3GE Collection on Business Management: Consumer Management

Leading-edge organizations are changing their interaction with both customers and employees because they now have a far greater influence in new product and service development and market strategy implementation. It is becoming tougher to interpret the modern customer through our traditional methods alone. A good customer relationship is the key to business success. Relationship building and management, or what has been labeled as relationship marketing, is a leading approach to marketing. Being customer focused nowadays has to be accepted as a bare necessity to conduct business. Globalization and value-driven business imperatives would therefore mean that mistakes are not going to be tolerated; substandard products and services will ensure that the weak are not going to continue competing; and fragile practices and poorly defined and managed processes will not get accepted. Apart from anything else, true competitive advantage will only be established through excellence in customer value and the ensuing relentless care and attention provided. Understanding the needs of customers and offering value-added services are recognized as factors that determine the success or failure of companies. When managing the transition to a customer-centric organization, it is mandatory to develop the capabilities to acquire the necessary resources, knowledge and tools to meet customer’s requirements with the appropriate products and services.

The purpose of this book entitled Consumer Management is to study the relationship between customer satisfaction and consumer loyalty and apply its relationship into all the market industries including products and services. It covers important topics like service marketing, service quality, customer satisfaction, products efficiency, to better understand and serve the community at large. This book presents an extensive treatment of the strategic and tactical aspects of consumer management as we know it today. Customer loyalty is very difficult to be achieved. More and more unique ways are adopted to meet the ever changing nature of the service industry. Additionally, time constraints are most often a barrier to customer satisfaction. Every organization in the market competes to develop advanced methods to keep on track. Technology, for example affects the service industry, since constantly meeting customer satisfaction over a period of time is the only way to achieve customer loyalty.

This book aims to provide insights into how this revolution is unfolding and to provide a framework for executives and management students to address the issues involved.