Why Customer Relationship So Important

In the highly competitive world, the important factor is to retain the existing customers and it is influenced by Customer relationship. And for that reason this research is done, and also for the deep study about Customer relationship.

In this century customers are vital part of a business because competition in the market is very difficult. The company is liable to satisfy their customers’ needs and wants. It means companies’ try to provide maximum satisfaction to their customer to exist. It also helps to make a friendly relationship with their customer, and also more useful for sharing of ideas and also identify the current position of a product among the customers. Customer relationship helps to generate the companies profit and goodwill, also attract new customers in to the business. Customers are an asset for the company. (Balanchine, D. (2003), pp.1242-1261.)

Argos is chosen for to site nice example of customer relationship. Argos is one of the biggest retailers in UK. It has 700 retail outlets in UK. Approximately 130 million clients are served every year. Argos handles their customers carefully and also provides more facilities to the customers. In 2009-2010 customer service survey, Argos got a better result. They introduced several kinds of ‘branded products’ to their customers during the period.

In Catalogue shopping Argos attain a good reputation in UK. Customers can easily choose the product from printed catalogues, audio CD version, online and telephone through this services and can able to make better business atmosphere. (www.argos.co.uk)

In Argos, the catalogue shopping is beneficial for the customers as it will enable them to choose from a wide range of products from the catalogue. Catalogue shopping also provides ‘less expense’ for the firm in the middle of recession as no expense to serve the customer but only ‘catalogue serving.’ The catalogue shopping gives the customer expectation at a new level until no visual or presence in the live manner. Argos can improve their sales through their customer relationships between the customers. It can motivate the customers to come back. The opportunity it has got in sales is the maintaining the stock according to the needs of the customers. The lack of products which shown in the catalogue may bring the customers thought of inefficiency about the company. The other retailers in the group which offers toys in ales expense will become a threat for the company in the future. And more with this the tax and legal issues related to the wages also becomes a problem for the company. The economical slowdown has an impact on the sales, but however the efficiency shown on the customer relationship made them to overcome ytfuynibyu. Social beliefs about the products will produce a back fall in the sales ultimately resulting in loss for the business. Technological deficits which arise in the stock room sometimes bring the some confusions and also results in some losing of business.

The main aim of this research is to deeply understanding the customers and customer service. How to make a good relationship with the customers? This research also leads how the customer service will affect the company. Second purpose of this research is what are the changes are made in the company for customer service. Critically analysis of this factors and how to keep the existing customers and new customers are this study’s key point.

Every retailer must have to maintain a lovely relationship with their customers to make a specific plan to hold their customers. Retailers need to handle different type of customers every day. Customers have their own likes and dislikes. Retailers should be aware of that likes and dislikes at the first sight to adjust and to mingle with them in contrast.

In an organisation, relationship management mainly influences in ‘internal’ and ‘external’ marketing, it helps to make a good relationship between employees within the organisation which help to know the customers inevitability in an indirect manner. (George, W. 1990 pp34)

Customers needs: good service in stores over the phone, online and home deliveries. Lot of firms currently ensure to hold customer feed backs through customer relationship and also this factor is used to know that the same customer needs wide range of products to choose in a competitive market. Every organisations’ try to provide good customer service set to their each customers. Each firms made good strides in service ability and wide choice of products in right place. (Argos post magazine. (2010), issue 193)

It mainly highlighted to provide maximum satisfaction to the customers through to give best products in affordable price. Relationship management is not a straight way of profitability. But it is one of the important step to reach their position. Long term satisfaction is one of the better solution to discard all negative impressions about the company and reach their goal. (Cornell, C. and Werner felt, B. (1987) pp 337-346)

All firms are trying to build a good name on their customers mind. Traits and services are the key points to create their own good will. If the company wants to make a good impression on their customers mind, they should introduce quality product and good service into market. According to a company, goodwill raising is difficult. If the company is not reliable to their clients, they can easily depend other firms because of current competition is tough in market. Hence the company should aware vivid likes or dislikes of the customers. (Carson, D., Gilmore, A. and Walsh, S. (2004) pp431-455.)

Now-a-day’s customer relationship is a vital part of the company. It is more beneficial to increase companies’ strength and competition energy under the market. Keeping their own customers in a constant way is very difficult because of competition is very high among firms. So the company is willing to be paid more on customer relationship in the modern world.

The main effort of this research is to judge the ‘customer relationship’ in retailers and its execution. So I took a case study on Argos retailers, is very good example of customer service. This is one of the largest retailers in UK. They already have above 700 branches in United Kingdom and one branch in East Ham helped me to do the research because I am able to accumulate data’s directly from the employees about the customer relationship.

Sampling means collection of data which is collected from selected number of peoples. My research is based on customer relationship, as far as I considered in this situation most suitable method is convenience method because it is not possible to collect data from all customers.

In this method I wish to makes some face to face interviews and questionnaires related my research topic with selected number of people. So I can realise the customers’ views from the limited number of people with in limited time. That’s why I used this technique very intensively in my research.

For this research I used primary and secondary research methods. Firstly, I used secondary data to know the relationship between customer and company. For this purpose, I used lots of magazines, journals and also collected data with the help of internet.

Secondly, for primary data collection I used different types of questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. In questionnaires and interviews there consist lots of questions which are more correlated to my research topic. From the interviews, I felt that it is mostly an effective way to realise all the emotions and predeterminations of the both customers and employees in the organisation. I think primary data collection is most useful for my customer relationship research and also yet lot of valuable information recognised in my research.

In my research, data analyses take a significant part. From the collection of data I can categorize and filter them searching for types, classes, sequences, processes or whole. The target of this activity is to bring together or renovate the data in a meaningful or all-embracing fashion. In terms of qualitative data analysis differentiation of data is conceivable. So I think in my research qualitative data analysis is more adequate. (Jorgensen, 1989: 107).

At the moment, current competition is very high in the market. To overcome this situation we can use lot of techniques in the market. In Argos, they are trying to realise the customers’ problems and take more initiative steps to reduce the problems. They are mainly using strategies for to take customer feedback, customer dash board and visual mystery shop. So I think these techniques are more helpful to them to reach their position.

From my research I can realise, in Argos they provide catalogue services but this has got a lot of merit and demerits. Some customers need to see the products and purchase them. But catalogue service does not satisfy their needs. So I think display system is more helpful to overcome this problem.

My research is pointed on customer relationship in Argos retailers in UK. For doing this research, I got the opportunity to access to the Argos through the manager and other loving staff. Even though I have got that opportunity, I have directly gone to the Customer support point in the Argos and directly interviewed with the customers for the evidence for the research. With the kind co-operation of staff and manager I successfully completed the research.

The ethical issue that I found in the Argos retailers in UK is that they are recycling the catalogue for to preserve environment. In there I found the ‘customer relationship’ which motivated the customers to give back the catalogues. And I also noted that several calls to the store where I done my research got some calls stating of the electronic waste from the Kitchen and are removed by the council with in joint venture as per manager told me.