MARKETING CONCEPT AND IT’S APPLICATION IN CUSTOMER SERVICES
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MARKETING CONCEPT AND IT’S APPLICATION IN CUSTOMER SERVICES
Chapter One:
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background to the Study
Staying in business requires ongoing business transactions between a corporation and its numerous consumers. There is a lot that goes into meeting long-term survival demands.
Customers Patronage is one of the most important factors in a company’s long-term success.Patronage is one of the most important factors in a company’s long-term success. Customer loyalty can only be earned when a firm provides products and services that meet the needs of such customers. This is the essence of employment marketing.
The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines marketing as the performance of commercial activities that influence the flow of goods and services from the producer to the end consumer or user.
The Institute of Marketing Britain describes marketing as the management activity of identifying, anticipating, and economically satisfying consumer needs. As the economic climate changes, the underlying philosophy of corporate operation changes.
Initially, corporate emphasis was on production, which was aided by the arrival of the industrial revolution around 1700 AD. Later, the emphasis changed from production to product and sales concepts.However, it is vital to understand what the philosophy of production was all about.
The first philosophy, based on product orientation, led management to conclude that in order to generate a profit, a business organisation should strive to develop a high-quality, reasonably priced product.The emphasis was on mass manufacture of goods to reduce costs. It was established that mass production resulted in excess products.
The focus subsequently changed from the product to the selling orientation, which was simply based on a dislike of the excess caused by mass production. The sales orientation focused on selling strategies such as advertising, sales promotion, and the utilisation of salespeople.
The inability of the sales orientation to tackle the glut problem resulted in the need for a marketing idea. Unlike the consumers’ previous two business philosophies.
It states that the business organisation should take its direction from the market (transaction point) in order to discover and meet the demands of its customers. This improves the organization’s ability to meet its long-term goals.
This is so. Since customer patronage is a prerequisite for the organization’s survival and achievement of its goals, marketing concepts assume that profitable satisfaction of customer needs can be best achieved by co-ordinating and integrating all of the organization’s activities.
The realisation that the foundations of ongoing sales success may be traced back to the heart of the firm resulted in a situation in which companies considered customer pleasure. As a result, contemporary marketing principles were developed beginning in 1950.
To a large extent, the marketing concept has become a significant component of business philosophy; Mc Carthy (1964) regards it as a central guide for action and planning by general management.
According to Foster (1984), the fundamentals of marketing apply to both the industrial and service industries.He went on to suggest that there may just be a need to modify procedures and approaches to meet the unique quality of intangible products in the servicing sectors.
Services are discrete, basically immaterial acts that satisfy wants.Banks are service-oriented businesses that require a marketing strategy to ensure their success. However, significant variations exist between product and service marketing.
The tactics and practices employed in traditional product marketing are frequently inapplicable to service marketing due to the distinct specific qualities of services that differ from those of products.
Services are INTANGIBLE.It is nearly hard for them to smell before purchasing them. Because of the intangible nature of service, ownership cannot be transferred.
Because services are inextricably linked to the seller, they are sold and consumed virtually simultaneously.
Heterogeneity is another feature of services.Service industries cannot standardise their services.The level of services provided at various times varies.
Finally, services are very PERISHABLE and hence cannot be stored.
The researcher examines marketing concepts as used in the financial services business, with a focus on commercial banking activities and a case study of United of Bank Africa.
1.2. Statement of the Problem
Commercial banks must market their services to their varied clientele. As performance is the important word, bank employees, particularly cashiers and other clerks, serve as the image makers for commercial banks because they interact directly with customers.
Customers at practically all Nigerian banks have complained at some point about the bad services supplied, as many customers have become less dissatisfied with the services provided by these banks.
Customers’ complaints revolve around unnecessary waste of time by bank officials during deposits, withdrawals, and other banking services, preferential treatment, poor human relations and rudeness of bank officials to customers, difficulties in obtaining overdrafts, and insufficient infrastructure facilities.
Banks’ inefficiency and poor performance are the result of a lack of application or knowledge of modern marketing concepts. And it is on this basis that this research topic was chosen to investigate how a marketing concept was utilised to increase performance at the United Bank of Africa.
1.3. PURPOSES OF THE STUDY
The primary goal of this research is to conduct a critical analysis of United Bank plc’s activities at the Onitsha main branch.The investigation is intended to be completed.
(i) Whether the connection between bank personnel and customers is pleasant.
(ii) The activities of the bank’s marketing department, assuming one exists.
(iii) How customers are informed about the availability of the bank’s services.
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