Customer Processes in Business-To-Business Service Transactions - Essay Example

The paper "Customer Processes in Business-To-Business Service Transactions" is an inspiring example of an essay on marketing. Organizational success is influenced by many and differentiated factors, among them employees and customers. Human resources drive organizational operations for the purpose of meeting market demands and satisfying an organization’s clientele. In order to satisfy the consumers, firms have to identify, understand, and provide for the needs, interests, tastes, and preferences of the consumers. The extent to which this is achieved determines the degree to which a firm customer base is built. The process is even more critical when a partial employee factor is built on the customers.

The consideration of a customer as a partial employee has its positive and negative implications at the organizational level (Frauendorf 103). The goals and objectives of doing so must be well set to avoid operational complications. The customer-employee factor has to be aligned with the organization’s operations. Most importantly, the process should be characterized by maximum benefits and minimum shortcomings. The idea is to foster organizational, customer, and employee welfare without adversely affecting organizational efficiency and effectiveness.

Model of customer involvement, role definition, customer control, and dealing with emerging issues are some of the implications realized in an organization when a customer is considered as a partial employee (Hoffman and John 280). Ways through which these organizational implications are dealt with determining whether stakeholder welfare is positively or negatively affected. Subsequently, marketing implications cannot be overlooked.

When customers are regarded as partial employees, marketing activities have to be adjusted in one way or another to account for this factor. The direct implication influences marketing focus to either product or service quality. In other words, marketing activities have to consider whether the strategy employed will target product quality or quality of service delivery (Frauendorf 159). Another critical factor in this line is the extent to which customers are served or the degree to which the practice self-service.

Marketing practices are essentially aligned with the needs, tastes, and preferences of the customers. In other words, sales and marketing seek to satisfy customer needs through meeting market demand. When a customer becomes a partial employee, the approach may significantly change. However, the magnitude of positive or negative effects is influenced by the time this partial employee waits for service or the product/service bundle that best satisfies both customer and employee needs. Whatever the case, the welfare of this partial employee cannot be jeopardized by the customer-to-partial employee shift.

The customer-partial employee factor comes into the picture when an organization wants to pursue cost-cutting in its operations (Hoffman and John 327). The big question: What is the effect of this move on marketing? When a customer is considered to be a partial employee, the customer is integrated into the producer side of the equation. The customer becomes a vital component of the production and service delivery part of the organization. This move translates to a reduction in overall operational costs. The integration of the customer into production implies that marketing activities will relatively go down as the customer becomes part of the production system; partial employee.