficient companies for the same customers. If you are
able to identify the characteristics that motivate people to want to buy from your company, you are
on the right path to retaining these customers in the long haul.
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3. Behavioral Analysis
Closely related to psychographics, behavioral analysis can be used in marketing to seek out the
likelihood of developing strong relationships with your potential customers. The questions that you
should seek to ask here include: Why would the customer buy from me as opposed to my
competitor? What are the attitudes of my current customers? Are the costs of my products in line
with consumer expectations? The answers to these questions will help you price your products
and market them accordingly.
4. Linguistics
Finally, an important task in marketing for small businesses is being able to speak the "language"
of your customers. The way that customers communicate varies depending on age, gender,
ethnicity, level of education and spending power. Small businesses that want to be successful in
engaging with customers are able to target their marketing messages in a way that makes sense
to the consumer.
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/business-building-strategies-5097.html
Business Building Strategies
1. Significance
Strategies that help a business grow not only help the owner grow his own wealth, but are also
generally good for the local, national and international communities. Healthy, large companies pay
millions in taxes, hire hundreds of thousands of people and give back to the communities they are
involved in. Building a new business or growing an existing one can have very positive impacts
beyond the pocketbooks of the stakeholders.
2. Types
There are several key types of business building strategies. Some focus on marketing, others on
customer care and, still in online sales, operational efficiencies, social media and SWOT
(Strength-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats) analysis. Most successful types actually use a
combination approach and pull together the best of several individual types.
3. Considerations
Many factors that go into whether a strategy is successful or not, but one primary one is that one
size does not fit all. What works for one company in one geographic area may completely fail for
another company in another geographic area. Strategies should be hand-tailored, designed to
make sure that the organization meets its strategic and tactical goals.
4. Misconceptions
One major misconception is that business growth is achieved when an organization increases its
marketing spend. In reality, there can be little correlation between the amount of money spent on
a growth project and the success of the project. One such example is with the advent of social
media. A creative and captivating online post can bring in lots of new customers with very little
financial outlay. Effective communications are more important than expensive communications.
5. Expert Insight
"A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.” A business only makes its money when
the customer's needs and desires are placed first. Knowing what your customer wants and how
to attract customers willing to pay for your service should be at the forefront of any business growth
strategy.
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Techniques of customer management.
1. Customer Service Reps
One of the best ways to manage your relationships with your customers is to assign them a
customer service representative. This person handles any questions or complaints they have,
enters the details of their conversations into a computer database for future review and contacts
customers to update them on new promotions.
2. Loyalty Card
One of the most common customer relationship management tools is the loyalty card, which tracks
customer purchases and gives them a free item when they make a specific number or purchases.
This might be as simple as a buy-10-get-one-free promotion. You might offer another freebie
customers can’t buy to make your offer more attractive. Offering a free gift or a discount on
customers’ birthdays is another way to reward loyalty.
3. Surveys
One of the key tenets of marketing is that you should sell the benefits of your product or service
rather than its features. This helps you create a more captive audience because customers need
or want what you sell. To ensue you stay aware of what your customers want and are willing to
pay for, conduct regular surveys and focus groups.
4. Referral Programs
People are more likely to try your product or service if a friend or a professional peer recommends
you, as opposed to only seeing one of your paid ads. Motivate your customers and clients to
recommend you to others by offering them a reward when they do so, by offering their friends or
peers a discount as a thank-you for the reference, or by making a donation to a charity you feel
most of your key customers will support.
5. Databases
Whether you use a simple spreadsheet or purchase a CRM software program, having your
customers’ history at your fingertips helps you provide excellent service. Years ago, sales reps
kept note cards with random information about their best customers. Today, it’s easy to create
electronic files that show customer purchasing patterns, complaints, projects and other information
that can help you boost sales and let customers know you care enough about their business to
record their history with you.
What Is Attitudinal Segmentation?
As a small-business owner, you need to know about your customer's attitudes toward your
products or services. In fact, a whole branch of marketing called attitudinal segmentation can help
you market toward customers that have positive attitudes about your company. Learn how to target
your marketing based on your customers' attitudes.
1. Your Core Customer
You should ask your core customers what they like about your products or services. Their answers
will tell you what you should emphasize in your advertising and marketing to this group. Your main
focus in growing your business should be in marketing your positively perceived products and
services.
2. Your Negative Customer
If you find customers who have a negative view of your company, ask them what would change
their minds. You may have to develop a marketing campaign just for customers who don't like your
company. Your other choice is to count this market segment out of your considerations and spend
your money on more likely potential customers.
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3. Lifestyle Customers
Evaluate whether the customers who like you tend to share a lifestyle. You can target your
marketing and advertising toward publications, websites and regional areas where this lifestyle is
prominent. By analyzing the segment of the market that has favourable attitudes, you may discover
a strong direction to take your company. If customers perceive you as vital to their lifestyle, you
could have very loyal customers.
4. Demographic Overlay
Examine your favourable customers to see if they share a demographic. You may find a target
audience for your marketing based on age, sex, race, sexual orientation or other factors. This will
help you hone your message and attract more of these customers.
LO1 ESTABLISH CONCEPT OF KEY CUSTOMERS, MARKETING AND SALES SUPPORT,
CUSTOMER SERVICES (K7)
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/sales-plan-vs-marketing-plan-57267.html
Sales Support Vs. Marketing Support
Although the two terms are often used interchangeably, sales plans and marketing plans are not
identical. Marketing plans are all about identifying your business' target market and creating
strategies for reaching those customers. Sales plans detail the strategies the business will use to
sell products and services and increase revenue. The sales plan therefore often forms part of the
larger marketing strategy.
1. The Sales Plan
A sales plan, like its name suggests, is a document that outlines your business' goals in relation
to the selling of products or services. Typically a sales plan will be organized around central goals
for the business to reach its financial targets. As a base line, the goals you include in the sales
plan should be specific, measurable and relevant to the needs of your customers. The sales plan
will often form part of the larger marketing plan for your company so you'll need to be sure to
identify a target market, consider the buying attitudes and behaviors of the customers and consider
the ins and outs of the advertising strategies you'll use.
2. The Marketing Plan
Your business' marketing plan is a blueprint for reaching your customer base. The first step in
developing the marketing plan is to consider who your target customers are. Ask yourself who
your main customers are, what they are looking for and if you are able to provide it. Inevitably,
some marketing strategies have worked for you in the past; are you now able to grow these timetested strategies to maximize your profits?
3. Setting Goals
Both sales and marketing plans involve goal setting. Goal setting for a small business is an
important task because it can help to hold you, the business owner, accountable for the tasks that
will ultimately increase your profit margins and gain new customers. While working towards
marketing and sales strategies is rarely an easy task, setting goals can help keep you on a timeline
that is both challenging and ultimately rewarding when you see the money start to come in.
4. Tying It All Together
No matter the format or content of your marketing and sales plans, your business cannot ignore
the fact that marketing and promotion strategies are important to your business' long-term viability.
This is true now more than ever, as we live in a world that is interconnected and in one where
competition runs high. The sales and marketing plans can help your business set itself apart from
competitors by connecting with your customers in new and time-tested ways.
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Concept of key customers, marketing and sales support, customer services (K7)
https://strategicemarketing.com/2012/1-minute-marketing-identify-key-customers-and-engage-them/
Concept of Key Customers
Key customers are the kind of customers that keep you in business; you can increase business
profitability when you narrow down who these key accounts are. When you determine who they are,
you then can focus on them in your marketing efforts. It can be difficult to find that balance between
too general or too specific when drawing your key customer profile, as that will either make your
audience too big or too small to market to frequently.
1. Review your sales figures and find those customers that make up the largest accounts on your
list.
Note the similarities and differences between the two in terms of needs, complaints and
compliments. What brings them together through your company?
2. Consider the regular customers who can be counted on to keep coming back for a product or
service time after time.
By reviewing their accounts, you may be able to determine how exactly you fit into their
organization, which gives an excellent window into similar businesses.
3. Profitability can also be used to gauge who your key customers are – which customers give
you a higher profit margin?
Ideally, you would be marketing a product or service and prospecting new clients with a
reasonable profit margin.
4. Satisfied customers are the kind you want to replicate, so look through your records to see who
gives you the most referrals and sings your praises to others the most often. They may even
be able to act as a connection to other businesses in their field or area. Make sure all such
past referrals have been followed up on before starting a new prospect list.
How to Identify Your Most Valuable Customers
1. Sales minus cost.
Most companies rank customers' importance by the amount of sales they do with their company.
Unfortunately, this leaves out a key component of the equation. While a customer can do a lot of
business with a company, the cost of doing those sales has to be added to the overall equation.
Many customers provide a lot of revenue, but the cost to fulfil those sales sometimes exceeds their
value.
2. Revenue timing.
Not all revenue is created equal. If the business sells consumer electronics, it probably already
makes a lot of revenue in the fourth quarter when everyone is shopping for the holidays, but could
use more in the first quarter. Sales that come in off-peak seasons may be more profitable because
they fill unused production capacity or may be done at a slightly higher price.
3. Referrals and buzz.
In the age of the Internet, consumers believe more in earned media like peer reviews, posts and
tweets than in corporate advertising. If a customer is willing to be an evangelist of a company and
spread their satisfaction story, it can be a powerful endorsement. How incredibly profitable it can
be to unlock the potential of the successful fans in any business.
4. Retention.
It is, of course, less costly to retain the customers a company has than to seek new ones.
Unfortunately many businesses are so busy attracting new customers to come to their front door,
they don’t take care of the customers leaving out their back door. A customer who has been with a
company over a long time in general is more profitable, typically buys additional products and
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becomes an evangelist for the brand.
5. Add-on products or services.
Customers who buy more than one product from a company are more profitable because the cost
of acquiring that customer is now spread over a larger sales base. For example, Amazon has been
able to expand into other business lines since customers know the efficiency of their customer
service. Many customers shop for products elsewhere and then buy on Amazon.
6. The customer’s brand.
This is especially valuable to small companies. If they do business with a well known brand, they
can build their reputation based on it. If Oprah Winfrey buys a company’s product and talks about
it, orders shoot through the roof.
7. Feedback.
Although social media makes it easier, most customers never tell a company what they think about
its product. Typically only the top 10 percent (very satisfied) and the bottom 10 percent (very
dissatisfied) share their thoughts about a company’s service. Any customer willing to share his or
her opinion with a business is very valuable.
The Concept of Customer Service.
Customer service is the support you offer your customers — both before and after they buy and use
your products or services — that helps them have an easy and enjoyable experience with you.
Offering amazing customer service is important if you want to retain customers and grow your
business. Today’s customer service goes far beyond the traditional telephone support agent. It’s
available via email, web, text message, and social media. Many companies also provide self-service
support, so customers can find their own answers at any time day or night. Customer support is
more than just providing answers; it’s an important part of the promise your brand makes to its
customers.
Customer service is critical to competing effectively. In the past, people chose which companies
they did business with based on price, or the product or service offered, but today the overall
experience is often the driver.
“89% of companies now expect to compete mostly on the basis of customer experience.”
— GARTNER RESEARCH
Great customer support drives an amazing customer experience, especially when your support team
moves beyond just reacting to problems and toward anticipating customers' problems. When support
agents are empowered to go above-and-beyond with customers, or have a help desk solution that
makes it easy for them to upsell or cross-sell relevant services, they can create winning experiences
that help you stand out from the competition.
Customer service can have a big impact on your bottom line.
It’s often said that it’s cheaper to keep existing customers than to find new ones. 68% of customers
leave because they’re upset with the treatment they've received. Prioritising customer service
support helps you attract and retain loyal customers, and can have a big impact on your company’s
bottom line.
What Role Does Customer Service Play in Marketing?
Business owners spend money to market and drive customers into their places of business, whether
it be via a website or into a brick-and-mortar storefront. They've created the path and customers or
clients walk in on that path, but what happens after they're there? What service do they encounter?
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Good marketing tells our customers why they should choose us. Customer service shows them why
they should keep coming back.
Marketing
Marketing is the process of letting consumers know why they should choose your product or service
over those of your competitors. If you're not doing that, you're not marketing – it's really that simple.
The key is to find the right method and to define the right message to educate and influence your
consumers.
Companies make the mistake of thinking that marketing is just one thing, but it's actually much
broader than that. It's everything the consumer encounters when he does business with you. This
includes advertising, what he hears by word of mouth, and the customer service he receives. It
includes the follow-up care that your business provides. All these efforts fall under the umbrella of
marketing and creating a decision within the consumer as to whether to choose your company
initially or for repeat business.
Your marketing got your customers in the door, but did your service keep them there? Did it create
loyalty and dedication to do business with you on an ongoing basis? Customer service is really the
simplest component in this equation. It doesn't cost a lot of money. It stems from basic interpersonal
skills. Be kind. Be attentive. Put your customer first and make sure they know they are first.
Although a business needs to constantly attract and capture new customers, the focus and priority
should be on pleasing and keeping your existing customer base. Companies that neglect to nurture
and retain their customer base ultimately fail.
Marketing brings a customer in, and customer service keeps them coming back.
https://www.business.qld.gov.au/running-business/consumer-laws/customer-service/improving/principles
Principles Of Good Customer Service
The key to good customer service is building good relationships with your customers. Thanking the
customer and promoting a positive, helpful and friendly environment will ensure they leave with a
great impression. A happy customer will return often and is likely to spend more.
To ensure you provide the best customer service:
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know what your customers consider to be good customer service
take the time to find out customers' expectations
follow up on both positive and negative feedback you receive
ensure that you consider customer service in all aspects of your business
continuously look for ways to improve the level of customer service you deliver.
To build good customer relationships you need to:
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greet customers and approach them in a way that is natural and fits the
individual situation
show customers that you understand what their needs are
accept that some people won't want your products and concentrate on
building relationships with those who do
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help people — even just letting a customer know about an event that you
know they're personally interested in is helpful
continue to keep customers aware of what's in it for them to do business with
you.
1. Staff
If you want to provide the best customer service, all of your staff need to have good communication
and sales skills. You will also need to show leadership by personally providing excellent customer
service at all times. Learn more about the sales process.
2. Complaints
Listen to customer complaints; you may learn something about your product or service. Let
customers know that you appreciate feedback.
Overcome any objections. Listen to what the customer is objecting about (often price, merchandise
or time). Confirm the validity of each concern and offer a solution. Find out more about managing
customer complaints.
3. Products
Know your products — where everything is located, brand names, place of manufacture and price.
The more you know, the more confidence you can build in the customer.
Recognise product features. Turn these features into benefits for the customer. Ensure your staff
can tell customers about the product features and benefits.
https://blog.hubspot.com/service/marketing-and-customer-service
10 Ways Marketing and Customer Service Can Work Together
1. Social Media Customer Support
Many marketers use social media to provide customer service -- and not just to engage with their
audience and promote content. Your customer support team has been given the proper training and
resources needed to assist customers and resolve issues -- meaning you are the best people for
the job. Coming up with a system that enables members of your customer service team to participate
in customer service-related inquiries via social media will only make for a better customer experience.
2. Content Creation Ideas
Successful marketers understand how important regular and consistent content creation is to their
marketing strategy. Unfortunately, regular and consistent content creation means marketers also
need a steady flow of ideas about which to create content, and even the most experienced content
creators can sometimes suffer from the struggle to come up with remarkable content ideas that their
audience will find valuable. Simultaneously, as a customer support rep, share ideas for content that
you think would be especially helpful for customers and prospects -- from step-by-step instructions
for how to use a certain software or tool, to a bigger explainer guide of how best to employ a new
social network.
3. Buyer Persona Development
How well do you really understand your buyer personas? They're fictional representations of your
target customers, but you might learn over time that you don't really understand your customers as
well as you thought you did. Truly understanding the inner-workings of your ideal customers can
provide you with a number of business, customer support, marketing benefits, such as a better
understanding of customer needs, problems, and interest, knowledge of where customers spend
time on your site, better-quality leads, consistency across your business, richer closed-loop analytics,
and better product development.
4. Customer Expectation-Setting
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One very telling indicator of an effective marketing team is when leads have clear expectations for
how your business' products and services will help them. And when leads have clear expectations,
the transition from lead to customer, as well as that customer's subsequent experience as a
customer, can go much more smoothly. This is how the marketing can help prevent customer churn,
since that is often the result of misleading expectations that can be attributed back to misleading
marketing campaigns. When the two teams are better aligned, the customer service team can notify
the marketing team of instances when inadequate or misleading expectations have been set, since
members of your team will likely be the ones to stumble across these inconsistencies. Then,
marketers will be able to modify campaigns to better set expectations for potential customers.
5. Unified Messaging
Marketers should arm the customer support team with the resources they need to be successful.
This eliminates the wasted time and effort of customer support reps trying to contact the marketing
team while a caller waits on hold, making for a happier caller and a more efficient support process.
6. Sharing Customer Stories
Customer problems aren't the only discussion topic your customer support team shares with the
marketing. They are also often the best equipped and first to identify cases of customer happiness
and success.
7. Customer Loyalty Programs
Building a customer loyalty program is a key way to keep loyal customers engaged with your brand.
A valuable customer loyalty reward could very well involve your marketing team -- like a social media
share of your customer's resources, or a featured guest post on your blog, or a co-marketing
opportunity. A brainstorm between the marketing and customer success teams could bring about a
loyalty program that customers are clamouring to join -- without creating too much of a heavy lift for
the marketers.
8. Product Marketing
Regular meetings between members of marketing and customer success teams will help avoid
situations where marketing is promoting a product feature that is underutilized by or unsatisfying to
customers. Or, perhaps your customers are using your product or service in a way that wasn't
originally intended and that your marketing team never thought to promote. This collaboration will
help inform future, more successful product marketing initiatives and collateral.
9. Shared Goals
As different as everyday job responsibilities may be, marketing and customer teams have similar
and shared goals: to attract new visitors, convert them into customers, and retain those customers
with excellent service. Both teams have a lot of insights to offer the other about how they capitalize
on the work the other does in order to get their job done. Regular meetings and communications
where teams can share insights and learnings with one another, as well as share unique
perspectives about the strategies each team employs at different parts of the customer lifecycle.
10. Service Marketing
Service marketing refers to marketing for B2B or B2C companies that sell services to customers
and other businesses. Services are usually intangible and time-based, and occur multiple times over
the course of a relationship -- such as a house cleaning services, or a consulting services. Service
marketing is rooted in value creation for prospects and customers that isn't as tangible as the value
created from purchasing and using a product
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LO2 ESTABLISH BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF BUYING BEHAVIOUR AND BUYING DECISION
MAKING PROCESS(K1)
Basic understanding of buying behaviour and buying decision making process (K1)
The consumer decision making process is the process by which consumers become aware of and
identify their needs; collect information on how to best solve these needs; evaluate alternative
available options; make a purchasing decision; and evaluate their purchase.
1. Need recognition (awareness):
The need recognition stage of the consumer decision making process starts when a consumer
realizes a need. Needs come about because of two reasons:
Internal stimuli, normally a physiological or emotional needs, such as hunger, thirst, sickness,
sleepiness, sadness, jealousy, etc.
External stimuli, like an advertisement, the smell of yummy food, etc.
2. Search for information (research):
During this stage, customers want to find out their options. As soon as a consumer recognizes a
need and begins to search for an answer, it’s time to find solutions to his problem. In this stage, it’s
imperative that you are visible to the consumer searching for an answer. The amount of information
a customer needs to search for depends on how much he already knows about the solutions
available, as well as the complexity of choices. Reviews can help your store get seen in search
results by increasing the likelihood of your store showing up for long-tail keywords. Reviews improve
SEO because they give your online business a steady source of keyword rich, relevant content.
3. Evaluation of alternatives (consideration):
This is the stage when a customer is comparing options to make the best choice. Now that the
consumer has done research, it’s time to evaluate their choices and see if there are any promising
alternatives. Their evaluation is influenced by two major characteristics:
Objective: Features, functionality, price, ease of use
Subjective: Feelings about a brand (based on previous experience or input from past customers)
4. Purchasing decision (conversion):
This is the stage when customers are ready to buy, have decided where and what they want to buy,
and are ready to pull out their credit cards. This is the stage when the purchasing experience is key
– it’s imperative to make it as easy as possible.
5. Post-purchase evaluation (re-purchase):
After making a purchase, consumers consider whether it was worth it, whether they will recommend
the product/service/brand to others, whether they would buy again, and what feedback they would
give. In this stage of the consumer purchase decision process, consumers reflect on their recent
purchase. They think about how they feel about it, if it was a good investment, and most importantly,
if they will return to the brand for future purchases and recommend the brand to friends and family.
In this stage, you need to have a post-purchase strategy to increase the likelihood that customers
will engage with your brand again in the future.
What Is the Importance of Pricing in the Consumer Buying Process?
One common question that will be asked is how consumers factor price into their buying decisions.
When consumers are evaluating a product, price is of course a huge factor. But it’s not just about
the product price — it’s about the entire cost of the purchase. The more transparent you can be
about your pricing up front, the more likely you’ll be to complete the sale. If you want to turn a
potential customer into a loyal brand advocate, it’s important to build trust and keep them engaged
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at every step of the process. User-generated content is a powerful tool for building brand awareness,
highlighting the best things about your products, and ultimately, growing your bottom line.
4 Types of Consumer Behaviours
1. Complex buying behavior
Complex buying behavior is encountered particularly when consumers are buying an expensive
product. In this infrequent transaction, consumers are highly involved in the purchase decision.
Consumers will research thoroughly before committing to invest.
Consumer behaves very different when buying an expensive product or a product that is unfamiliar
to him. When the risk of buying a product is very high, a consumer consults friends, family and
experts before making the decision.
2. Dissonance-reducing buying behavior
In dissonance-reducing buying behavior consumer involvement is very high. This might be due to
high price and infrequent purchase. In addition, there is a low availability of choices with less
significance differences among brands. In this type, a consumer buys a product that is easily
available. Consumers will be forced to buy goods that do not have too many choices and therefore
consumers will be left with limited decision making. Based on the products available, time limitation
or the budget limitation, consumers buy certain products without a lot of research.
3. Habitual buying behavior
Habitual Buying Behavior is depicted when a consumer has low involvement in a purchase decision.
In this case the consumer is perceiving only a few significant differences between brands. When
consumers are buying products that they use for their daily routine, they do not put a lot of thought.
They either buy their favourite brand or the one that they use regularly – or the one available in the
store or the one that costs the least.
4. Variety seeking buying behavior
In variety seeking consumer behavior, consumer involvement is low. There are significant
differences between brands. Here consumers often do a lot of brand switching. The cost of switching
products is low, and hence consumers might want to try out new products just out of curiosity or
boredom. Consumers here, generally buy different products not because of dissatisfaction but
mainly with an urge to seek variety.
LU2 DEVELOP CUSTOMER SERVICE PLAN
LO3 DEVELOP CUSTOMER SERVICE PLAN
RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT TOOLS (A6,K4,K6)
TO
SUPPORT
CUSTOMER
USING
Develop customer service plan to support customer (A6)
Customer service is an important factor in developing a wide and loyal customer base. A customer
service plan deeply examines customers' perceptions and expectations of a company, and guides
the company through the process of bringing its customer service activities in line with customers'
needs. Knowing how to create a customer service plan can help you to continually offer a highly
competitive customer experience.
1. Interview customers to gain a deep understanding of their experiences with your company and
your competitors.
Ask customers to describe their expectations for your type of business, and try to discover any unmet
needs. Use a variety of survey methods, including in-person interviews, online surveys and focus
groups.
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2. Create a thorough analysis of your current operations, focusing on the customer service element.
Draw process flowcharts and service-area diagrams to visualize the way your employees interact
with customers. Write a process narrative describing an average customer experience in your
establishment from customers' and employees' points of view.
Ask front-line employees to assist you in this step; these employees may know more about how your
customer service outlets truly work than you do yourself, because they are always on the front line.
3. Create a table that lists the most important customer service factors discovered in your interviews,
and rate your organization's performance in each area.
Use this chart to identify which areas of customer service you already excel at, and which areas may
need improvement.
4. Generate a list of possible strategies to bring your operations into line with customers'
expectations and unmet needs.
Tackle one or two issues at a time, focusing on your identified weaknesses first. Possible strategies
for customer service improvement include redesigning processes, physical spaces, employee
training programs, methods of service delivery or employee incentive programs. Consult your frontline employees again at this step. They are likely to know exactly what they need to accomplish their
jobs more effectively, whether it be adding something new, redesigning something, or eliminating
something from their daily routine.
5. Implement your chosen strategies, and conduct more interviews to measure the outcome. Allow
some time to pass, depending on the scope of your changes, before surveying customers again.
Interview the same groups and individuals in addition to seeking out new voices. Consider surveying
your employees at this stage as well, to determine how the changes affect your staff.
https://www.nextiva.com/blog/customer-service-strategy.html
How to Build A Customer Service Strategy?
Step #1: Make customer happiness the end goal across the company
A successful customer service strategy is a result of focusing on customer happiness.
At first thought, this makes sense for people working on the frontline. The customer-first mindset
across the board makes support teams better at their jobs. When everyone works with the end
customer in mind, your customer service team doesn’t have to make solutions look better. They
simply deliver them.
Step #2: Identify all customer touchpoints
You’ll benefit from these insights because they allow you to:
 Gain a deeper understanding of the context of customer service inquiries
 Improve your product or service to prevent specific customer issues
 Predict customer needs so you can allocate your staff accordingly
 Reduce customer churn and increase their lifetime value
Step #3: Set goals for customer service
Define specific goals instead of vague aspirations: Make each goal focus on one area only
Make goals challenging enough so you can keep growing, but attainable with work and targeted
effort. Ensure your customer service goals directly correlate with your business objectives. Know
how you’ll measure your goals and within which timeframe. Finally, the best customer service reps
focus on customer contacts. They feel empowered and supported to do right by the customer. Make
this approach the background of all customer service goals you set.
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Step #4: Identify customer service KPIs to monitor
With your goals in place, you must then define KPIs to track and improve. Without them, you can’t
turn your goals into action plans. KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators, provide an instant look into
how well your customer service is doing.
Step #5: Build a driven customer service team
Successful customer support teams have people who aren’t just driven by those goals — they’re
also customer care champions. In other words, they’re committed to the highest customer service
standards. They talk about the importance of customer care to other teams. They consistently share
their learnings and best practices.
Traits Of Customer Service Team:
 Internal motivation: Are they driven to do great work beyond money and status?
 Self-awareness: Do they recognize their impulses, judgment, and moods? Their impact on
others?
 Positive attitude: Do they display friendliness, enthusiasm around challenging tasks, focus
on teamwork?
 Adaptability: Are they willing to learn new processes and technologies?
 Empathy and social skills: Do they genuinely care about other human beings? Can they
read social cues to identify needs and concerns as they arise?
Step #6: Build a powerful customer service toolkit
Your reps must think quickly, make decisions on their feet, and coordinate multiple channels and
conversations at once. Remember that 72% of consumers see having to explain their problem to
multiple people as poor customer service. They want to feel heard, understood, and taken care of
every time they speak with you. There’s little room for mistakes.
Step #7: Give your customer service representatives power
If you stopped at the previous step, you’d end up with a good customer service strategy.
Empowering your customer service reps can lead to better responsiveness to customer issues. It
also results in higher productivity. Why? Because it lets them make decisions on their own. They
don't have to jump over approval hurdles just to assist a customer. Customer service staff can use
to solve an issue without getting approval, such as:
 Discounts
 Replacements and returns
 Bonus products or services
Step #8: Create a consistent feedback loop
Create a reliable customer feedback loop so you can keep improving the way you serve your
customers. Listen to your customers through surveys, polls, on social media, in focus groups, and
conversations with your reps. This way, you can improve your products, features, positioning, and
all business conversations.
https://www.bradcleveland.com/resources/articles/the-12-principles-for-building-profitable-customer-relationships/
Principles of effective customer relationships (K4)
The principles behind building strong customer relationships are as important as ever in today’s
hyper-connected economy!
1. Continuously learn about your customers:
From this principle, everything else follows. When you know your customers, you can make sound
business decisions about how to develop relationships with them.
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2. Interact personally with your customers:
Relationships result from interaction. Knowing your customers is just the first step. Use that
knowledge to develop your relationships with your customers whenever you interact with them.
3. Handle different customers differently:
The power of this principle lies in the potential for optimizing the value of each customer relationship
through differential treatment. Segment customers sensibly – effective customer relationship
management strategy ultimately seeks to optimize value.
4. Retain the right customers:
Customer knowledge and the capability for differentiated customer treatment significantly improve
many organizations’ capabilities to retain customers.
5. Anticipate customer needs and offer to fulfill them:
Knowledge of your customers presents new opportunities for making the right offer or delivering the
right service to the right person at the right time.
6. Increase value for your customers and of your customers:
It is precisely because building customer relationships increases value both for customers and the
organization that it is such a compelling strategy. When executed properly, the focus on building
relationships and brand loyalty is a “win-win” for customers and the organization alike.
7. Present a single face to your customers to make their experiences with your organization
seamless:
Seek to simplify the experience for your customers. Take a holistic view of your customers and
consolidate information from across the organization, regardless of geography, department, function,
contact channel, social community, or product line. Focus on revenue and retention more than on
reducing costs: A renewed focus on building relationships can require so many organization-wide
process changes that operational cost savings may well be realized – but keep your eyes on value,
overall revenue and retention first.
8. Enable information sharing and interaction across the organization:
It is both a requirement and a benefit of customer relationship management that organizations
improve their internal communication processes. The only way to develop a comprehensive view of
each customer’s relationship with the organization is with the full participation of every part of the
organization.
9. Create business rules to drive all customer relationship management decisions and
automation:
Business rules codify and automate processes, specifying what should happen in specific situations,
thus enabling both differentiated customer treatment and automation.
10. Empower agents with information and training:
Just as the cockpit of an airplane displays all the information a pilot needs to fly in any conditions,
the contact management screen should pull together cleanly and clearly all that the organization
knows about its relationship with that customer. Empowerment is a complementary principle
because no set of business rules can or should fully anticipate every conceivable situation.
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https://www.exactlly.com/blog/index.php/7-principles-for-building-profitable-customer-relationships/
11. Know thy customers
The most basic principle of customer relationship management, it is often overlooked by companies.
For building customer relationships, you need to first know what exactly they aspire for. The market
is volatile and things can change overnight. Services that were once valued could become obsolete
in a moment.
12. Have a better interaction
Lurking behind a curtain and never giving direct answers might work well for God, but it would
definitely not work for you. In order to manage profitable customer relationships, you have to interact
with your customers. Social media is often a great platform to do so, so make sure you have a strong
presence there. The previous principle of "know thy customer" could be easily achieved if you have
a good interaction with them.
13. Respect customer individuality
Customers are individuals, and that's how you must treat them. One marketing strategy never works
for all customers. Even if you are targeting a specific demographic, you need to create further
segments. Since every customer matters, you need to try dealing with each one of them as per the
needs. Your business must offer something for every segment of customers you deal with so that
no one is left out. Not only would it increase your sales, but also help build brand loyalty.
14. Have a single face
Your company must echo the same ethos while dealing with every customer throughout the globe.
It might seem to be in direct contrast with the previous principle, but it really isn't. While addressing
the needs of every customer is important, it should not appear that you are trying to please
everyone.
15. Share the CRM values with your employees
Quite often, customers get disgruntled with a company because the ground employees do not echo
the same values as that of the brand itself. For that purpose, you must share the insights you draw
from the previous principle with your colleagues and subordinates. Using good CRM marketing
tools can also contribute to that effect. Everyone in the organization should be aware of the best
ways about having effective customer relationships.
16. Focus on sales, not discount
One common trap most businesses fall into is overusing the concept of discounts. They believe that
reduced costs would be the best way to make customers happy. However, this is not really true.
While discounts do have their benefits, they cannot replace the importance of customer relationships
in any way.
17. Balance between customer and your interests
Sometimes, too much pleasing of customers may result in losses for you. Such cases result in a
conflict of interest and make you wonder if incurring losses for the sake of keeping customers happy
is worth it. However, it is not so difficult to strike a balance between the two. You must value your
customers while increasing value for them. In turn, they would help you in improving your sales, and
therefore, your revenue. But remember, building customer relationships is not an easy task. It is a
long-term strategy with long-lasting gains.
LO4 ADAPT PROCESSES TO MEASURE AND MANAGE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AND
FEEDBACK WHILE FACILITATING DIALOGUE WITH CUSTOMERS(A5, A3)
https://blog.smart-tribune.com/en/why-how-should-customer-satisfaction-be-measured
Adapt processes to measure and manage customer satisfaction and feedback(A5)
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Most companies understand the importance of customer satisfaction. It’s a key issue for ensuring
sustainability and growth. They strive to create products and services that delight their customers.
They constantly seek to enhance their customer relationships and bring new enchantment to the
customer experience.
 Acquiring new customers requires considerable marketing and prospection efforts.
For many companies, reducing customer acquisition cost is a priority. One of the solutions lies
in improving customer retention. If a customer buys more and more frequently, he or she brings
more value to the company. Moreover, retaining a customer costs 6 to 7 times less than acquiring
a new one. The relationship between satisfaction and retention is more complex than it appears.
Nonetheless, a satisfied customer is more likely to remain loyal to the brand.
 Negative word-of-mouth can permanently damage a brand’s image.
And getting people to forget unfavourable opinions or reviews on the web takes time.
The best way to protect a brand image is through prevention. Or by reacting before a negative event
takes on too much importance. Measuring customer satisfaction enables enhancement of the
customer experience. Dissatisfaction may have different causes: the quality of the product or service,
a flawed customer relationship.
Customer satisfaction measurement indicators
To efficiently measure the satisfaction of customers, the different aspects of satisfaction must be
taken into account. Consequently, customer satisfaction measurement will be based on several
complementary KPIs.
https://www.questionpro.com/blog/metrics-to-measure-customer-satisfaction/
Conducting surveys is a good way to measure customer satisfaction. However, it is not that
straightforward. Asking your customers the right questions is the key to measuring it. Without the
right questions, the responses may not show you the right data. Without the right data, you will not
be able to identify areas of improvement to address them.
1. Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Net Promoter Score (NPS) helps measure loyalty by asking your users their willingness to
recommend your brand to their peers and loved ones. It is measured from responses to the
question – Considering your complete experience with our organization, how likely are you to
recommend our products and services to your loved ones and colleagues.
Based on the answer, the types of customers are classified as below:
1. Detractors: Customers that rated you between 0-6 fall in this category. They are not
loyal and likely to indulge in negative word-of-mouth about your brand.
2. Promoters: These customers rated you either 9 or 10 and are your most loyal. They
actively promote your brand to their friends and family.
3. Passives: Customers that rated you between 7-8 will fall in this category. Passives fall in
between the two categories. They will not willingly recommend your brand to others but
will not discourage their loved ones and colleagues.
2. Customer Service Satisfaction (CSS)
CSS measures your customers’ satisfaction with your post-purchase service. You can measure
CSS by seeking feedback from your customers every time they interact with your business. You
can do this via forms, pop-ups, live chat, or online surveys. You can have a standard rating scale
in these surveys and a few questions if you’d like. Keeping them standard will help you look at
trends and patterns over time. This will help you identify improvement areas and prioritize
enhancements. While customer service satisfaction does not give you a wholesome picture, it
certainly helps find most-asked queries and concerns.
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3. Customer Effort Score (CES)
Some products or services may be complex to operate and require significant effort from the
customers. Customer Effort Score (CES) helps determine ease of using your products or services.
CES surveys are aimed at decreasing effort and increasing loyalty. There could be follow-up
questions depending on what you intend to achieve via the study.
Loyalty decreases with an increase in the effort required to use your service or product. The idea
is to make the usage as effortless as possible. Let us consider the example of a retail clothing
store. If they have to look for assistance from employees constantly, it’s terrible for your CES.
They might not return to your store again. It would help being attentive to customers, proactively
helping, and anticipating their needs and requirements.
4. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
Customer Satisfaction Score lets you know if your customers are happy or not. It measures
satisfaction using a rating scale question that asks survey takers to rate their satisfaction level with
their product or service. The rating scale can be either 1-10, 1-7, or 1-5. CSAT is calculated by
dividing your number of happy customers by the total number of customers.
Customer satisfaction surveys conducted at the point-of-interaction offer quite reliable and
accurate data. The answers are genuine, candid, and the response rates are good.
5. Customer Health Score (CHS)
Customer health lets you know if your customers will stay with you or churn over time. This score,
unlike other CSAT metrics, identifies behavior patterns over a period. It is determined by the
aspects such as:
 Product usage period
 Product type (license level – free or paid)
 Number of interactions with the support team
 Money spent with your brand
 Their willingness to answer your surveys
These are just some key parameters, and they may vary with organizations and the points or
importance assigned to them. The key is to use these factors to categorize your customers into
weak, healthy, or at-risk.
6. Customer Churn Rate (CCR)
Customer churn rate (CCR) indicates the percentage of customers your organization lost over a
period. It is extremely vital to retain your existing customers, for it may cost up to seven times
more to acquire new ones. Monitoring your CCR helps uncover any trends that could impact your
organization and take effective measures to contain the churn. Calculating churn rate is simple;
you start by defining your calculation period, a year, for example. Subtract your number of
customers at the end of the year from the number at the start of the year. Divide this number result
by the number of customers at the start of the year to get CCR.
Measuring CCR is not the final step; once you have that information, you need to look for more
data responsible for it and what preventive measures can be taken to bring it down.
7. Customer reviews
While these cover all the angles, it is important to be mindful of any feedback or review you may
receive via portals, websites, or social media channels. The importance of reviews cannot be
overstated. According to a recent study, over 90% of buyers value product reviews over product
descriptions.
Ensure you have positive reviews and recommendations online on websites or portals that your
potential customers may visit. If you have positive comments or feedback about your products or
services, you may request them to write a review. If they are happy and satisfied, they would be
more than happy to recommend your company to their loved ones and colleagues.
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Facilitate dialogue sessions with customers(A3)
https://www.worklogic.com.au/services/facilitateddiscussions/#:~:text=In%20a%20facilitated%20discussion%2C%20the,issues%20that%20are%20causing%20conflict.
In a facilitated discussion, the facilitator assists the parties to prepare for and engage in a
conversation around the issues that are causing conflict.
A facilitator will assist each party individually to:
 Identify the issues that are at stake;
 Clarify specific examples of the behaviour to be discussed;
 Understand more about their own emotions around and contributions to the
issue;
 Clarify what is at stake if the issue cannot be resolved
 Prepare to have a conversation with the other person about the issues.
A facilitator will then assist the parties in joint session to:
 Communicate their concerns in a respectful way
 Open to understanding of the other person’s perspective
 Identify ways that the conflict might be resolved or at least progressed.
A facilitated discussion provides practical assistance to the parties to understand, organise and
communicate their own needs and expectations and to be open to communication from the other
part(ies). Engaging assistance in the form of a facilitated discussion empowers employees to tackle
difficult issues in a pro-active and respectful way.
Approach to facilitated discussion





Arrange to meet the participants separately to understand the issues, explain the process
and to assist them to prepare for the facilitated conversation.
Bring the participants together to outline their concerns and engage in facilitated discussion
over the problem that needs to be addressed.
Encourage the parties to look forward toward a resolution of the issue that brings them to
discussion
Liaise with the organisation to communicate ways that the issue has been discussed and
ways forward to resolve the problem at hand (depending on what has been agreed in the
set up).
Ensures that communication occurs in a respectful way and that the participants feel safe
and heard. The participants are encouraged – but not forced – to reach agreement. If they
are unable to reach an agreement that they can live with, they will at least have a better
understanding of each other’s perspectives.
https://buildfire.com/customer-engagement-strategies/
13 Effective Strategies to Facilitate dialogue sessions with customers
1. Use social media as an engagement tool and not simply a platform
social media networks, such as Facebook and LinkedIn are not merely platforms for connecting with
people. Yes, these social platforms are primarily for that, but you should use them as tools, if you
want better results. The rapidly evolving behavior of consumers in this age should impact your
perception about social media marketing. Begin to see social media as a tool, not just a platform.
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This means that you can use the tool to connect, share, identify questions, research influencers and
other experts, and create content that your fans will scream, “Wow, ‘ve been looking for this!”
2. Engage customers with In-Product messaging
When it comes to product messaging (i.e., notifying your customers about your new product), there
are several key channels that you can use. Out of these four channels, in-product messaging
happens to generate the best conversion. Overall, follow up emails have poor conversion rate. The
ideal approach is to message a specific segment of your customer base with the exact product/offer
which they’ve indicated interest.
3. Nurture free trial prospects and get them to upgrade
By definition, a customer is someone who had made a transaction that would benefit the business.
“starting a relationship through a free trial influences usage and retention behaviour, how these free
trial customers respond to your marketing messages, and ultimately how long the consumer will
remain with the service.”
Sadly, companies are struggling to convert their SaaS free trial users into paying customers.
4. Communicate with VIP customers with promotions specifically for them
VIP customers are not one-time buyers. But the good news is that through customer engagement,
you can turn casual buyers (or one-off buyers) into loyal and trustworthy customers.
There are 3 types of retail VIP customers:
i). Liberal VIP Customers: These are customers who are loyal to your brand. They usually purchase
the most over a period of time. Doug Fleener says he measures spending over an 18 – 24 month
period.
ii). Community VIP Customers: These are important group of customers, too. According to Fleener,
they aren’t actually big spenders, but you can’t do without them. Because, they refer qualified
customers.
Social media influencers and pro bloggers fall into this category. When they tweet your post or new
product, you can expect tens if not hundreds of new subscribers and buyers.
iii). Advocates/liberal VIP customers: This are customers who make impact in your brand. They’re
brand advocates as well as big spenders. They’re not only happy after purchasing your product, but
they can tell others, too.
5. Obsess over your customers by delivering enormous value
No matter your niche or market, when you put customers first and think about their welfare, you’ll
nurture an army of brand advocates. Obsess over customers, and not competitors,”
6. Create custom content that addresses a bugging customer questions
Overall, content marketing is used to drive leads and acquire new customers, whereas, custom
content is primarily used to engage and nurture existing customers.
There you go. That’s the difference between content marketing and custom content marketing.
It’s important to create useful content for your customers. This engagement strategy didn’t just begin
today – it’s been used by large companies in the U.S., Uk, China, and more – although, in various
forms – several years ago.
7. Hold a customer-engagement summit
There are so many ways to learn today: books, blogs, articles, magazines, newspapers, journals,
videos, podcasts, and multimedia.
However, attending a summit or conference will broaden your horizon, and upgrade your learning
curve in a dramatic way. The benefits are enormous.
Adobe conducted a study on the impact of summit in attendees’ lives.
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The company found that 98% of attendees met or exceeded their expectation. And 80% of them
discovered new skills to impact their organization and their career.
8. Produce interactive content to feed customer demand
Your ability to produce the right content is your one-way ticket to generating more leads, more
inbound links, and more sales.
But it’s easier said than done. According to Content Marketing Institute, 52% of B2B content
marketers are struggling to produce the kind of content that engages. 39% do not have a budget in
place to hire professional content creators.
9. Create a “listening center” to drive conversation
Without communication, your customers will be lost.
Confusion sets in only when you neglect to set up systems that will aid effective communication.
10. Scale your customer engagement budget
There are new strategies, tools, vehicles, and content types at every corner. Most companies are
confused, because they can’t figure out how they can afford all of these with their limited budget.
11. Improve customer support by making it your team’s duty
No matter the product you deal on, what you’re truly selling is experience.
Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos once said that his business wasn’t primarily for delivering shoes or
clothing, but for delivering happiness.
As the Chief Executive Officer of a thriving shopping brand, Tony hires and fires – based on their
core values.
Core values that are based on human psychology – and what makes people happy.
12. Respond promptly to customer calls
How fast you respond will help you gauge and understand the difference between customer service
and customer experience. “Experience” is as a result of the service you provide.
If your service is awesome, but you are slow, customer experience will be negative.
On the other hand, if the service is great and the time it took to deliver it blends properly, customer
experience will be high and positive.
13. Create mobile apps
If you’re looking to engage your customers, while providing unfeigned value that will remain fresh in
their minds for years to come, then you should seriously consider creating mobile apps.
LO5 DEVELOP CUSTOMER ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK TO MEASURE AND
EVALUATE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION(A2,K5)
Develop customer account management framework to measure and evaluate customer
satisfaction(A2)
https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/strategic-account-management
What is customer account management?
Customer account management focuses on building long-term mutually beneficial partnerships
with key customers.
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Through in-depth research and assessment, account managers find opportunities to drive value
for their partners by identifying problems, offering creative solutions, and leveraging partnerships
to move both organizations toward their strategic goals.
Businesses that set up a strong sales discipline, move proactively to drive sales and anticipate
customer needs will not only make money, but also create an environment of trust and integrity.
A formal account management program can:
 Foster customer loyalty.
 Stimulate growth.
 Increase profitability.
 Drive innovative and scalable service solutions.
Sales vs. Customer management
Unlike a sales program, which focuses on short-term selling cycles and customer acquisition,
Customer management goes a step further to develop deeper relationships with a small number of
core customers over time.
In short, sales is about the present. Customer management is about the future.
While the gains may not be immediate, strategic accounts are a vital part of an organization’s longterm success and profitability.
Customer account management best practices
The most successful organizations rely on formal, measurable, repeatable processes to develop
and maintain their most valuable customer relationships. Whether you already have a process in
place or plan to implement a new strategic account program, use these best practices to put your
organization ahead of the curve.
1. Assign dedicated account managers
The first step to a successful program is to assign dedicated account managers who are separate
from sales. The best programs don’t have managers that must split their priorities or switch focus
between making sales and developing strategic accounts. Instead, create a team (or teams) with
dedicated accounts and team leads focused solely on customer management. These account
managers should be both analytical and personable. They need to build rapport with customers,
think strategically about partnership opportunities and solutions, collaborate and communicate with
high-level stakeholders and decision-makers, and lead a cross-functional team.
2. Develop selection criteria for key accounts
While all customers are valuable, not all customers can be elevated to a key account. Be selective.
Strategic accounts are reserved for customers whose partnerships can propel your organization
toward its goals.
You’ll need to develop a shortlist of selection criteria that hone in on alignments between your two
organizations. Focus on three to eight objective criteria, weighted in relative importance to your
organization.
These criteria could include:
 Product fit
 Revenue potential
 Growth potential
 Cultural fit
 Geographic alignment
 Solvency
 Existing relationships
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
Potential channel partnership
Senior management should take the lead on this stage rather than the sales managers. Selection
criteria are based on the organization’s high-level strategic goals and vision, so senior managers
are the best fit for this role.
3. Polish the handoff from sales
An oft-overlooked step in the process is the transition from sales to account management. How
well you handle account transitions is an important part of building a trusted relationship with your
customers. For best results, follow a formal, scripted handoff from the sales team to the account
management team. Each customer (whether they become a key account or not) should be
methodically organized and tracked in your account system.
4. Create a comprehensive customer profile
Once you have a selection process in place and you have identified and assigned your key
accounts, you’ll need to develop in-depth customer portfolios. The account manager has to know
their customer inside and out. To do this, they need to conduct research on the client company to
build out a comprehensive profile.
Investigate and assess the company’s:
 Business and markets
 Goals and initiatives
 Stakeholder roles and responsibilities
 Key decision makers
 Analyst reports
 Competition
The aim is to understand your customer’s pain points and goals in order to identify opportunities
for added value and collaboration.
5. Conduct a needs assessment
With your portfolio of customer research, the next step is to conduct a needs assessment.
Consider:
 What are the organization’s pain points?
 Where do your needs or goals overlap and how can you help each other progress?
 Are there any problems looming that you can anticipate and address for them?
Use your data to find ways you can help them, and assess opportunities for collaboration and
partnership. These accounts are long-term investments.
6. Draft a strategic plan and proposal
Based on your needs assessment, drill down to the best strategic opportunities and draft an
account plan. This plan is your strategic roadmap for the next 1-3 years. Once you polish the plan,
approach your customer with your proposal.
Your proposal should include things like:
 Strategic recommendations (e.g., potential partnerships with other companies,
creative solutions, etc.)
 Specific long-term goals with short-term benchmarks
 Resource requirements
This is your chance to demonstrate to the client that you’ve gone above and beyond to understand
and address their needs and that your company is invested in their success.
7. Set a cadence for contacts, meetings, and follow-ups
Once you have a strategic plan in place, set a regular cadence for ongoing communication with
your key accounts. Outline a schedule for each touchpoint, meeting, and follow-up to ensure your
customer is in the loop and has the opportunity to give feedback, communicate changes, or ask
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questions. This schedule will help you stay updated on what your customer needs, how they are
using your product or solution, and how you can help. Clear communication is vital to a strong
working relationship with your customers.
8. Monitor performance
Monitoring performance is not only important to ensure you deliver on your end but also to track
how well the key account fulfills its obligations to you. While you want to drive value for the client,
the goal is one of mutual long-term benefit. If the relationship no longer holds the same strategic
value for your organization, it’s better to identify that sooner rather than later.
Measure your account performance continually so you can keep the plans on track and pivot or
reassess as needed.
Customer satisfaction metrics(K5)
https://www.questionpro.com/blog/metrics-to-measure-customer-satisfaction/
Advantages of using customer satisfaction metrics
1. Loyal customers
Happy customers stay loyal and increase revenue. They always return when the like a product or
service and are satisfied with the offered performance and customer service. Using these metrics,
you can find out your loyal and satisfied customers. You can reach out to dissatisfied ones to know
their reasons and take actions to make them happy.
2. Promoters
With NPS surveys, you can understand who your promoters, detractors, and passives are. With
your promoters, you can use them to amplify your brand and positives. They are your brand’s best
advocates, and you should leverage them as such. For passives, you can take measures to nudge
them into becoming promoters. This could be via discounts, offers, early product previews, various
benefits, etc. It would help if you worked more on detractors, going to the core reasons behind
their dissatisfaction and less than favorable experience. This will help improve the overall CX and
satisfaction levels.
3. Brand reputation
Customers with great experiences may talk to their friends and family about their experiences, but
those with bad experiences will definitely talk about it. This not only seriously hampers your brand
reputation but also bottom line. Conducting CSAT surveys can help alleviate some of these
concerns as you can actively track these customers and make amends.
4. Usability and experience
Conducting Customer Effort Score (CES) surveys, you can collect the quantitative and qualitative
data put by your users. You can use these studies to ensure you make their lives easier and keep
that in mind for future feature rollouts or new offerings.
As you can see, all these metrics offer their own benefits and can be used to elevate your
customer satisfaction.
Customer satisfaction metrics
 CES or Customer Effort Score
CES is a more recent indicator than the two preceding KPIs. Its main purpose is to evaluate the
level of customer service quality. Concretely, it measures the level of effort the customer must
exert to obtain satisfaction for his or her request.
 Satisfaction surveys
The satisfaction survey is the most common tool for measuring customer satisfaction. It enables
collection of customer feedback after a purchase or contact with customer service.
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 Mystery shoppers
The “mystery shopper” method involves sending an investigator to test a service, contact customer
service, or visit a point of sale. The objective is to evaluate the customer experience or
relationship. Objective feedback from mystery shoppers enables brands to identify areas requiring
improvement.
 Qualitative interviews
Qualitative interviews are based upon actively listening to customers. This method is used
to determine the expectations, needs, motivations, and problems the customer has. In other words,
to better understand the customer’s purchasing and decision-making process.
 Customer Effort Score
The Customer Effort Score takes a different approach to how to measure customer satisfaction than
the previous two methods. It asks the customer: “how hard did you have to work to get a problem
fixed/query answered/service rendered?”
 Direct Feedback and Customer Satisfaction
The most straightforward way of giving your customers the support they want is by asking them
directly through a customer satisfaction survey.
 In-app customer surveys
These are presented to the customer while they are in the process of using your service. This means
an immediate reaction and a potentially high response rate. Nevertheless, in-app surveys must be
seamlessly inserted to the interface, so as not to pester or detract from the user experience.
 Post-service customer surveys
These types of surveys approach the customer immediately following a service interaction. They
can occur via email, live chat, or over the phone. It’s essential to not make gathering feedback the
only object of the call or message, with no added value to the customer.
 Customer Surveys via Email
While these surveys have the lowest response rates, they allow customers who wish to do so to
answer in greater detail and really give you constructive feedback. You can use this in-depth
feedback to increase customer satisfaction across a wider spectrum.
 Volunteered feedback
Dedicating a comment box or an email address to customer satisfaction is a great move. However,
customers often won’t bother to leave feedback because they don’t think the company will care, or
take it into account.
 Indirect Feedback and Customer Satisfaction
We’ve covered ways to reach out and gauge your customers’ happiness directly. However, there
are also ways to do so without directly involving your customers. Taxing customers’ attention and
good will to gather feedback is necessary, but it’s handy to know about alternative, less intrusive
tactics.
 Analytics
You can use your website traffic and content to measure customer satisfaction. Not only will the
publication of content drive your activity, but you can use it to gain insight into your customers’
habits.
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LO6 MAINTAIN CUSTOMER RAPPORT TO BUILD CUSTOMER CONFIDENCE(A4,K2, K3)
Maintain customer rapport to build customer confidence(A4)
“If people like you they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you they’ll do business with you.” A highquality product or service is only half the story. If you can earn the trust of your customers with
five-star service, you might just secure their loyalty too.
https://www.wyzowl.com/gain-customertrust/#:~:text=Companies%20that%20fail%20to%20put,cynical%20about%20their%20purchasing%20decisions.
Knowing how to build trust with customers is critical in today’s business climate. Going the extra
mile for your customers at all times is the surest route to building consumer trust and a loyal
customer base. Companies that fail to put in the hard yards needed to win the trust of their
clientele are limiting their potential.
1. Tell your story
Telling your story is a crucial part of building a brand. It shapes how your audience views you and
allows them to look beyond the products and understand where you’re coming from.
If you can convey your brand’s history, expertise and awards, you’re en route to developing a
brand that people can identify with. One that’s loved for its approach, values and authenticity.
2. Be honest and transparent
If you want to gain your customers’ trust, there are no shortcuts; you’re going to have to earn it.
How do you do that? Well, a great starting point is to be open and transparent about your products
and what potential customers can expect of you as a company.
3. Know your target audience
Market research was seen as a bit of a gimmick not that long ago. But it’s more important than
ever in an age where consumers crave a personalised experience rather than a one-size-fits-all
approach. Conducting thorough research into your customers’ needs, their common issues and
pain points will help you to develop tailored solutions and messages that resonate with them on a
very individual basis.
4. Share reviews
What do employers, landlords and consumers all share in common? They all demand references
to find out whether the people they’re dealing with are trustworthy and reliable.
Word of mouth recommendations are important. We trust the experiences of others over the
claims of a company. Reviews can help a customer to build up a strong and immediate impression
of a brand’s goods and their customer service credentials.
5. Create and share video testimonials
Taking the power of word-of-mouth a step further, video testimonials can be a powerful medium for
demonstrating the worth of your products and the prowess of your service.
Brand ambassadors who are willing to go on record and wax lyrical about their experiences with
your company are a much more compelling and engaging proposition than if you tried to convey
the same message yourselves. Consumers trust unbiased opinions more than corporate
messaging, so a testimonial video can be a great onboarding tool to persuade customers to buy
into your business.
6. Put a face to the name
If you can’t meet your customers and, let’s face it, there are only a certain number of hours in the
day. At the very least you should aim to have a comprehensive “meet the team” page.
In your efforts to help your customers to feel connected to your brand, it’s useful to show them the
people behind the products. That’s where you can build empathy and rapport on a human scale.
Give your customers meaningful human interactions wherever possible to cement the relationship.
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7. Offer great customer service
The customer service your company provides can have a major bearing on customer trust and
loyalty. That makes it crucial to hire dedicated support staff who are trained to a high standard. Not
only do they need a consistent framework to solve common customer bugbears but they also need
to be given the freedom to treat every customer issue on an individual basis. The aim here is to
provide an efficient, professional and personable experience for your customers. If they feel like
your team has gone above and beyond, then they’re far likelier to come back and then recommend
you to their friends and family.
8. Share best practices
Give your customers extra by sharing hints and tips with no expectation of anything in return other
than gratitude.
9. Be contactable
A business’ contact page is the touchpoint of interaction with their customers. For that very reason
it’s guaranteed to be one of the most visited pages on any website.
In spite of this, however, many people overlook the significance and consequently the design and
user experience of their contact page.
10. Build social proof
If your company has worked with some big-name clients – shout about it! If a household name has
entrusted you with their reputation and you’ve delivered a great service in the process, that
provides a huge amount of social proof and credibility for anyone seeking reassurance about your
company.
Customer Relationship Management (K2) And Customer Relationship Management Tool
Administration (K6)
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It's a technology used to manage interactions
with customers and potential customers. A CRM system helps organisations build customer
relationships and streamline processes so they can increase sales, improve customer service, and
increase profitability.
Benefits of CRM tool administration
Using a CRM system can give you a clear overview of your customers. You can see everything in
one place — a simple, customisable dashboard that can tell you a customer's previous history with
you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.
“How you gather, manage, and use information will determine whether you win or lose.”
BILL GATES
1. Identify and categorise leads
One of the main benefits of a CRM system is that it can help you to identify and add new leads easily
and quickly and categorise them accurately. You can create customised pitch documents in less
time, cutting down on response time and enabling sales teams to move on to the next opportunity.
With complete, accurate, centrally held information about clients and prospects, sales staff can focus
their attention and energy on the right clients and gain a competitive advantage.
2. Increase referrals from existing customers.
By understanding your customers better, cross-selling and up-selling opportunities become clear –
giving you the chance to win new business from existing customers. With better information you'll
also be able to keep your customers happy with better service. Happy customers are likely to
become repeat customers, and repeat customers spend more – up to 33% more according to some
studies.
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3. Improve products and services
An often overlooked benefit of CRM software is that it will gather information from a huge variety of
sources across your business. This gives you unprecedented insights into how your customers feel
and what they are saying about your organisation – so you can improve what you offer, spot
problems early and identify gaps.
4. Reduce costs
CRM can be quick and easy to implement. A cloud-based system doesn’t need special installation
and there's no hardware to set up, keeping IT costs low and removing the headache of version
control and update schedules. Generally, cloud-based CRM systems are priced on the number of
users who access the system and the kinds of features you need. This can be very cost-effective in
terms of capital outlay, and is also extremely flexible – enabling you to scale up and add more people
as your business grows. Cloud-CRM platforms such as Salesforce are flexible in terms of
functionality, too – you're not paying for any features that are not useful to you.
5. Learning.
CRM helps businesses learn about their customers, including who they are and why they purchase
your products, as well as trends in customers' purchasing histories. This allows businesses to better
anticipate their customers' needs and, as a result, fulfill them. Effectively using customer relationship
management can also provide a strategic advantage. Well organized customer data helps
companies select the correct recipients for promotions and new products.
6. Organization.
CRM allows businesses to become more efficient by organizing and automating certain aspects of
the business. From sales processes to marketing campaigns and business analytics as well as
customer data, CRM automates and streamlines these processes for businesses. This allows the
businesses to organize these processes into simpler, easier to understand data.
7. Optimization.
Finally, CRM software allows businesses to optimize their customer interactions. By simplifying and
streamlining many of the more complex customer interaction processes, CRM increases customer
satisfaction.
Types Of Customer Relationship Management tool administration
• Operational.
Operational CRM usually has to do with one of the three types of operations: marketing, sales and
service. Operational CRM is an important tool for lead generation because it frequently deals with
past customer data such as previous marketing campaigns, purchases and service satisfaction.
CRM software also aims to automate these processes to create a better experience for both the
businesses and their customers. Because of its concentration on efficiency, operational CRM is a
great fit for companies with a shorter sales cycle and high repeat sales like e-commerce or business
to consumer retail verticals.
• Analytical.
The main function of analytical CRM is to analyze customer data so that management can better
understand market trends and customers' wants and needs. The goal of analytical CRM is to
improve customer satisfaction. Analytical CRM frequently uses data mining and pattern recognition
to accomplish this task -- it works well for companies in higher priced markets with a lot of competition.
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• Collaborative.
Collaborative CRM is when companies share customers' information with outside companies and
businesses. By pooling their data, certain businesses are able to create an even greater experience
for their customers by obtaining data which they otherwise would not have had access. It's an
excellent fit for markets where innovation and new product development is paramount to success
because the additional data creates very detailed pictures of what consumers are currently
responding to.
Project Lifecycle Relationship Management (K3)
Whether you’re working on a small project with modest business goals or a large, multidepartmental initiative with sweeping corporate implications, an understanding of the project
management life cycle is essential. The project management life cycle describes high-level
processes for delivering a successful project. Wasted money and resources can be prevented with
effective project management, as 57% of unsuccessful projects fail due to communication
breakdown. In the phases of the project management life cycle, you come up with the idea for a
project, define its goals, plan for its execution, and guide it to completion.
1. Initiation
First, you need to identify a business need, problem, or opportunity and brainstorm ways that your
team can meet this need, solve this problem, or seize this opportunity. During this step, you figure
out an objective for your project, determine whether the project is feasible, and identify the major
deliverables for the project.
Steps for the project initiation phase may include the following:
 Undertaking a feasibility study: Identify the primary problem your project will solve
and whether your project will deliver a solution to that problem
 Identifying scope: Define the depth and breadth of the project
 Identifying deliverables: Define the product or service to provide
 Identifying project stakeholders: Figure out whom the project affects and what their
needs may be
 Developing a business case: Use the above criteria to compare the potential costs
and benefits for the project to determine if it moves forward
 Developing a statement of work: Document the project’s objectives, scope, and
deliverables that you have identified previously as a working agreement between
the project owner and those working on the project
2. Planning
Once the project is approved to move forward based on your business case, statement of work, or
project initiation document, you move into the planning phase.
During this phase of the project management life cycle, you break down the larger project into
smaller tasks, build your team, and prepare a schedule for the completion of assignments. Create
smaller goals within the larger project, making sure each is achievable within the time frame.
Smaller goals should have a high potential for success.
Steps for the project planning phase may include the following:
 Creating a project plan: Identify the project timeline, including the phases of the
project, the tasks to be performed, and possible constraints
 Creating workflow diagrams: Visualize your processes using swimlanes to make
sure team members clearly understand their role in a project
 Estimating budget and creating a financial plan: Use cost estimates to determine
how much to spend on the project to get the maximum return on investment
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
Gathering resources: Build your functional team from internal and external talent
pools while making sure everyone has the necessary tools (software, hardware,
etc.) to complete their tasks
 Anticipating risks and potential quality roadblocks: Identify issues that may cause
your project to stall while planning to mitigate those risks and maintain the project’s
quality and timeline
 Holding a project kickoff meeting: Bring your team on board and outline the project
so they can quickly get to work
Get started by mapping out all process steps and responsibilities in this workflow diagram
template.
Workflow Diagram With Swimlanes (Click on image to modify this template)
3. Execution
You’ve received business approval, developed a plan, and built your team. Now it’s time to get to
work. The execution phase turns your plan into action. The project manager’s job in this phase of
the project management life cycle is to keep work on track, organize team members, manage
timelines, and make sure the work is done according to the original plan.
Steps for the project execution phase may include the following:
 Creating tasks and organizing workflows: Assign granular aspects of the projects to
the appropriate team members, making sure team members are not overworked
 Briefing team members on tasks: Explain tasks to team members, providing
necessary guidance on how they should be completed, and organizing processrelated training if necessary
 Communicating with team members, clients, and upper
management: Provide updates to project stakeholders at all levels
 Monitoring quality of work: Ensure that team members are meeting their time and
quality goals for tasks
 Managing budget: Monitor spending and keeping the project on track in terms of
assets and resources
4. Closure
Once your team has completed work on a project, you enter the closure phase. In the closure
phase, you provide final deliverables, release project resources, and determine the success of the
project. Just because the major project work is over, that doesn’t mean the project manager’s job
is done—there are still important things to do, including evaluating what did and did not work with
the project.
Steps for the project closure phase may include the following:
 Analyzing project performance: Determine whether the project's goals were met
(tasks completed, on time and on budget) and the initial problem solved using a
prepared checklist.
 Analyzing team performance: Evaluate how team members performed, including
whether they met their goals along with timeliness and quality of work
 Documenting project closure: Make sure that all aspects of the project are
completed with no loose ends remaining and providing reports to key stakeholders
 Conducting post-implementation reviews: Conduct a final analysis of the project,
taking into account lessons learned for similar projects in the future
 Accounting for used and unused budget: Allocate remaining resources for future
projects
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LU3 REVIEW AND ANALYSIS
LO7 REVIEW ANALYSIS DERIVED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES TO ESTABLISH CUSTOMER
NEEDS AND EXPECTATIONS(A1)
Review analysis derived from various sources to establish customer needs and expectations
(A1)
A customer-centric approach sets you on a path for business success. But to truly make
customers the heart of everything you do, you need to clearly identify their needs and
expectations.
Analyzing what motivates your customers to buy your product or service is key to enhance the
customer experience. It can also lead to innovation and reveal gaps in the competition, that you
can exploit and improve upon.
What Is Customer Needs Analysis?
Customer needs analysis is the process of identifying what motivates a customer to buy products
or services. Knowing which features, attributes, and benefits are relevant to customers can help
businesses adapt their product development and marketing strategies.
Doing a customer needs analysis involves drawing insights from a variety of customer data, like
surveys, social media posts, product reviews, and more.
When you look into customer feedback, you can detect unmet needs and opportunities for
improvement and innovation. Maybe your customers suggest a new feature that you can add to
your product roadmap. Or perhaps they point out some flaws in your customer service that you
need to fix.
Understanding what customers need allows you to deliver a great customer experience at every
step of the buyer journey. Also, knowing what’s important to them can help you rethink the way
you market your products, and focus on particular customer pain points.
Types of Customer Needs and expectations
Customer needs are what drive purchase decisions. When customers buy a product or service,
they are trying to solve a problem. They have certain expectations, requirements, and specific
things that are important to them.

Price:
customers want to buy products or services that adjust to their budget. They expect the
price to directly reflect the value and quality of the product. But a product’s value is also
determined by intangible factors, like a brand’s perceived worth and the overall customer
experience.

Functionality:
the product or service should be able to solve a customer’s problem. There are certain
features or characteristics that customers expect from a product.

Usability:
this is related to the way a product is designed and the experience it provides to the
customer. Users tend to prefer products with a short learning curve, that are easy to use,
and help them accomplish tasks in a seamless way.
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
Reliability:
the product has to be able to perform its function consistently over time, without failure.
Reliability can be also defined as “quality over time.” A company that makes reliable
products will have a positive reputation and high levels of customer satisfaction.

Support:
customers crave good customer service. They expect to reach out to customer support
through the channel of their choosing to get fast, personalized responses; and be treated
with empathy.

Security:
when they interact through digital channels, customers want to ensure that their
transactions are safe, their personal data is protected, and their information will not get lost.

Effectiveness:
customers buy a product or service because they want to solve a problem. So, their main
interest is buying something that actually does the job it advertises.
How to Do a Customer Needs Analysis?
A customer needs analysis should provide insight into your customer’s pain points and challenges.
It can inform all of your internal teams ‒ from sales and marketing to customer support ‒ to create
data-driven strategies to improve your business.
1. Gather data from your customers
Engage with your customers and ask them for feedback. Depending on the type of business you
have, choose the best channel to send surveys, whether it’s via email, phone, SMS, or website
pop-ups.
2. Sort data by customer needs
So, you’ve collected customer feedback. Now, you have this huge amount of unstructured data –
all the free text data containing your customers’ opinions – that you’ll need to organize.
3. Analyze data
Sorting your data into categories gives you an overview of the main topics that appear in customer
feedback. For example, you may learn that a large part of your customers make comments about
your product’s features. But how do you know how they actually feel about this topic?
4. Visualize data
Data visualization is essential when it comes to sharing the findings of your customer needs
analysis with your internal teams and stakeholders.
5. Align product / service with customer needs
A customer needs analysis examines if your business is meeting customer needs and shows
opportunities to improve your product or service. The results of your analysis should drive your
internal teams in the right direction, by providing solid evidence for them to make informed
decisions.
Why “Identifying Customer Needs” Matters:
 Correctly identifying customers’ needs is essential for ensuring customer satisfaction and
loyalty. If you fail to properly identify customers’ needs, or if you are indifferent to their
needs, they will take their business elsewhere.
 Customers have unique needs. Assuming what a customer wants based on previous
clients can drive the customer away.
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


Identifying customers’ needs allows representatives to cross-sell related products or
services. Cross-selling can make the original purchase better, easier to use, or more
versatile, and is financially beneficial to the organization.
Often, customers either aren’t clear about what they need or they don’t really know what
they want. Effective customer service representatives need to be trained to ask the right
questions, listen, and tailor suggestions in order to assist customers satisfactorily.
Identifying clients’ needs creates satisfied customers, and satisfied customers are less
likely to have reason to enter into disputes with your organization or contemplate legal
action.
Factors Influencing Customer Expectations
Customer expectations are influenced by a multitude of factors but there are a few key elements
which are recognised as important influences on customer expectations.
1. Previous Customer Experience
One of the most significant factors influencing customer expectations is their prior experience with
your organisation. If they are highly satisfied existing customers then this sets a high level of
expectation which must be maintained. But if their previous experience has been suboptimal then
they may lack confidence in your business and their expectations may be quite low.
2. Customer Communications
Every piece of outbound communication from your business may have influenced your customer
expectations. Blog posts, tweets, web pages, emails, print advertising, radio and TV advertising all
contribute to the expectations that your customers will have. It is essential that your
communications are all honest, consistent, clear and unambiguous.
3. Reviews and Word of Mouth
The internet is a magnificent research tool so you can expect your customer’s to have carried out
research before making their purchase. They will have read reviews of your product or service and
they will have potentially read reviews of your business. They may also have read what people are
saying in forums and on social media. What they derive from these sources will influence their
expectations so you need to be aware of what’s being said.
4. Previous Experience with Other Companies
People’s experiences with other companies and organisations greatly influence their expectations.
Regardless of whether other companies are in the same niche as yours, these days customers
expect the same high levels of great customer service from all businesses and organisations.
6 Customer Expectation Management
1. Communicate Clearly and Honestly
As noted, your customer expectations will have been influenced by what they have read and
possibly seen. Since you have complete control over how you communicate with your customers
you should ensure that the information you provide is clear, consistent, complete and honest. Lack
of clarity in communications has been widely cited as a significant issue that negatively affects
customer experience. Here are some fundamental guidelines:
 Ensure that the information provided from your website is accurate, complete,
consistent and always up to date.
 The language used on your website and in all communications must be appropriate
for your customers. Don’t bamboozle them with technical jargon. Engage them using
the right language and tone of voice.
 Your social media communications need to be responsive and timely. What’s stated
needs to be accurate, honest and positive.
 Advertising and promotion must not be misleading or dishonest.
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
Any printed documentation such as brochures, pamphlets and flyers, must be
accurate, honest and clear.
 Any video and visual messaging from your organisation needs to be aligned with
other communications.
 Service agents and all staff involved in direct customer communications must be
appropriately trained and skilled. The information they provide must be consistent with
other communication channels and their style and manner must be appropriate.
 Let your customers know how long they need to wait. These days people expect
almost instantaneous responses, but this is not always realistic, especially when
dealing with a worldwide customer base. Clearly informing your customers of how long
they will need to wait can effectively set their expectations and avoid disgruntlement.
2. Cultivate Loyalty
Fostering customer loyalty is enormously beneficial to all businesses. It costs far less to retain an
existing customer than it does to create a new one. And loyal customers can be enormously
helpful in identifying and defining changing customer expectations.
Some basic tactics that contribute toward developing customer loyalty include:
 Always personalising communications by using their names.
 Ensuring that each customer is made to feel special.
 Always thanking them for their custom and their loyalty.
 Regularly and routinely communicating with them.
 Pay attention to the details which can affect customer expectations.
3. Monitor Your Market and Beyond
The expectations of your clients and customers will be greatly influenced by what they may have
experienced from other businesses in your sector and elsewhere. If a customer has previously
used an online ‘chat’ facility on another website to get some customer support and they received a
response within maybe 30 seconds then they are likely to expect the same from you when you
implement an online chat tool. Similarly, if a customer has previously received a fast response via
social media from an unrelated organisation or business then they are likely to expect the same
level of response from your social media channels.
You need to be aware of these expectations and ideally endeavour to match or beat them. If this is
not possible then you need to clearly communicate with your customers in order to realistically set
their expectations.
4. Be Expert
Your people need to be recognised as experts in what they do and what they are providing. Every
member of staff involved in direct customer communications, from front-line service personnel to
switchboard operators and sales professionals, need to be adequately trained and highly confident
in their skills and their ability to manage even the most demanding customer expectations.
5. Always Follow Up
Customer experience can be greatly influenced by whether or not an organisation follows up after
an initial contact. For example, if a customer has contacted a service desk, via telephone or
maybe via an online chat facility, and a resolution to their issue was provided, this should be
followed up, possibly via email, to confirm the recommendations provided and that the solution
was successful.
Similarly, after a purchase it’s good practice to contact customers to verify that they are satisfied.
Simple, easy-to-complete customer satisfaction surveys are a great way to follow up and derive
some potentially valuable customer feedback.
6. Discover and Exceed
By establishing a rapport with your customers you’re in a great position to discover their
anticipated expectations. What are they looking forward to in the future? What do they expect of
the products or services provided from your industry? What are they experiencing elsewhere that
is influencing what they expect from you?
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Armed with this incredibly valuable insight your business will be able to not only meet their
expectations but to significantly exceed them.
LO8 FACILITATE INNOVATION OF PRODUCT OR SERVICE OFFERINGS TO RESPOND TO
CUSTOMER’S NEEDS AND EXPECTATIONS(A7,K8)
Facilitate innovation of product or service offerings to respond to customer’s needs and
expectations(A7)
Innovating the customer experience means adding more value to the customer's relationship with
your business. While there are many ways to do this, these efforts should generally foster a stronger
connection with your customer base by offering products, rewards, and services that your
competitors can't.
If your innovation efforts are to truly add value to your business, customer-centricity will have to be
more than a motto. It will have to be a framework to turn your customers into your innovation partners
to facilitate the innovation of your products and service offerings. The insights they bring will make
all the difference in ensuring that the product not only solves their problems, but also provides an
exceptional experience they’ll keep coming back for.
At its core, customer service is simple: Make sure your customers are happy. But even if you’ve
succeeded in making your customers happy for a time, constantly improving your customer
service should be a goal for you and your business, as it can help you stand out from competitors.
1. Get specific.
It’s not enough to say “talk to customers” or “research the market.” Establish specific criteria for the
quantity and quality of customer interviews.
2. Set milestones.
Even after you’ve made the decision to invest in an innovative project, continue to check not just
technical progress, but also customer feedback, on a regular basis.
3. Offer expert guidance.
Brilliant technical minds aren’t always brilliant at interacting with customers. Assign a person or team
to train technical people on customer outreach, and to do the outreach directly when needed.
4. Set procedures to react.
Ensure that the team has the time and the processes to reflect on market feedback and adjust the
design appropriately. Be ready, if the feedback is poor, to terminate the project and reallocate
resources.
5. Idea Generation and Mobilization
New ideas are created during idea generation. Mobilization occurs when the idea is moved to a
different physical or logical location, such as an outside firm or another department.
6. Advocacy and Screening
Not all ideas are worth implementing. Advocacy and screening help evaluate an idea and measure
its potential benefits and problems. From there, a decision can be made about an idea’s future.
7. Experimentation
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The experimentation stage tests an idea, such as with a prototype or pilot test. Researchers
in Innovation: Management, Policy & Practice carefully note that “Experimentation does not test an
idea’s objective merits, but the suitability for a particular organization at a particular time.”
8. Commercialization
Commercialization aims to create market value for an idea by focusing on its potential impact. This
step makes the idea appealing to the audience, such as by packaging an idea with other ideas,
clarifying how and when the idea can be used, and using data or prototypes from experiments to
demonstrate benefits.
9. Diffusion and Implementation
Diffusion is the companywide acceptance of an innovative idea, and implementation sets up
everything needed to develop and utilize or produce the innovation. Diffusion happens at all levels
of an organization. This process is often aided by knowledge brokers, who are effective at presenting
an innovation by using their awareness of “the specific content and application into which an idea,
product or service can be inserted.” As a result, knowledge brokers are able to assist with rapid
implementation.
Innovation and Business
Innovation poses challenges. If one step of the process is weak or if a company lacks a systematic
process for accepting and nurturing innovative ideas, the organization will rely on serendipity. But
with the right approach, mindset and resources, a company can reap the strategic benefits of growth.
Managers play a vital role in an organization that meets the challenges of innovation. In Innovation:
Management, Policy & Practice, the study outlines key areas where managers can assist with the
process of innovation.
 Managers need to pay constant attention to operational details of innovation projects.
Managers should keep an eye on how their projects are doing, and, to ease the burden of
this task, they can establish a learning-focused environment that encourages employees to
explore and generate new ideas.
 Managers need to be clear about how ideas are selected and evaluated. Clear-cut
protocols are a feature of robust organizations, and these protocols help managers keep
their focus on the processes of robust innovation.
 Managers must quickly respond to external constituents and provide their opinions for
experimentation. The right questions can help guide this process to make it effective and
relevant.
 Managers need to pay attention to customer desires and perceptions. Creative use of
technology, such as data mining and pervasive computing infrastructure, is important.
Managers can help establish a culture of innovation. An open and supportive environment can lead
to organizational success, as well as recognition and professional growth for employees who offer
contributions. Aside from building an innovative culture, managers can help an organization and its
employees in other areas.
How to choose the right innovation method
 Technological solution:
You are looking for a technological solution to a technical problem, a research question, a production
process or as a basis for a new product. For example, a new surface technology for desk tops is
needed to make them more scratch-resistant and robust.
 Product improvement:
The aim is to improve an existing product from the customer's and user's point of view, for example
by improving the operation of a heating control system.
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 Product innovation:
This is about finding ideas and concepts for new products that are completely new either for the
company or on the market.
 Business model innovation:
The business model innovation is more comprehensive and concerns the customer benefit, the logic
of how to deliver this customer value (added value) and how to generate profits. For example, a
printer manufacturer innovates its business model from sale to rent with full service.
 Service innovation:
Service innovations can relate to services that the company sells directly or additional and improved
services for products and projects. This also includes, for example, the optimization of the customer
process.
 Ideas and Inspiration:
This classification is the general search for ideas and approaches that in turn inspire concrete ideas.
For example, an internally organized ideas competition provides many ideas that often cannot be
implemented directly, but can be the inspiration for further innovation. Among other things, it allows
you to find ideas you wouldn't have been looking for.
Methods to innovate service processes(K8)
1. Optimize Your Mobile Experience
A key part of customer service starts before any of your team members interact with potential
customers. Your company’s website is often the first touchstone off of which their perception of your
business develops.
2. Influence Self-Sufficiency
Most customers want to figure out the answer to their question on their own. Increasingly, millennials
want to avoid speaking on the phone. Make it easier for them to do so. Compile data from all of the
questions and inquiries you’ve received from confused customers in the past, and create a wellorganized and thorough archive of answers to these questions. And making it easily navigable is
key: Organize your answers into overarching topics, and provide a map so that your customers can
find the answer to specific questions.
3. Provide Direct Contact Through Social
Being active and present on social media will help clue your customers into the fact that there’s
actually a human operating your accounts. And, as a result, they’ll be more likely to reach out through
social media with questions, doubts, or thoughts they might have for your business.
4. Streamline Retail Interactions
One way to do that is to invest in a sophisticated point of sale system that requires minimal fuss and
delivers seamless checkout experiences. As an added bonus, a POS system that takes cashless
payment options, like credit cards or digital wallets, will give cashiers and managers more face time
with customers, providing a more human touch.
5. Work Towards Total Transparency
Being transparent with your customers regarding your company’s policies, processes, and mission
may not always occur to you. But transparency is an important operating goal. How did you come
up with your prices, and what’s the cost breakdown of these prices? What do your facilities look like?
And where do you source your ingredients come from? More than ever, consumers like to have a
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full picture of what they’re purchasing. If you’re upfront with them about the nature of your product
or service, they’re more likely to feel good about doing business with you.
6. Set Up Smart Samples and Trials
Offering samples and trials will help you get more customers through your door, and it will also make
these customers happier. Setting up a smart system for samples or trial periods will allow potential
customers to try out your product or service before they fully commit. This way, the customers that
do end up going through with their purchases will know exactly what they’re getting themselves
into—and that means fewer customer service fires to put out.
Plus, a free sample or trial signals that you’re confident your product or service will keep customers
coming back for more.
7. Offer Customer Financing
If you want to make your product more accessible and easier to afford, consider offering customer
financing. By offering this option, you’ll signal to potential customers that you want your product or
service to be easy for them to afford. Plus, many up-and coming-tech startups will offer financing
services to online companies. Afterpay, for instance, allows companies to give customers the option
to pay in multiple monthly payments, rather than one huge sum. If you’re able to set your customers
up with no-interest financing for your business, they’ll be more likely to buy from you.
8. Change the Nature of the Interaction
There is only so much you can do with the practical systems of customer service. At the end of the
day, if you want to “innovate the customer interface,” you need to examine and innovate the nature
of the interactions your reps are having with customers.
9. Provide Access to Real-Time Info
The more up-to-date both sides of the conversation are, the more smoothly the conversation will run.
Many articles on customer service will encourage you to provide real-time info to your customer
service team on the status of a customer’s inquiry. However, we suggest you go beyond these onesided updates. Give your customer real-time info on how their customer service rep is finding the
information or team members necessary to answer their question, or resolve their conflict. These
updates will keep customers calm, even if the question or conflict takes a long time to address.
10. Answer Questions Through Video
Creating video how-to’s isn’t a new customer service idea, but this go-to tactic can be applied in
new, creative ways. Consider integrating video tutorials into your frequently asked questions archive.
If there’s a certain feature or product that customers typically have a hard time understanding, post
a screen recording of a team member demonstrating it, step-by-step. If there’s a particular business
process that confuses or interests customers, post an illustrated video that will help them visualize
it.
11. Ask Your Customer Service Team Members
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, talk to your customer service team members. Because they’re
moving within your customer service systems and processes day in and day out, these team
members will have keen insight to where innovation is most needed. Set up meetings with team
members at every level within your customer service team, and see what’s working and what isn’t.
Note and track patterns—and address them through innovative steps like the ten we highlight above.
12. Innovating Your Customer Service: The Bottom Line
Innovating your customer service processes won’t be an overnight effort. It will take careful planning
and execution. Start small, see what works, and expand accordingly. Most of all, make sure you’re
making your customers happy through all the trial and error. Innovation isn’t always a linear process,
so be sure you’re taking care of your customers
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13. Establish an Online Experience.
If you're still solely operating as a brick-and-mortar business, then the most obvious innovation you
can make is bringing your brand online. That doesn't necessarily mean ecommerce, either. Just
having a presence online makes your company more accessible and helps new customers discover
your business.
14. Offer a Customer Loyalty Program.
An effective way to boost both customer satisfaction and retention rates is to offer a customer
loyalty program. Loyalty programs add value after a purchase is made, keeping your brand relevant
even when the customer doesn't need to buy one of your products.
15. Provide a Customer Success Manager.
A customer success manager (CSM) can significantly influence the customer experience by
removing roadblocks that create friction after a purchase is made. CSMs are assigned to customer
accounts where they monitor activity and look for opportunities to improve the customer's experience.
Part of this involves troubleshooting and answering questions, but most of it is strategizing how the
customer will succeed after they purchase something from the brand.
16. Redesign Your Onboarding.
First impressions can have a big influence on the customer experience, particularly right after a
purchase is made. That's why it's important to offer an onboarding program where you can teach
new customers how to use your product or service. This will ensure new users won't get frustrated
learning your product and won't abandon it because they feel it's too complicated or doesn't fit their
needs.
17. Adopt New Support Channels.
New support channels will always improve the customer experience because it makes your support
team more accessible to your customer base. Speed is crucial when it comes to customer service
and having plenty of channels for people to communicate with you makes it easier for them to obtain
information quickly. And, the better your support is, the better their overall experience will be.
18. Add a Chatbot to Your Website.
If you're currently supporting customers via live chat, a great way to innovate their experience is by
adding a chatbot to your website. Chatbots automate customer support functions saving time for
both the customer and the support agent. Chatbots field basic service inquiries and direct customers
to specialists when their problem is more complicated. This creates a balanced support system that
appeals to both customers who are in a hurry and those who are looking for a more detailed
explanation from your support team.
19. Gamify the Pre- and Post-Purchase Experience.
You can really change up your customer experience by adding gamified elements throughout the
pre- and post-purchase journey. Gamification takes regular — often dull — activities and turns them
into fun, interactive experiences. This keeps customers engaged with your brand even when you're
asking them to complete menial tasks like filling out a survey or paying a bill.
20. Look for Opportunities to Automate.
You can make a big impact on your customer experience just by automating routine functions for
your support team. For example, a ticketing system can automate actions like creating new tickets,
distributing and assigning them to reps, and sending follow-up emails if a ticket isn't responded to.
These little actions add up throughout a support shift, so the more you can automate, the more
efficient your service experience will be.
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21. Be Proactive With Your Customer Service.
When a new problem is discovered, your team gets ahead of the issue and either solves it before it
affects your users or alerts your customers so they can prepare for it ahead of time. This shows
customers that you're constantly thinking about their success and are doing everything you can to
clear roadblocks that would prevent them from achieving their goals.
22. Re-Evaluate Your Mobile Experience.
With so much focus being placed on your stores, website, and social media accounts, it can be easy
to overlook your mobile experience. However, research shows that 57% of people won't recommend
your brand if it has a poor mobile website or app. And, 50% of customers will stop interacting with
your website altogether, even if they like your products and services. This makes mobile just as
important as your desktop or in-store experience, especially as people continue to use smartphones
to access information on the go.
23. Build a Customer-First Culture.
A customer-first strategy is built from the top down. Management has to prioritize customer needs
then communicate those values to the rest of the organization. If everyone at the company is putting
the customer first, then you'll have a culture that revolves around customer success and delight
will become the standard experience at your company — not just the occasional interaction where
a rep goes above and beyond.
24. Listen and Respond to Customer Reviews.
The best innovation is customer-driven. This means that the customer's input is the primary
inspiration for the change that your business is making. We'll talk more about what this means later
in this post, but listening and responding to customer reviews is the first step you can take towards
customer-driven innovation.
25. Prioritize High-Quality Customer Support.
Customer service is a customer acquisition tool — and a dang good one, too. If you provide highquality customer support, people will want to work with your business, even if your products cost a
little more. In fact, 86% of customers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience than
a poor one. This means if your customer support is better than your competition, you'll have another
marketing tool that you can leverage when attracting new leads.
26. Adopt Powerful Customer Service Tools.
As your customer base grows, the demand for your customer service team will increase as well.
While your team may be able to maintain the same quality of service for some time, eventually they'll
struggle to keep up as you continue to acquire more customers. This leaves you with the choice of
either hiring more reps or adopting new technology to give your team a hand.
27. Gather Customer Feedback.
If you want to generate customer-driven innovation, then you'll need to get in touch with your
customers and listen to their ideas. Whether this is through surveys, focus groups, or analyzing
common support cases, you'll need to know how your customers feel about your products and where
they think you can improve. Without collecting and analyzing this input, you'll continue making
changes based on your team's perspective and not off of the recommendations of your customers.
28. Analyze Your Customer Service Data.
Direct customer feedback is great because it highlights a specific issue with your product or service.
However, this data is not the only way to find out how your customers feel about your brand.
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29. Provide an Idea-Submission Process.
An easy approach to encouraging customer-driven innovation is to add an idea-submission feature
to your website. This is a place where customers can voice their opinion on how you can improve
your business and upvote ideas that other customers have submitted. Not every idea will be a gamechanger, but it will show people that you value their input and are looking to improve their experience
based on their suggestions.
30. Add a Community Forum to Your Website.
Community forums are great because they bring customers together and form a digital community
for your brand. For example, HubSpot's community forum is a place where HubSpot customers
can get together and discuss different ways to use the brand's products. They can submit ideas for
new product features and offer workarounds to other customers who may be encountering similar
challenges. Not only does this help customers find solutions to problems, but it also fosters a
community that's loyal to the HubSpot brand.
31. Lead With a Customer-First Strategy.
For a support rep, the customer experience should be their number one priority. After all, it's their
primary responsibility to ensure customers are satisfied with their experience and with the company.
Outside of this, there isn't much more that a support rep has to concern themself with.
---End--https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvhWRu5Dmrg
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