Identifying Information you Need table.

INFORMATION SOURCE	FACTORS TO CONSIDER
Company Resources: Invoices, dispatch notes, mailing lists and sales statistics.	This can give valuable marketing intelligence such as date of last and size of purchase and geographic location of customers
Customer Interaction: face to face surveys and focus groups.	Elicit quality information about customers’ motivation and explain that their insights will help to develop products to meet their needs
Customers Feedback: comment cards and feedback via your web site.	Create many channels for customers to give you their views, ask what they think about your products, but seek only relevant data
Statutory Bodies: Regulatory bodies holding company data performance and finances.	Use these to build company profile of your typical customer base on factors such as size of turnover and to target similar companies.

Tips for Collecting Relevant Information.

1 Collect information on an on-going basis by asking new customers a few marketing questions.

2 Avoid gathering facts that are not relevant and look only for what you can use for marketing.

3 Turn low-value customers to high-value regular customers using segmentation.

4 Identify your principal segments and target and then market your products accordingly.

Understanding Customer Buying

If you can find out the key to why customers buy something, you have opened the secret of how to sell to them. AIDA or the process follows Recognition of the need to buy; Appraisal of what is available to satisfy the need; Negotiating for the product or service; Buying the product of service; Recommending it to others.

Use surveys to find out Why Customers choose to buy goods or services from you.

The reason could be: Quick free delivery; Competitive price; Excellent after service support; easy payment terms or friendly staff.

Self-completion questionnaires are an excellent way of reaching customers quickly and cheaply. Set a deadline to encourage the return of mailed questionnaires.

Making the Most of Surveys Techniques to Collect Relevant Information.

TYPE OF TECHNIQUE	USING THE TECHNIQUE EFFECTIVELY
Mailed questionnaires are an excellent way of reaching a large number of geographically spread customers quickly and cheaply.	Enclose stamped addressed envelops and follow up, and make sure questionnaires have and attractive layout and easy to complete.
One-To-One Interviews is seen as the bets type of survey and tends to get the best response rate.	Carefully choose where interviews will take place, home, shop, street, hotel etc and reporting is important to ensure the purpose and value of the survey.
Customer Panel comprising of a customer group with a strong interest in your organisation or products.	Use customer groups to sound out new ideas and as a valuable feedback source and ensure that they are objective.
Focus Group a small discussion group aiming to uncover attitudes, motives and qualitative insights.	Ensure that members are representative of your customers, and these groups should be less rigid than questionnaires.

Building and Maintaining Customer Relationships. 296

Selling to existing customers is easier and cheaper than finding new ones. You should nurture customer loyalty by through good service and quality products backed up by a strong lasting mutually rewarding Relationship. Remember that customers are your work and not a problem, without them you have no business and older customers are more valuable than new ones.

Questions to Ask Yourself Regarding Customer Service.

1 Do we always answer mail and telephones promptly and courteously?

2 Are our staff smart, helpful, friendly and knowledgeable about our products and policy?

3 Are our premises clean and comfortable for our customers and will they come back?

4 Do we provide good after sales-service?

5 Could we do more to eliminate errors, how many compliments or complaints do we get?

Sequence for Monitoring Quality of Service.

a) Review all aspects of your working practices.

b) Set measurable standards so that quality is not left to chance.

c) Make sure that staff are trained not only to meet but to exceed standards.

d) If necessary issue staff with a customer service manual.

e) Measure performance to check that quality is being attained.

f) Regularly review standards to keep improving customer care

Building Strong Products. 302

Products generally have some kind of life cycle after which they become old and die while others need to be recycled to remain fresh. You should change, enhance, repackage rebrand, upgrade, and remodel your products to ensure they appeal to today’s market. Only strong products can have a longer life and reduce the number of times you need to develop and introduce new products.

Keep your products fresh by introducing new variants, limited editions, add-ons special recipes and improved versions, but avoid creating new products at the expense of existing ones.

Differentiating Your Products is Major Challenge in Marketing.

Very few products are unique in the market and the major challenge is often to find what makes your products different from your competitors’ similar products. A genuine customer-centric approach will differentiate you from competitors because you give customers coffee while they wait or because customers prefer your packaging. Customer-care plays a significant role in differentiating products. Remember, creative thinking is free, but can bring significant results.

Ask yourself the Following Questions about Differentiating Products.

1 Why should customers prefer to buy from us rather than from our competitors?

2 What makes us different from our competitors? Or are we different from our competitors?

3 How are we better than our rivals? Or are we better than our rivals?

4 What strengths do we have that we can effectively capitalize on against competitors?

5 What added-value do we give to our customers, such as free same day delivery, free trial etc?

6 Do we have a (USP) unique selling point or can we develop to attract new customers?

7 Do I sell products endorsed by professionals e.g. football boots endorsed by David Beckam?

8 Do my products have feature-benefits that will influence customers to buy them?