Aemilianum College Inc.

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, COMPUTER SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND LIBERAL

ARTS
Rizal St. Piot, West District, Sorsogon City
Sorsogon, Philippines 4700
Contact No. (056) 211 – 6012
Email Address: [email protected]
www.aemilianum.edu.ph

Technopreneurship

Customer
Customers play the most significant part in business. In fact the customer is the actual boss in a
deal and is responsible for the actually profit for the organization. Customer is the one who uses
the products and services and judges the quality of those products and services. Hence it's
important for an organization to retain customers or make new customers and flourish business.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
 Customers are the individuals and businesses that purchase goods and services from
another business.
 To understand how to better meet the needs of its customers, some businesses closely
monitor their customer relationships to identify ways to improve service and products.
 The way businesses treat their customers can give them a competitive edge.
 Although consumers can be customers, consumers are defined as those who consume or
use market goods and services.

Understanding Customers
Businesses often honor the adage "the customer is always right" because happy customers are
more likely to award repeat business to companies who meet or exceed their needs. As a result,
many companies closely monitor their customer relationships to solicit feedback on methods to
improve product lines. Customers are categorized in many ways. Most commonly, customers are
classified as external or internal.
External customers are dissociated from business operations and are often the parties interested
in purchasing the final goods and services produced by a company. Internal customers are
individuals or businesses integrated into business operations, often existing as employees or
other functional groups within the company.

Studying Customers
Businesses frequently study their customers' profiles to fine-tune their marketing approaches and
tailor their inventory to attract the most customers. Customers are often grouped according to
their demographics, such as age, race, gender, ethnicity, income level, and geographic location.
which all may help businesses cultivate a snapshot of the "ideal customer" or "customer
persona." This information helps companies deepen existing customer relationships and reach
untapped consumer populations to increase traffic.
Customers are so important that colleges and universities offer consumer behavior courses
dedicated to studying their behavioral patterns, choices, and idiosyncrasies. They focus on why
people buy and use goods and services and how it impacts companies and economies.
Understanding customers enables businesses to create effective marketing and advertising
campaigns, deliver products and services that address needs and wants, and retain customers for
repeat business.

Types of Customer

Loyal Customers
These types of customers are less in numbers but promote more sales and profit as compared to
other customers as these are the ones which are completely satisfied. These customers revisit the
organization over times hence it is crucial to interact and keep in touch with them on a regular
basis and invest much time and effort with them. Loyal customers want individual attention and
that demands polite and respectful responses from supplier.
Discount Customers
Discount customers are also frequent visitors but they are only a part of business when offered
with discounts on regular products and brands or they buy only low cost products. More is the
discount the more they tend towards buying. These customers are mostly related to small
industries or the industries that focus on low or marginal investments on products. Focus on
these types of customers is also important as they also promote distinguished part of profit into
business.
Impulsive Customers
These customers are difficult to convince as they want to do the business in urge or caprice. They
don't have any specific item into their product list but urge to buy what they find good and
productive at that point of time. Handling these customers is a challenge as they are not
particularly looking for a product and want the supplier to display all the useful products they
have in their tally in front of them so that they can buy what they like from that display. If
impulsive customers are treated accordingly then there is high probability that these customers
could be a responsible for high
Need Based Customers
These customers are product specific and only tend to buy items only to which they are habitual
or have a specific need for them. These are frequent customers but do not become a part of
buying most of the times so it is difficult to satisfy them. These customers should be handled
positively by showing them ways and reasons to switch to other similar products and brands and
initiating them to buy these. These customers could possibly be lost if not tackled efficiently with
positive interaction.
Wandering Customers
These are the least profitable customers as sometimes they themselves are not sure what to buy.
These customers are normally new in industry and most of the times visit suppliers only for
confirming their needs on products. They investigate features of most prominent products in the
market but do not buy any of those or show least interest in buying. To grab such customers they
should be properly informed about the various positive features of the products so that they
develop a sense of interest.
CUSTOMER NEEDS
Customer needs are the named and unnamed needs your customer has when they come in contact
with your business, your competitors, or when they search for the solutions you provide.
Methods to Identify Customer Needs:
 Focus Groups
 Social Listening
 Keyword Research
FOCUS GROUPS
Focus groups are a market research technique in which you collectively interview a small group
of people who represent your target audience. 6 to 10 members only
SOCIAL LISTENING
Social media listening is the process of tracking and analyzing what is being said about your
company or industry on social channels.
KEYWORD RESEARCH
Keyword research can also give you valuable insight into what your customer needs from you,
your business and your product. If you know how your customers are searching online and more
importantly how they are searching for your company and industry, you can determine what
they're looking for.
TYPES OF CUSTOMER NEEDS
Price is how much a business charges for its product or service. Customers want a fair price
when purchasing a product or service. Usually, low prices will draw in many customers,
although people ultimately want value for money. It is important for a price to match the quality
of the product or service that the business is selling.
Quality relates to the standard of the product or service being offered. Customers always expect
some level of quality, no matter how much they pay for a product or service. Generally, those
paying a low price will expect a lower level of quality and those paying a higher price will
expect a higher level of quality.
Choice is very important many businesses have a range of products and/ or services available to
suit different groups of customers. Customers have different needs and desires when buying
items. They might want different styles or sizes, or even completely different products
altogether.
Customers and consumers
want convenience and are often willing to pay more for it. Convenience relates to something
being easier, quicker or generally less hassle for customers.
Voice of the Customer
Voice of the Customer (VoC) is a research method that's used by businesses to describe the
needs and requirements of their customers. This process captures everything that customers are
saying about a business, product, or service and packages those ideas into an overall perspective
of the brand. Companies use VoC to visualize the gap between customer expectations and their
actual experience with the business.
VOC
VOC (Voice of the customer) describes the wants and expectations of your customer base The
VOC should be considered at every stage of a given process
How To Apply
 Find out what your customers want. do not tell them
 Survey's, focus groups, etc.
 You only need to meet their requirements
Quick Example
Manufacturing (Pencil factory)
 How dark is the charcoal
 Mechanical vs, non-mechanical
Services (Contact Centre)
  Can this be done online
 What language can be spoken

Methodology
The voice of the customer methodology is the approach that businesses use to understand their
customers' needs and expectations. This method can be executed through a variety of different
techniques, all of which are aimed at extracting vital information from customers. Companies
often use a few different techniques together to ensure they're getting the most that they can from
their research.

Six Sigma - Voice of AICP (Associate, Customer, Investor and Process)

Distinct Categories of VOC: At an organization level we broadly classify VOC into four distinct categories
(AICP):

• Voice of Associate: The feedback that we get from our Employees

• Voice of Investor: The feedback that we get from our Management and Shareholders

• Voice of Customer: The feedback that we get from our Clients and End-customers

• Voice of Process: The feedback that we get from measuring our CTPs (Critical To Process) and CTQs
(Critical To Quality)

Voice of Customer (VOC) Methods:

Surveys: Surveys are a designed set of questionnaire which is sent out to potential or existing
customers. Surveys are cost effective, however, have very rate.
Interviews: Interviews are individual meetings with potential or existing customers where a set
of questions are asked and answers are discussed to understand customer voices. Interviews can
tackle Complex Issues, however, requires Trained Resources.
Focus Group: A group of people are called together in one conference room and a discussion is
held on specific topics that need to be addressed. These focus groups are excellent for identifying
the CTQ (Critical to Quality), however, are difficult to generalize.
Suggestions: Client/Customer/Employee feedback is received and treated as suggestion to
improve product or service. Suggestions provide good improvement opportunities, however,
does not look at overall process.
Observations: During the course of the process, individuals can have observations and can
provide feedback to the process which does act as a Voice of Customer.
sample of Voice of Customer that is translated into Requirement
How it impacts your business
 According to the research by the Aberdeen Group, best-in-class VoC users enjoy an
almost 10x greater increase year-over-year in annual company revenue. This is because
by capturing VoC, you can connect and engage with customers at every touchpoint in the
customer journey. This technique helps you:
 Spot early warning and potential brand crisis
 Evaluate new concepts, ideas, and solutions
 Customize your products, services, add-ons, and features to meet the needs and wants of
your customers
 Increase customer retention
 Serve your customers with what they really need

Building a Successful VoC program

 Before you jump in and begin building a step-by-step plan for achieving customer
experience maturity, you'll want to set the stage. Too often people rush into building a
program without aligning all the necessary factors to move forward with creating a
customer-centric organization.
 By focusing on the following six factors, you can successfully establish organization-
wide customer centricity.
Strong Leadership
Establishing a customer-centric culture starts at the very top. Without executive-level buy-in
there is a low probability of creating maximum impact for any customer- centric initiative. You'll
also want to garner the support of lower level leaders to truly move the needle on improving the
customer experience. Leaders set the tone for their teams, so if a leader decides that the customer
is important, their direct reports will follow suit.
VOC Techniques
Regardless of the industry, it costs organizations five to 25x more to attract a new customer than
it does to retain an existing one. Thus, the value of retaining existing customers over acquiring a
new one is obvious. With this in mind, we'll keep our focus on the techniques that help retain
customers at your business.
1. Customer Interviews
 Customer interviews are one of the traditional techniques to collect VoC data. It is
commonly used to understand particular customer point-of-view regarding product or
service issues, attributes, and performance measures. You can choose to perform this for
 either a particular customer or for a group of customers with some common attributes.
Usually executed in person, on the phone, or through email.
2. On-Site Customer Surveys
 Another great way to capture VoC is by conducting on-site customer surveys. These
surveys help you in understanding your customers and addressing the issues they face.
However, if you don't ask the right questions with the help of the right platform, you may
never get reliable answers. That's why you need to put in a lot of thought while designing
your surveys. You can choose from the different types of surveys available, such as
yes/no type, multiple option-based surveys, drop-down surveys, and textbox-based
surveys.
3. Live Chat
 According to a study, 44% of online shoppers feel the best feature an ecommerce website
can have is a live chat.
 Having an on-site chat is an incredible method of collecting real-time customer feedback
and reducing the possibility of your customers feeling unsatisfied.
 The use of live chat is not limited to listening to customers complaints and resolving
them. It is also a good tool to capture Voice of the Customer data. For this, you can
schedule a follow-up survey of all the customers connecting with you through a chat
4. Social Media

 Social media is a potent ingredient of the feedback cocktail, as it provides you the
opportunity to have a two-way communication with your customers.
 On any of the most commonly-used social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, or Linkedin,
you can tap into relevant ongoing conversations, connect with those customers by
actively participating, or quietly listen (while lurking and taking notes). The core strength
of social media lies in allowing you to have a more direct and real-time conversation with
the people using your products of services.

5. Website Behavior
 Your website is a great place for you to capture the voice of customer data. Besides chat
and on-site surveys, another way to collect this data is by analyzing your customer
behavior on the website. You can do it in a jiffy by leveraging tools like heatmaps,
scrolls, and visitors recordings. You can also opt for a single platform that'll allow you do
all this and you won't have to invest in multiple tools.

6. Recorded Call Data

 If you're planning to leverage historical data, recorded call data might come in handy.
Recorded calls with your customers can give you a broad overview of how they perceive
your brand, what sort of objections do they have, and what else do they expect from the
brand.

 Though this technique requires a lot of time, it is always advisable to do this every now
and then. What it'll also do is help you with training your customer support team with
better objection handling and enhancing your customer service.
7. Online Customer Reviews
 Your online reputation isn't just the result of what you generate at your end-it includes all
instances in which your business appears online, including online reviews. With online
review sites like G2 Crowd, Finances Online, TrustRadius, TrustPilot, Capterra, and
Angie's List, it's essential to understand the impact they have on your business and how
you can use reviews to earn your online reputation.

8. Off-site Surveys
 Opting for an off-site survey is yet another method to capture the Voice of Customer.
Although this may not be a popular method for large business setups, it's leveraged by
lots of medium-sized businesses when conducting customer research.

9. Net Promoter Score

 Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a management tool that is used to measure the loyalty of a
company's customers. This customer loyalty metric was developed by Fred Reichheld,
Bain & Company, and Satmetrix Systems.
 NPS gives you quick and reliable feedback from customers. The way the system works is
easy. Customers need to answer this simple question on a scale of 0-10:

"How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or a colleague?"

10. Focus Groups
 This is where a group of eight to 12 customers meet in a room, where they are asked to
share their perceptions, beliefs, and opinions about your product or service. The group
participants are free to openly talk with one another.
 This data collection method is used to gain insights into customers' prioritization of
needs, or to test concepts and get feedback. Focus groups are sometimes used in addition
to interviews and surveys as the last step to further investigate and understand the Voice
of the Customer for each of the company's touch points.

11. Emails
 This method can be as informal or as formal as you want it to be. You can send highly
personalized emails to particular customers or create a template that can be used for the
entire target. You also have the option to either ask for feedback as a response to your
email (which might be unstructured and time-consuming) or add a link in the email body
to one of your surveys.

12. Dedicated Feedback Form

 The last option is to have a dedicated feedback form on your website - and this is really
more of a mandate than an option. No matter which other methods you plan to choose to
capture VoC, you cannot skip having an on-site feedback form.