Forrester Consulting's Research

Consumers do, in fact, care about experience. In fact, in many ways the rise of quick-service formats and automated service has actually fuelled a greater desire for good old-fashioned customer service, particularly in face-to-face form.

Through sustaining the customer relationships, leaders of the company have realized that “becoming nearer to the consumer” is vital for the progression.

Marketing research is the method/methods that connect the clients, buyers and users to the marketer through data found from research to find and outline marketing opportunities and dilemmas. The general aim of marketing research is to recognize and evaluate how altering the marketing mix which is comprised of 4 features: product, price, promotion and place, influences customer behaviour.

Independent grocers of Australia (IGA) are Australia 's third-largest supermarket organisation behind Woolworths and Coles and they have more than 1,400 branch retailer around Australia (Speedy 2007). IGA focuses on the service quality differentiation strategy, where even though their pricing is much higher than the other supermarkets their customer service quality is exceptional. They differentiate by providing good services, quality products and customer satisfaction which are becoming important factors for the supermarket to stay in the industry ( ). According to McKinsey( ), seventy percent of a customer’s buying experience is based on how the customer feels they are treated. Today, customers have more choices than ever and are more frugal. In this essay, I will talk about the bad experience I received from Tooradin IGA and the consequences I had to face because of their poor customer service, irresponsibility, lack of communication, high customer effort and false promise (more explicit service). I will argue that how important customers are now for every organisation and give IGA the best solutions and recommendation on they could have dealt with my problem.

The first section is entitled the, “The Challenge—The Complex Sale”. This section gives an overview of what a complex selling environment is, the factors that are causing it to become more complex, uncontrollable external effects, and distinctive talents needed in various selling environments. Page deems

Trader Joe’s has internally created a brand for its company using a different strategy as compared to other supermarkets. Its approach of effective relationship-building program pleases customers through unrivaled customer service. This case study presents many factors that play a part in their customer relations strategy. Trader Joe’s does not focus on advertising. Rather, it focuses on effective internal communications with employees to build strong customer relationships. Trader Joe’s takes a progressive approach to internal communications by allowing their employees to bring their own creativity to the workplace, by providing them with the context in which their role contributes to the business success, and asking for employees

Understanding your customers’ needs and desires, opens new doors to personalizing brand messages and adjusting product

"customer experience is the next competitive battleground. it's where business is going to be won or lost." - Tom Knighton.

Improving customer service, offering them the best selection, quality, and value (Company History, n.d.) is at the core of the business. The company is committed to the customer’s experience and tailors the business “through the eyes of our customers” as “listening to the customer has never been more important” (Annual Reports, 2014). Additionally, the company offers a variety of brands and services to serve

The fact is, marketing is changing, the way people doing business today is different, as the author says, those who don’t change their marketing strategies to meet the need of today’s consumer are not targeting for them at all.

"We want to be the world's most customers Centric Company. . That we focus increasingly on trying to get the customer experience right. Within that we want to build a place where people can come and discover anything they might want to buy online." (Mellahi & Johnson, 2000).

“Becoming customer-centric means looking at an enterprise from the outside-in rather than the inside-out—that is, through the lens of the customer rather than the producer”(Gutali, 2010). By putting the company in the shoes of the customer it helps the company provide personalized experiences that help build customer relationships. Best Buy’s demographic segmentation allowed the company to create multi-dimensional customer profiles that allowed for more precision marketing messages to angel customers, and also help the company deliver context-sensitive customer experiences.

Marketing automation is defined as “ software platforms designed for marketing departments and organizations to automate repetitive tasks.” Marketing automation is a subset of customer relationship management that focuses on scheduling, segmentation and tracking of marketing campaigns. The use of marketing automation is to streamline sales and marketing organizations by replacing high-touch, repetitive manual processes with automated solutions. This makes processes that would have been performed manually much more efficient and makes new processes possible.

Furthermore, to aid this interaction and enable further accessibility for both the business and its customers, retailers should present themselves across several platforms. By interlinking these, one’s brand and its services can be effortlessly identified and accessed by current and new customers who may have a preference of platform. This therefore assists them in becoming aware of the brand and engaging with them (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis, 2014).

Today, the advancement in technology in the form of artificial intelligence, robots and various service platforms is creeping into many work places to keep up with the speed of business. Market research industry is also seeing automation as the future for market research. It is moving from rare discussion to actionable platform.Ambiguity around market research automation is opening doors to more researches and providing evidence-based solutions at all levels. Automation broadens the research and enables the brand positioning in competitive and challenging market place. The rate at which it is evolving makes it clear that automation is already firmly and steadily creeping in our day to day