Today's game: Satisfy, delight and surprise

Burhanuddin Abe, Contributor, Jakarta

Indonesia's first-ever presidential election consisted of many elements similar to those used in marketing communications. It was an interesting exercise in positioning -- akin to the brand positioning in marketing -- managing the candidates' images and promoting their differing visions to the nation. More simply put, campaign teams managed the rhetoric and promises of the candidates to lure their "customers", the voters.

While many people think that politicians tend to overpromise and underdeliver, a marketer will be doomed if he or she does not deliver the promise or even if there is the slightest of inconsistency in the product or service offered.

Naturally, the promise has to be kept even by those in the front line facing customers, the salespeople.

As elaborated by marketing expert Hermawan Kartajaya, the classical adage -- customer satisfaction -- is simply delivering what is promised in a company's marketing communications strategy to match its customers' needs. Dissatisfaction is certain if the customer feels there is even a fraction of shortcoming in the product or service.

However, many marketing experts as well as marketers realize that satisfying customers is not enough in today's highly competitive business environment. Hence, instead of "satisfy your customer", a newer slogan coined and put into action is: "Delight your customer".

Pine and Gilmore wrote in The Experience Economy that due to today's advanced marketing communications through the Internet more efforts are required to satisfy, or better, delight customers. Marketers are advised to avoid any sacrifice on the part of customers at all cost. Customize and personalize are two important key strategies. Know what your customers want and provide them with exactly that.

Or, even better, go up another level. Surprise your customer. This is possible when you exceed your customer's expectations and the positive impression will be almost indelible on his or her mind -- like the surprise people get from having their mind read.

IndoKadoCom can be cited as a good example. This 24-hour virtual shop, which sells flower bouquets, cakes and wrapped gifts through its website, has been a major success story since it was established in Jakarta in January, 2000.

Quick, reliable delivery is only one element of its plus points. IndoKadoCom's same-day-service at competitive rates delivers your order within a matter of hours, as long as the recipient is within the company's network of destinations.

For Jakarta, which is notorious for its traffic jams, the company uses a mobile florist with refrigeration for flowers to keep them fresh. Thus, orders can be processed here and immediately delivered.

Today, IndoKadoCom's network is not only available in almost every province in the country, but also worldwide in hundreds of major cities. For its global network, its IndoKado Floral Network cooperates with hundreds of florists in 75 countries. Like its local service, the company also ensures the same quick, reliable delivery of quality, fresh flowers abroad. "Our commitment is to replace products or even return payments should any customer is dissatisfied," one of the company's senior managers said.

To maintain customers' loyalty, marketers have no choice but to enhance every element in their products and services to reach the highest level of excellence.

According to Handi Irawan, a consultant at a marketing and research company, Frontier, basically five elements create customer satisfaction.

First and most fundamental is the quality of a product -- its performance, durability, range of features, reliability, consistency and design.

The second factor is price. The price has to be right without compromising quality.

For certain types of products and customer groups, price is not a decisive factor. And, unfortunately, both quality and price can be easily imitated by competitors.

Hence, element No. 3 -- customer-oriented service - has for some years now been acknowledged to be the more important trigger for customer satisfaction. Such service is only possible if supported by the right system, advanced technology as well and training for the customer-oriented human factor -- the company's management and employees.

To start with, corporate culture and attitude from top to bottom have to be revamped in this direction. This is not as easy as reforming the other elements and does not happen overnight. Although it may sound intangible at the outset, it gives concrete, tangible results for customers and soon brings in returns for the company. It is an element that comprises reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy, all for the benefit of those the company's revenue depends on, the customers.

Element No. 4 is to "prioritize customers' emotions or emotional needs". This is more related to image and presentation. An example of this is how expensive luxury car-makers guard their brands for the sake of their customers' prestige. Exclusive or established brands of watches are another example. Here the customers' emotional value is at stake.

Finally, the fifth element is convenience -- at a reasonable cost, of course. Financial institutions have made efforts to reduce the long queuing of customers by providing services through their websites or ATMs. Customers' complaints and claims are also dealt with efficiently with customer satisfaction in mind.

While all five elements are of paramount importance, each type of company has to decide on the priority of each element. Companies dealing in commodities, for instance, still find quality and price as the foremost factors to attracting customers. Hotels, restaurants and banks, meanwhile, guard the quality of service and continuously strive to take it to the highest level of excellence.

Handi says, however, that the priority list may change based on the prevailing economic situation. During the country's economic crisis several years ago, when banks offered high interest rates, customers viewed this as the most satisfying element. In today's close-to-parity situation, with banks giving similar interest rates, they have no choice but to take care of the other elements.

The business game today is more than just satisfying customers, it is about delighting or even surprising them. Otherwise, you may be surprised -- by how few customers you have.