Customer orientation
| Customer orientation |
|---|
| See also |
Customer orientation is a significant success component and it reflects a general attitude of all employees towards achieving high customer satisfaction through various activities which include: marketing, service, helping customers to solve their problems, timely response to request, good communication of sales team, R&D activities aimed on comprehensive enhancement of product capabilities, maintaining high motivation to solve customer problems, proper training and competence building within organization (Vaggelis Giannikas 2018, p. 75). It is a collection of beliefs that set up clients' needs and happiness as the most important firm for the company and it is usually connected with higher business performance (Maria M. Smirnova 2018, p. 457). Few other benefits for using customer orientation are higher customer pleasure, delivery to requirements and delivery authenticity (Gerrit Willem Ziggers 2016, p. 19). Companies with high customer orientation generally achieve higher sales and profits through higher customer retention and word of mouth advertising. Customer orientation is also linked with higher job satisfaction, clients' trust and relationship improvement for singular salespeople (A. D. Arndt 2012, p. 354).
Levels of customer orientation
It is possible to divide three levels of customer orientation (Maria M. Smirnova 2018, p. 459):
- the organization's orientation (customer needs are first, while ignoring all different stakeholders),
- the manager's orientation (organize more responsibility to the customer orientation through the organization),
- the sales person's orientation (make a customer happy through interaction with him/her).
Characteristics of customer orientation
Characteristics divided by elements which influence customer orientation (Vaggelis Giannikas 2018, p. 76):
- customer – clossness,
- customer – accessibility,
- customer – flexibility.
References
- Arndt A. D. (2012). Is it better for salespeople to have the highest customer orientation or a strong fit with their group's customer orientation? Findings from automobile dealerships, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, vol. 19, no. 3
- Brady, M. K., & Cronin Jr, J. J. (2001). Customer orientation: Effects on customer service perceptions and outcome behaviors, Journal of service Research, vol. 3, no. 3
- Brown, T. J., Mowen, J. C., Donavan, D. T., & Licata, J. W. (2002). The customer orientation of service workers: Personality trait effects on self-and supervisor performance ratings, Journal of marketing research, vol. 39, no. 1
- Giannikas Vaggelis (2018). Towards the deployment of customer orientation: A case study in third-party logistics, Computers in industry, vol. 104
- Smirnova Maria M. (2018). Customer orientation as a multidimensional construct: Evidence from the Russian markets, Journal of business research, vol. 86
- Ziggers Gerrit Willem (2016). The reinforcing effect of a firm's customer orientation and supply-base orientation on performance, Industrial Marketing Management, vol. 52
Author: Olga Marmuszewska
