Winning customers over

By Tjipto Ramuni

The quality of goods and services are measured by how well they satisfy customers. Satisfaction keeps customers loyal and returning for more.

JAKARTA (JP): Seafood restaurant Kedai Selera on Jl. Kebayoran Lama in South Jakarta has only nine serving tables, and in addition to vegetables, lists only four main ingredients: meat, poultry, prawn and squid.

Patrons, however, are spoilt for choice because the restaurant turns the ingredients into almost 100 entrees.

The owner, who has never taken any marketing courses, explains that what he is selling is his ability to satisfy customers. This he does by meeting customers' expectations of taste, service and ambience.

Food is served in a relatively short time -- even if one has to wait, one would not get impatient as the owner has provided each table with magazines and other reading material. "Our customers have stopped complaining about waiting for their orders," the owner said.

In addition, when a customer orders nasi goreng (fried rice), that's just what he gets. The owner watches the expression of the customers when they taste the food -- if displeasure is noted, a replacement would be offered.

How does the owner know if his customers are satisfied? When patrons return to the restaurant the next week, the next month or even after three months?

When they do, the proprietor knows his food and service have satisfied them.

"Even if only 3 percent of the guests return, I would consider my business a success," the owner said. If he had a 100 customers a day, three of the guests were expected to return for a second visit. Therefore in a month, the number of returning customers would be 90.

It has been two years since the restaurant was set up. According to the owner, if he failed to maintain the 3 percent return visits, he would take that as a sign that he was incapable of satisfying the patrons and would close the outlet.

Light example

The restaurant cited above may be small, but it is committed to the principle of total customer satisfaction. It emphasizes the importance of keeping its customers by ensuring customer satisfaction.

The customer is either pleased or disappointed, which according to marketing literature is the result of customers comparing their impression of a service or product with that of their expectations. If they returned for more, it shows they were satisfied with the service or goods.

Marketers believe keeping customers cost less than attracting new ones. And books and manuals have presented convincing data on how much cheaper it was to maintain customers than to seek new ones.

Marketing guru Philip Kotler has even calculated that if a company is able to prevent a mere 7 percent of its clients from going over to a competitor, its profit margin will increase by 25 percent. In some companies, the increase may even reach 85 percent.

'Solutions'

A deeper look, however, would tell us that customers were also seeking solutions to their problems.

One would not be satisfied with the purchase of a commodity unless it solved one's problems too. For instance, a luxury car might please its new owner because of its comfort. However, the owner would not be satisfied if he discovered there was a scarcity of the car's spare parts.

There is a long list of companies that failed to provide total customer satisfaction in Indonesia.

For example, companies that offered the AMPS cellular system initially had a good market, but later its insecure system caused duplication of numbers. Customers were soon flocking over to companies that offered GSM service. Besides, the GSM operators further satisfied customers as clients could replace their handsets anytime they wanted -- something that could not be done with the AMPS system.

Indonesia's newspaper and magazine publishers have long known how difficult it is to satisfy customers in terms of content, access or distribution of their publications.

The publications may have good content, but what good are they if they are not available when the readers want them? If they could be easily accessed, but had poor content, readers would not want them either. Besides, in the media business, customer loyalty is usually high -- which is why no national publication has been able to break Kompas' domination of the market.

Another example is the warung tenda (tent cafes) business that flourished following the economic crisis in 1997 as they used celebrities to attract customers.

However, the business had a very low level of customer satisfaction in terms of product quality and service. Not many of the cafes exist today as they had failed to satisfy customers on their first visit.

In the PC business in Indonesia, large companies prefer branded imported computers over cheaper, locally assembled ones. This is because the branded PCs, which have a clearly defined quality standard, solve companies' problems. So when companies need new computers, it is likely they will buy the same brand.

The locally assembled computers, on the other hand, do not often stay in the market for long. Those which do, survive because its traders imitate the service provided by the imported PC traders.

Local producers, in fact, should provide even better service if they wished to steal the market from traders of imported PC. That would mean giving a higher level of customer satisfaction, for example, by offering a three-year warranty where traders of imported PCs only give between six and 12 months warranty. Or by providing higher specifications at lower prices. Only then can they compete with imported PCs.

Customers generally do not purchase any product on offer. They buy goods and services that satisfy their needs and solve their problems. This is why in marketing, the term "quality" no longer points to how a product is produced, but more on how a commodity or service satisfies customers.