Higher expectations must be met by the product and all phases of customer service and contact after the purchase. We’ve all read about companies who’ve suffered hiccups in product quality or service. Some have survived; some have not.
The essence of commerce is customer satisfaction. Satisfaction …show more content…
In more scientific terms, these are described as a combination of cognitive and affective processes.
At the cognitive stage, the customer’s mind gathers, integrates, and reacts to all information related to each experience. This is the processing stage. We stimulate the customer’s recollection of prior experience and combine it with additional external stimuli through advertising and other educational media to create a learned expectation of the product. This is a more thoughtful stage in the customer experience.
The affective process provokes the customers “gut” reaction toward your product or service. By definition it is more emotional. Customer emotions form and are formed by the cognitive process embedded in each experience. They occur quickly. Feelings of satisfaction or dissatisfaction, based on the fusion of rational and emotional responses intensify, and exert a lasting influence on purchase decisions.
Ultimately, all your communications must capture both hearts and minds of the buyer to achieve high customer fulfillment levels.
Customer Fulfillment …show more content…
In B2B relationships on the corporate side, and as espoused in books like "The New Solution Selling," senior managers spend approximately 20 to 30% of their time with customers performing detailed needs analysis. This can include temporary placement on site at customer facilities to obtain more detailed knowledge of customer objectives.
Customer Success Strategies
Customer success strategies tie a company’s success to that of its customers. In the typical arm 's-length sale, the customer makes a purchase, receives training, and typically receives after sales service. The CSS hopes to achieve customer loyalty by helping their customers succeed.
The company must develop an understanding of the clients’ value chain and channel distribution network to help them better resolve problems and enhance their own capabilities. The firm develops strategies to help client managers use their company’s unique skills so they in turn can apply these to their own customer