Customer is the King, but where is his Kingdom?

For sustained business growth, customer satisfaction, if not delight is more important. In the present fiercely competitive world, it is much relevant to service organizations like Banks. Banks believe that providing prompt and efficient service is essential not only to lure new customers, but also to retain the existing ones. However, there are plenty of instances that banks turn a deaf ear for customer complaints and grievances. The clichs like Customer is King, Customer is the Emperor, Customers are not dependant on us, we are dependent on them appear on the walls inside the offices or dangled in the workstations. But in reality, there are many cases to prove that business men using these catchphrases are just an eye-wash. For instance, there is a plethora of complaints against a leading Indian private banker. A customer by name Ms. Milli Sinha from New Delhi recently lodged a complaint against the afore said bank that the customer care executives of the banks local DSA have been calling and irritating her trying to convert her payment to EMI. This has been done for both her mobile and landline. Another major complaint that the consumer court received in these days is that the bank personnel are not so empathetic towards their customers. Bankers rude behavior, hasty answering to the customer queries and paying lip service are the chief complaints that are piled up in the consumer court or at banking ombudsmen. A pause at this stage to ponder why this is happening is the need of the hour. A research study carried out by Mr. R.K. Uppal, Punjab brings out the following as the major reasons for such a bad customer services. 1. Customers are treated unfairly at times. 2. Complaints are not handled timely and are not updated. 3. Bank employees lack soft-skills that help them handle their customers effectively. 4. Often, employees are not completely aware of the various alternatives for the customer complaints. 5. Employees are not adequately trained on how to satisfy their customers. The above discussion proves to some extent that though businessmen know the fact that customers are backbone to their businesses, in reality customers are voiceless. Either they are unnoticed and not given the right importance because the businessmens minds are preoccupied with the strategies for present but not for future. Hence, the question Customer is the King, but where is his Kingdome is yet unanswered.

Multi-channel Interaction The success of any firm, especially service firms such as banks depends on its ability to understand their customers aptly and suit their business strategies accordingly. Businesses fail to satisfy their customers mainly because of their inability to listen to them. Hence, to listen to them properly, businesses need not only to get in touch with them but also see to it that customers get in touch with them too. Gone are the days that customers did not have any chance to contact the producer of goods or services directly except that contacting the retailers who offer them the goods or services. But for todays customers there are scores of doors opened to get in touch directly with the goods or service providers. Multi-channel Interaction points or Touch-points or contact points are the interface of a business organization with customers and stake-holders, before, during and after a transaction. They are the customer interaction channels such as call centers, web sites, automated teller machines, web kiosks, in-person etc. Touch-point management allows companies to optimize all the interactions with the existing and potential customers. For instance, for a bank, touch-points in banking can include client service advisors, receipts, events, offerings, financial expert reports, website, intranet, IT-systems, research reports, sponsoring, Word of mouth, e-banking, regional office or contacts by phone with the client service advisors, etc.

Customer Database In todays hyper competitive world, its no longer enough to satisfy a customer, he must be delighted. He must be surprised. He must be enthralled. But the question is how? How to surprise them? One solution is to have a watchful eye on the customer, his daily routine, his habits, interests, his likes and dislikes etc. Sounds strange, but often it produces good results. For this, companies must maintain a database of all its ex-customers, present customers, new customers, potential customers and lost customers that include their demographic information as well as those said above. Retail industry is one business area which extensively uses customers database. Importantly, companies must bear in mind that the database must be updated timely. Assume an instance, where a banks marketing executive picks a number randomly from his database, makes a call to him and discusses the newly introduced Childrens Education policy and later on even posts the brochure to his address and then was taken aback after knowing that the customers doesnt have any child. How embarrassing the situation would be. Customer database is used to retain existing customers and build loyalty by providing personalized service and communication, expand sales with existing customers through cross selling and up selling, generate referrals from satisfied customers and follow and track potential customer easily. Executive who uses database must consider some more points. It is important to consider what information he need from people now and what information he may require in the future. If he has staff then he needs to sit down with them and determine everyones information needs. It is important that he creates a customer database that serves as many areas of his business as possible eg. sales and marketing.