Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty, and Empowerment Essay

1. Should a company be happy or concerned if most customers are satisfied? Satisfaction of the consumer is one of the main goals for a company to achieve. Customer satisfaction is defined as the feeling that results when an offering meets a consumer’s expectations. Companies around the world are doing many surveys, in order to measure the satisfaction of their consumers because the importance of consumer satisfaction is one of the main factors for a company. According to the question, should a company be happy or concerned if most consumers are satisfied, the answer is concerned. The reason of this answer is that if all consumers would be satisfied then it is okay, but in this case not all consumers are satisfied, so there are some consumers who are not satisfied. The company should work hard in order to not leave space for concerns for these people who would be unsatisfied. These unsatisfied consumers would have a big influence on the company because these consumers express t heir concerns to other people and then other people might not want to buy anything from that company. However, one of the main strategies that companies use to achieve their goals of satisfaction is to influence the consumer’s expectations. Customer’s expectations should be very high because if the product or service doesn’t meet their expectations they would be unsatisfied and have a negative perception. Marketers should make their expectations a bit lower so the service or product would exceed their expectations and then customers would be very satisfied. An example of consumer satisfaction would be like this: I usually order pizza at the restaurant called Extreme Pizza so then they deliver it at my home. They always bring it on time so they never are late, and also the food is warm. I am very satisfied with the product and service they provide to me. However, one day I heard my friend complaining about a restaurant service and then I asked him why so, and I realized that he was talking about the same restaurant that I order pizza. He said many bad things about that restaurant, then he told me that delivery is always late so then the food is cold. He also complained that he pays much more money because his house is far away from this restaurant. Therefore, I think that the reason of this problem between my friend and that restaurant is that the location of the house, so it is normal if the delivery is late and the food is cold. However, my house is near the restaurant, so I don’t face these problems. In the end, the difference is that I am very satisfied with their products and service but my friend is not satisfied and told everyone about the bad issue he experienced with that restaurant. To sum up in other words, all companies should be concerned with that percentage of people who are not satisfied even if the number of these people is low because negative things are spread much faster to others and positive ones. 2. Create a loyalty program for AUK with the 4 positive effects in mind Loyalty programs are a type of sales promotions defined as the efforts to reward frequent purchases or consumptions of customers. Anyhow, we have to point out the difference between loyalty and loyalty programs. Loyalty is the attitude of customers for a particular brand. It is divided in two dimensions, behavioral and attitudinal loyalty. Behavioral loyalty is a degree where customer buys the product regularly and does not respond to competitors. Attitudinal loyalty is the degree where customer prefers or likes the brand. There are four positive effects of loyalty programs longevity effect, the blocker effect, spreader effect, and the accelerator effect. Longevity effect is the process of lengthening of the lifetime value of customers by increasing their switching costs. Blocker effect is the process of blocking out marketing communications from competitors. Spreader effect is the willingness of customers to buy related products from a marketer. Accelerator effect is the process where customers speed up to make purchases in order to get to the next level of their loyalty program offers. AUK Loyalty Program The loyalty program tends to encourage customers to buy a product and make customers come again to buy the product. In AUK, students not only can pay for their tuition but also for extra lectures such as cisco, summer program etc. Moreover, AUK could have a loyalty program in a way from those students who come from the same family and town. When a student attends AUK, then he or she will have a 50% discount from the actual price for cisco. Also, summer program is one of them that make a discount for AUK students each summer. Furthermore, AUK provides a 15 % discount of price for a second person from the same family and 30% for the third. Even though, all students of AUK would have the opportunity of 20% reduction in price for work and travel during the summer in the Unites States, with the company called â€Å"Zip Travel†. Therefore, this loyalty program would have 4 positive effects. One of the longevity effects is that AUK attracts students from the same family to join AUK w ith a discount in price. For example, I have a friend who joined AUK last year, which he has a brother here at AUK who is going to graduate next quarter. He told me that, he did not even think to come at AUK but his brother convinced him to make such a decision and attend AUK. Also, he mentioned that AUK offers a 15% discount in price for the second person of the same family. Maybe the discount and quality that AUK provides encouraged my friend to register in. The blocker effect is also included to the loyalty program of AUK because it provides for its customers extra courses such as Cisco located in the Blue Building at AUK. All students of AUK would have 50% discount in price if they want to take those IT classes. Therefore, when students hear about this offer, they do not bother to go somewhere else and take these classes because this offer with a cheaper price is all right. Therefore, this is how AUK loyalty program blocks out marketing communication from competitors. The spreader effect would be also included to the loyalty program of AUK. For example, I know a friend who participates in every summer program that AUK offers. He told me that, he is very satisfied with the lectures and professors of AUK and that AUK offers a discount for its students who want to participate in the summer program. These are the reasons why he enjoys taking every year classes at AUK during the summer season. Therefore, he is loyal to AUK and does not want to take summer courses in other countries as some students do. The accelerator effect is also one of the loyalty programs included at AUK. An example that AUK offers would be that if in AUK are three students that come from the same family, the second would have 15% discount and the third would have 30% discount. By this offer AUK attracts its students to invite its family member attend at AUK because of the price discount they offer to them. If my brother would come next year at AUK, he would get 15% discount in price, but also if in the following year would come my sister then she would have 30% discount which is a very good offer in attracting more people. In other words, the more people of your family, much cheaper it would cost to you.