|
|
|
|
|
|
SEVEN WONDERS OF EMOTIONAL MARKETING Dr Shahid Khan, CHA
Business studies curriculum is incomplete without the subject of marketing. Entrepreneurs believe THAT marketing IS THE blood stream Of life. The question then arises, what is the significance given to marketing and how do small business owners really allocate the financial resources on marketing monthly and annually? I am not talking about corporate operations or big businesses. My concern is with independent small business operators in the hospitality and tourism industry. The term marketing is derived from the word - Market (a place where things are bought and sold) and the word marketing thus meaning the facilitation of those needs by offering goods/services for sale. The reason I am putting the definition down is to create a better understanding of the subject. Many of us may have encountered terms like “hardcore marketing” , “gorilla marketing strategies”, and “soft marketing“, or other marketing approaches. Enough of these theoretical semantics and lets move on to the real “meat and potatoes“. Let me begin this dialogue with a simple question; how many entrepreneurs do believe that their customer is always right? Almost everyone says yes, the customer is always right, but do they really mean it. And, how many really go extra mile to satisfy the customer. A recent customer satisfaction study conducted by a major university reveals that 95% unhappy customers never complain and show their disapproval by never come back. Only 5% of the dissatisfied customers complain and we don’t like them most of the time. In fact, if we listen to them and resolve their complains right away they keeping coming back and bringing others along as well. Of course, these customers are good people and they are doing us a favor by pointing out lapses and areas of improvements in our business and we should strive to keep them happy. This issue, in fact, has been on my mind for a long time and I would like to air it out by discussing it further in this essay. So let me first let introduce the term ‘emotional marketing’, which is germane to our discussion and understanding of this topic. On any given day, a business may cater to several new customers; some of whom may be very happy, some may have no complains, others certainly have some complains and are not happy and some very unhappy. No business operator or manager likes to hear from the disgruntled customer. But this happens everyday and one has no choice but to deal with them in trying to resolve the situation and putting the SMILE back on their face. This approach is very critical if you want them to come back . Return customers cost you nothing, but brings you more business, for a simple reason that you have satisfied their emotional needs. In trying to address their problem and resolve the issue you have indeed acknowledged their emotional need and have perhaps, satisfied it to the best possible degree. Those who put reasonable amount of money in marketing and advertising know very well that, the money spent in marketing and advertising only creates two to five percent of new customers. This is an expensive but worthy bet and how you retain these new customers as repeat customer is certainly a bigger question. We are all customers and we all expect the best service when we go shopping, dine out, stay in a hotel or motel, travel in bus, train, air or cruise. Similarly when our customers walk into our businesses you can imagine what are their expectations might be. Customers experience service even before seeing or consuming the product. Service plays an important role in product attribution. This service does not necessarily have to be of the extra-ordinary, elegant or par-excellence kind. Good service is almost intangible or you can say seamless; if things go as per expectations and you have done what you are supposed to do in the first place, the customer is a happy client. It is only when the service falls outside the limits of the customer’s expectations that it is deemed unsatisfactory.
Customer satisfaction ! Customer satisfaction ! Customer satisfaction !
Alas, for every satisfied experience there is also the jarring cry of disgruntlement. But these cries could very well have been the joyous WOW’s. How is this possible ? How difficult it it to win the customer’s hearts? Is this a difficult proposition? The answer is not so simple as a YES or a NO. The key lies in understanding human nature and human behavior. Humans are emotional beings who contain elements of deep and significant emotions that are soft in nature. What makes us cry or smile are -- EMOTIONS. The key to capitalizing customer satisfaction therefore is to attend to their emotions. Can we do that? Yes we can. How? By paying attention to the Seven Emotional Marketing Wonders ( EMW )
Now , I would like to touch upon the secret of customer satisfaction. I am sure some of you in a successful business for a long time can easily answer my question, but there are others of us who are still debating… The answer is : Well trained and motivated employees - those we deem as good employees. Not finding good employees has always been a cry form managers and owners. Is this true? Or just standard complain, when business are not doing well. Just look at the big picture of multi-national organizations. Their employees number in the hundreds and thousands and come from a wide sphere of fields and arenas constituting numerous nationalities and cultures and coming together in a orchestrated harmony to deliver their symphony. How is this done, how is this accomplished, how do these multinational corporations find these good employees and multiply in many folds? After all these big corporations hire employees from the same market pool wherefrom small business owners hire their employees. The answer is very simple, they strongly believe in training and INVEST in it. Whereas small businesses owner, consider it an expendable cost and hardly invest any amount in employee training. The only answer to customer satisfaction and better business performance is training. Training employee about products, increasing their product/service knowledge or training employees about customer-care are two different things. Providing product knowledge is very basic and easy, giving training on how to deal with customers requires a different mind set and is critically important. Some employees naturally do well in dealing with customers and don’t require any training, yet with many others you really have to bang your head. Almost every manager and business owner has the product knowledge and they can easily transfer such to the employees, but how to transfer the knowledge in utilizing customers’ emotion to the mutual benefit of business and customers. Here, the small business owner needs to accept professional help in proper training and development of the employees in customer. There aren’t many experts and consultant on this subject, but still you can find someone who has had the training and expertise to train others in this subtle art and science around your area. I strongly recommend small business owner to do a little investment in employee training in the customer relation and client service arena. Repeat business is strongly influenced by employee attribute rather than the product itself. Remember that customers have choices too, they can go anywhere and find similar products and similar value elsewhere. But certainly can not get the same treatment and care which your business provides through your well trained employee. This is your edge over your competitor. Does emotions play a role in customer’s buying behavior? Nobody can argue that it cannot. Customers are biased when making buying decision and the basis for this bias is emotional rather than rational. We are all impulsive, so as customers ... THINK. |
|
Send mail to
fortune55@sympatico.ca with
questions or comments about this web site.
|
![[Company Logo Image]](images/logo.gif){kind=logo}
