1st Answer

Introduction: In all businesses, customer is that the king as you can't survive within
the market without good customer base.
Concept: A customer community is defined as places or platforms for patrons ,
experts, partners, et al. to debate a product, marketplace, post reviews, brainstorm
new product ideas and have interaction with each other a few company’s
products/services/brands. Online customer communities are platforms for similar
activities. They need gathered steam in recent years, majorly due to the boom within
the social media platform, evolution of smartphones and therefore the cheap and
straightforward availability of the web. These technologies have facilitated
communication-making interaction smooth and straightforward. This is often the age
of consumers. This has been a crucial think about fuelling customer community, who
has gained powerful dynamics with businesses and makes. Consumers have a
greater say choose the worth of the merchandise and negotiations in terms of deals
that want to strike.
Though they're not official but solving your purpose so company should take the
advantage of those groups.
Unofficial customer communities are more of an emergent phenomenon,
created and run by consumers without supervision or help from the brand. I
don’t think a brand should challenge the unofficial customer communities
because of certain advantages of having an unofficial customer community.
Creates community – An unofficial customer community might be the quickest way
that spreads positive word of mouth for your brand. Customers network and help one
another. This can increase the perceived value of your product/service.
You get ideas – A natural trait of a group of customers is to share ideas/experience
of the product and service. As a business owner you can see exactly how people are
using your product to get genuine ideas and authentic feedback on how to modify or
improve your offerings.
Social proof – If someone is trying to decide whether or not to invest in your product
and they stumble across a community that speaks about your product/brand, then
they may be persuaded by that alone to join.
Makes you more accessible: People do business with people and having an
unofficial customer group makes you and your products more relate-able.
Examples of unofficial customer communities:
The Porsche Club of America: It is a private club made up of Porsche owners and
enthusiasts. The Porsche owners’ brand community is well structured with clubs
organized in geographic regions across the United States and Canada. Many
regional clubs maintain separate web sites. Club meetings, dinners and social
events are held, along with driving instruction and track events. Some sponsorship
from local dealers is available for specific functions. Regular contact with Porsche
management is maintained although there is no formal affiliation with the company.
Sheetz: An individual customer named Andy Peck, created the Instagram
account Mozzaratings. The account features ratings of music, movies and more. But
instead of the traditional star rating system, Peck uses mozzarella sticks
from Sheetz, a chain of convenience stores based mainly in the Northeast, to
indicate his rating.

Peck posts a photo that shows a movie or album cover at the top and a collection of
Sheetz mozzarella sticks at the bottom. It’s an out-of-six rating. So if you see six
mozzarella sticks at the bottom of a photo, you know that the movie or album
in question has garnered the highest in Mozzaratings praise.

Conclusion: Unofficial customer community/brand endorsements come in different

forms. Sometimes brands can carefully craft a strategy to entice customers
to promote their business in very specific ways. But sometimes customers come up
with their own unique ways to promote the brand. Also, unique ideas have the
potential to go viral. And since it’s not a fabricated marketing effort by the brand,
people could be more likely to pay attention and maybe see this as a really authentic
endorsement of the brand and product as the idea comes from a group of
customers.
2nd Answer

Introduction: Organisations exist because of customers. No customer means, no

business. Organisations’ survival depends on how they meet the needs and wants of
the customers and provide them with maximum benefits. Failure to do so will result
in a failed business strategy. Learning from segmentation is based on the fact that
customers do vary and it is possible to group them or classify them on the major
dimensions and develop differentiated product offers for each of the segments than
trying to sell a product to anybody in the market.

Concept: Customer profiling is the process to learn about customer’s characteristics

including demographic (age, gender, life stage), geographic (location), and
psychographic characteristics (influencers, interests, lifestyle), as well as past buying
behaviour to understand who they are and what motivates them. Similar types of
customers, those with shared traits, goals and motivations can then be grouped and
targeted based on who they are and what they are interested in.

Criteria to develop the customer profile

Age, Gender and marital status: All these factors matters a lot when it comes to
customer profile. We all buy items as per our requirements and requirements change
as per our age, gender and marital status so while doing customer profiling, it is
important to keep in mind all these points.

Income level: Customer profiling is also done on the basis of the income level of the
customer. Companies definitely want to keep in touch with the customers who earn
more and buy more.

Location: It is also matters where customer lives and according to that profiling will
be done. By location, it is easy to find where revenue is more and where more
number of people are interested in your products.

Household size and family type: It is also important to take care about the
household size as that may affect the buying decisions. Single person may not think
much before buying whereas, people who live in joint families will take time before
buying anything as they all will discuss about the purchase first and then proceed
further.

Culture: There are so many different cultures present in our country and it also
impact the buying behavior of the customers.

Psychographics: Describe your target customer in terms of psychographics, a

social research term that refers to someone’s personality, interests, lifestyle and
values. Think in terms of your customer’s hobbies and favorite sports, what type of
restaurants she enjoys, what she most likes to do in her free time and if she likes to
travel, cook and work out.

Behaviour: You may also focus on the behaviour of the customers, particularly in
terms of choosing products and services. Think in terms of how convenience,
customer service, price and promotions might motivate him/her.
Attitude: You should also observe the attitude of your potential customers. Think in
terms of how he/she thinks and feels about products and services, balancing her
emotions with him/her rational thought process.

Choices and preferences: It is wise to know the choices and preferences of your
customers so that you can serve them better.

Buying patterns: Buying pattern is also a considerable factor in this regard. It tells
you how frequent customers go for shopping or buy something online.

No business can survive without taking care of the customers. If you are running any
business, you have to take care the need and choices of your customers and to do
that you should have the complete data of your customers. To understand your
customers better, you have to get greater insight into how they actually behave.
Demographics allows you to provide highly targeted marketing efforts to your
customers for things that are relevant and they are interested in.

You do not have to just collect the data but that needs to be updated regularly else it
will lose its value. For example, should a customer who had indicated his or her
desire to no longer receive commercial messages from the supplier five years ago
still receive no e-mails? Is someone who has not made any purchases for 13 months
still to be considered a customer? There is only one answer to all these questions
that you have to update the data regularly and observe how customers are reacting,
how long they are with you, how satisfied they are with your products, what is the
success rate of acquiring the customers, how loyal they are towards your company
etc.

Data collection- Sources

Internal: Customer relationship management system (CRM) is the need of the hour
and it is being used by many small and big companies these days. Using this
software, they can easily track the behavior of the customers and resolve their
queries and ultimately making them happy. Companies that have developed a
complete and extensive CRM system are usually able
to draw from a variety of sources in order to supplement customer profiles in a so-
called marketing data warehouse. Sales staff will also have to work regularly with the
company’s own sales information system. Data will be able to be retrieved from
these files and processed for recording in a marketing data warehouse. Internally
collected data is more important than any externally collected data. For example,
using CRM software you can easily track down the buying pattern and other relevant
details of your customers and accordingly provide them good service.

External: There are many companies operational in the market who will assist you to
provide detailed customer data and you can draft your marketing strategy
accordingly. It seems easy that you will have readymade customer data but still
internal data is more reliable as company collects it after studying everything about
their past and present customers. It is worth mentioning that the data from these
external databases may also be used in the acquisition of new customers. If the
profile for the current customer database is determined on the basis of the external
data, then a search may be performed within that database for so-called lookalikes.
These are people or organisations that possess the same characteristics, appear in
the third party’s database, yet are not current customers. Based on their profile, an
above-average chance of response to acquisition efforts may be expected. For
example, BAC company is launching new product in the market but before that it
wants to know the customers’ choices and preferences so that it can plan its
marketing strategy to acquire customers. External data collection will help in this
matter.
3rd Answer

(3a)
Introduction:  One among the foremost difficult things to urge from customers is
trust. Not only is it hard to get, it's equally difficult to sustain. Traditionally, all it
entailed was the practice of going to know the preferences of consumers. However,
this wasn't without the notice of increased competition and demands. It's now
become important to initiate new programs and methodologies so as to forge better
one-on-one ties with customers.

Concept: Relationship may be a process which incorporates various

phases like exploratory, growth, saturation and decline. During the exploratory
phase, the customer sees the guarantees made during communication fulfilled
for the primary time. The primary introduction makes a crucial impression on the
connection. The extent of satisfaction during the exploratory phase remains relatively
low; the purchasers have little to no experience with the products and services of the
supplier. The appeal of the supplier depends on the experiences that customers
have with alternative suppliers and therefore the differences between the
choice suppliers. The switching costs are still quite low at this stage. The
expansion phase (three months to 2 years) is characterised by a pointy rise within
the number of purchases. Customers would really like to urge to understand the
supplier’s products and services. The benefits of the supplier’s offering are now
discovered. The satisfaction with the products and services increases. The supplier
is now examined more for its performance than for its reputation or image. The
saturation phase (usually after quite two years) is characterised by the very
best number of purchases from suppliers and therefore the highest degree of
commitment.

Not many changes are occurring in either behaviour or purchases at this stage. The
connection has taken shape. During this phase, the supplier’s ideal customers are
discovered. Satisfaction increases altogether respects in comparison with the
expansion phase. Trust grows. During the last two or more years, goodwill has been
built up. The appeal of the connection improves during this phase also, and therefore
the switching costs increase slightly now that the customer has become familiar
with the supplier’s methods and offering. The decline phase begins as soon because
the number of transactions starts to drop. Customers may enter the decline phase at
any time: after the exploratory, growth or saturation phase.

Conclusion: In the given case, European client is one among the foremost loyal

clients of the corporate and their contract is due for renewal soon. The
connection between company and therefore the client may fall into saturation phase
as client is loyal towards the corporate and provides regular business. Though they
need service issues but company is informed that and it's clear that they decide
to continue the connection. Switching cost is high during this phase so European
client may continue and renew the contract.
(3b)

Introduction: The emerging relationship between buyer and seller is first and
foremost supported trust which may be a belief that a celebration is reliable and
can fulfil its obligations in an exchange of an extended term affiliation. Trust may be
a crucial function during a relationship which allows tensions to be figured out.
Relationship marketing emphasizes the producer’s perspective on a relationship,
but is often argued that with more knowledge and confidence consumers are
increasingly happy to venture outside an extended term relationship with a service
provider.

Concept: Trust is, altogether likelihood, also a multidimensional concept; evidence

that it's a 1 dimensional idea is sort of scarce. It might even be incorrect to
mention that suspicion is that the opposite of trust.

Trust in somebody else generally results in overcoming feelings of insecurity and

doubt. People dare to require more risks; for instance, one is ready to take a
position more during a relationship. People trust that within the event of problems,
the customer will discuss this with the supplier, in order that an answer could also
be found during a constructive manner. Trust also results in goodwill which causes
people to act during a more tolerant manner if a transaction doesn't live up to their
expectations. Trust makes it possible for a better level of commitment to be
attained during a relationship.

Personal commitment is that the one which is felt both internally and originates
from a private choice. The selection could also be seen as an attitude which
someone has with reference to the connection and/or the partner. The influence of
the continuation of the connection on a person’s self-image also influences personal
commitment. Commitment won't need to be determined for less than one among the
2 parties within the relationship, or during this case, the customer. Commitment on
the part of the opposite party, the supplier, also deserves attention. For instance, a
business might follow up after a sale to make sure a customer was satisfied together
with her experience. If not, the business might refund the customer or offer a
reduction on her next purchase. Further, the business could incorporate the
feedback to make sure that other customers don’t have an equivalent bad
experience. In other words, through a series of relationship-building activities, the
business shows its commitment to the customer.

Conclusion: To maintain trust and commitment during an account, continuous

effort is required and you've got to supply good service consistently. You ought
to get the feedback from the purchasers and make changes in your service if
required. You ought to always keep your customers’ concern in priority and that
they all should be valued. Your business receives customer loyalty reciprocally,
which is effective, because you won’t need to waste resources acquiring new
customers. In other words, investing money in excellent customer service actually
can prevent money, because you won’t need to invest in, for instance, numerous
marketing campaigns to get new customers.