Good quality and low prices alone not enough

Kusnandi, Sales & Marketing Director, PT Excelcomindo, Jakarta

The progress in business activities and increasing customer expectations have led to fierce competition both in luring new consumers and maintaining existing ones.

Good quality products and services, with reasonable prices no longer guarantee winning a market share for a company.

Providing prime quality products and services has become a prerequisite amid tight competition. Customer expectations for quality are increasing. The price of a product or service is not the only factor in business competition or to ensure customer satisfaction.

Even the cheapest electronic product cannot compete or win customers if it needs to be repaired two or three times a year. Cheap airfares cannot necessarily attract a customer if more than 50 percent of the airlines flights are delayed. The low rate offered by a cellular telecommunications service will not attract a customer if he has difficulty making outgoing calls or if the reception is not clear or is interrupted while making a call.

Customers expect a minimum level of quality in products and services offered. No matter how low the price is, if the quality of a product or service is below an acceptable level it will not be unable to compete.

"The price vis-a-vis performance" is a comparison that is often used to gauge a product's or service's competitiveness and also its market segmentation strategy. Along with higher customer expectations, the "more for more" strategy has gained much success in capturing consumer interest. Consumers do not mind paying more for a product or service that gives them total satisfaction. Total Customer Satisfaction is a challenge for manufacturers in a variety of sectors.

The price and quality of a product or service alone are not enough to provide total satisfaction to customers. Companies should continue to be creative in finding ways to provide added value. Services or products with added value are often offered to customers within a certain classification, naturally with the aim of supporting the company's drive to reach its target.

Nearly all airlines have frequent flyer programs. Special privileges are also awarded to VIP customers by some cellular telecommunications companies. Loyal customers at branded department stores also enjoy special discounts or services. There are countless other examples in this respect.

Such programs are basically aimed at giving greater satisfaction to major customers with the expectation of achieving the highest level of customer loyalty. Aside from that, a larger number of regular customers who would also like to enjoy the added benefits, would be expected to use more of the products or services.

Many producers recommend that the added value program should give more, which explains why a variety of efforts have been made that are basically intended to create a direct relationship between producers and consumers. Call center services where customers can only talk with representatives of the company are felt to be inadequate. Today, call centers are expected not to only passively wait for their customers' incoming calls but to be proactive in making outgoing calls to make sure there is direct contact with the customer so that customers feel they have received special attention from the company.

One of the cellular telecommunications services companies in Indonesia has even applied a program that is called Customer Representative Officer (CRO) in which customers get personalized services from the CRO tasked with handling selected customers.

Through this program, customers are expected to get personal assistance via designated "dedicated representatives", not confined to the call centers working hours but 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Various kinds of software are available to aid producers to improve the quality of the relationship with customers. The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application will eventually establish an "end-to-end" relationship between producers and their customers, leading to total customer satisfaction and maximum customer loyalty.

Many intangible benefits can contribute positively to the level of customer satisfaction or loyalty. In this respect, brand equity plays an important role. We all know that, tangibly, German-made automobiles do not necessarily give greater satisfaction than those manufactured in other countries. Yet, intangibly, people have the strong perception that German cars in general provide a higher level of customer satisfaction.

Customer satisfaction is something complex. Many factors, both tangible and intangible, influence customer satisfaction which people often take for granted.

Perhaps, the highest level of customer satisfaction will be achieved if the customer has a really special experience or if their lifestyle changes as a result of using the product or service.

It is at this point, companies can expect to achieve maximum customer loyalty.