It is arguable that since the popularity of businesses, a majority of companies mainly operated by valuing the seller, in which they managed their products and services, marketing and customer satisfaction. However, the modern business world is now characterized by advanced technology and other relevant channels that have shifted concentration from business to customers, now referred to as customer centricity. It is a strategy that companies need to adopt in every framework of the organization, especially in marketing to become competitive in the business world. Customer centric means having companies concentrating on the needs and expectations of customers at every point with the target market (Aguinis et al., 2010). A majority of companies have not been able to attain full customer centricity due to particular reasons thereby making this concept a marketing challenge.
The marketing facade is a confirmed customer segmentation approach that a majority of companies depend on to understand the people they serve. When different companies do this, they can gather reliable data from the customers and about the customers. Qualitative research is often the comprehension of the motivation behind achieving something. While looking at it from a marketing point of view, it evaluates the behavior and the trends in customer service and satisfaction.
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Marketing research is the most common tool used to comprehend the consumer needs and create better approaches to meet the desired outcomes efficiently and effectively. It is a very significant tool for companies to identify and exploit business opportunities. Without engagement in constant market research, it will be difficult for organizations to recognize different business aspects such as customers, market opportunities, and strengths and weaknesses. In most cases, lacking a comprehensive market research in any business has been equated to driving downhill with a blindfold. According to Abramovich (2015), market research enhances a company’s power to make product choices, assess the trends in marketing, follow-up customer behavior, and satisfy the stakeholders.
Whenever a market research is conducted, the information or data received will revolve around the company, customers, and the public. According to the American Marketing Association Board of Directors (Shah et al., 2006), the information retrieved from marketing research recognize and outline the marketing opportunities and issues, assess marketing actions and performance, and enhance the whole process of marketing. Over the years, a majority of organizations have dwelled on making the right decisions to promote their market shares. Making good decisions often depend on reliable data.
On the other hand, marketing is based on business ethics. When it comes to ethical marketing, it is perceived as a philosophy that defines all the efforts of marketing. The aims of incorporating ethics into marketing and psychology are to enhance honesty, fairness, and responsibility in this field of business. In the past and current times, the understanding of ethics has been controversial because of the subjective nature of judgment each has on what is right and what is wrong (Murphy, 2010). More often than not, organizations that engage in ethical marketing and advertising tend to regain their customer base. Let us take the example of a company that produces diet pills that are less efficient but engages in too much exaggeration and manipulative claims to attract customers struggling with their weight. If such enterprises aim to maintain a long term customer base and centricity, then their chances of failing are high because of their unethical behavior of deceiving customers. Some of the examples of unethical advertising include surrogate advertising, exaggeration, false brand comparisons, unverified facts, puffery, and stereotyping (Waisberg & Kaushik, 2009). A majority of customer researches have shown that no customer wants to feel or be manipulated. From a psychological perspective, trust is an important aspect of building healthy and sustainable relationships. Human beings are often attracted to situations or things that promote a higher sense of confidence. Therefore, it will be a good strategy for companies to engage in ethical marketing to expand their customer base. If product or service matches the brand of the company positively, the consumers will feel appreciated because of the value and the products they receive. Simply, ethics play a very significant role in qualitative and quantitative marketing research.
Keeping up with the age of the customer or customer centricity is a crucial aspect in the social and the global context of the business world (Abramovic, 2015). Currently, customer centricity is no longer a new concept for a majority of companies. Even though a majority of organizations value the strategies of customer services, their implementation and execution are still average. Therefore, they are still unable to challenge the competitive advantage of others. Besides, these organizations are unable to deliver effectively as per their vision. Customers are often the determinants of a successful business. An organization business that can easily to adjust to the customers’ demands and meet them effectively are highly likely to maintain their customers. Besides, they will experience an improved competitive advantage.
Moreover, customer centricity requires integration across different traditional departments. It is important to note that the inclusion of quantitative research is crucial towards customer satisfactions. More often, this part of the investigation depends on numbs to quantify opinions and attitudes, which can later be generalized to a larger sample size. Some of the methods that can be used to improve customer centricity and “keep up with their age” include surveying, conducting polls, and telephone interviews. For instance, telephone interviews can be used to discover changes or shifts in customer preferences.
The use of customer-centric approaches can be seen in particular European banks which value the satisfaction of their customers. The Deutsche Bank (DB) based its customer centricity on four pillars, which included needs, commitment, value, and trust. Fair pricing and consumer-oriented brand attributes have been some of the factors promoting centricity in these European Banks (Eriņš & Eriņa, 2013).). The type of sources used in the research both cover qualitative and quantitative research. Besides, most of them are journal articles of marketing, which is highly relevant to the paper.
In conclusion, companies should start going beyond numbers especially when they are trying to build an effective and efficient customer centricity. In the modern world, the customer, the customer will always determine the course that a business will take. Conducting a qualitative market research is often the first step to overcoming this challenge, which is faced by a majority of organizations who do not even realize it. For the past years, many companies have focused so much on quantitative research when dealing with customer service and satisfaction problems. However, the leading source of research that should be mainly used is qualitative data. For instance, it is widely known that human behaviours are prone to constant changes. Therefore, instead of marketers focusing on the number of consumers dropping from buying a product, they should concentrate on why and improve the “why.” When companies gather the qualitative data they have gathered, they will be able to get deeper insights into the different motivations of consumers and the strategies that can be employed to maintain customer centricity.
References
Abramovich, G. (2015). The ‘Age Of The Customer’ Is Here. What Are You Doing About It? CMO.com. Retrieved on 3 May 2017 from http://www.cmo.com/features/articles/2015/4/21/a-road-map-to-true-customercentric- thinking-and-strategy.html#gs.Tnq1WfU
Aguinis, H., Werner, S., Lanza Abbott, J., Angert, C., Park, J. H., & Kohlhausen, D. (2010). Customer-centric Science: Reporting significant research results with rigor, relevance, and practical impact in mind. Organizational Research Methods, 13(3), 515-539.
Eriņš, I., & Eriņa, J. (2013). Development of Customer–Centric Banking: Case from Latvia. Publication. Edition Name, 13-18.
Murphy, P. E. (2010). Marketing, Ethics of. Wiley Encyclopedia of Management.
Shah, D., Rust, R. T., Parasuraman, A., Staelin, R., & Day, G. S. (2006). The path to customer centricity. Journal of service research, 9(2), 113-124.
Waisberg, D., & Kaushik, A. (2009). Web Analytics 2.0: empowering customer centricity. The original Search Engine Marketing Journal, 2(1), 5-11.
