Marketing Research and the Promotion of Customer Loyalty - Essay Example

"Marketing Research and the Promotion of Customer Loyalty" is a perfect example of a paper on the health system. The office setting of the primary care physicians in a community comprised of boomers, Gen-Xers, and N-Gen white-collar workers should consider demographic segmentation in terms of age and culture. This is will help the physicians know the needs of all age groups and different ways of life and know how best to serve their interests. For example, because there are elderly people in the community, the hospital should be easily accessible because age limits mobility. Office scheduling and hours should be constructed in a way that the hospital is open at all times because the elderly may require regular checkups and the white-collar workers may visit the facilities after they finish their daily work.

The recruiting plan to attract young primary care physicians would be first to identify the positions to be filled and determine the characteristics of the eligible candidates. Secondly, the human resource should consider the scope of publication of the job posting and select venues for recruiting the potential candidates based on the scope. Thirdly, the organization should draw up standards for short-listing the candidates to be interviewed, choose the interviewing panel and questions to be asked. Finally, interviews should be conducted to choose the best-qualified physicians.

The additional marketing research that I would recommend to be conducted on this community is studying their social classes and reference groups. This would help in identifying problems they having, collect data from community members on their requirements then analyze and evaluate responses to see how best it can improve its services.

Customer retention surveys are important in health care organizations to ensure the management understands the needs of its customers. Understanding the needs of customers is crucial in ascertaining the success of the organization since the needs of customers will be known and services will be directed towards their satisfaction. Health care organizations require to do customer satisfaction surveys in order to know if their products and services meet the needs of their customers. If the organization gets information from customers about its services and products, it will devise measures aimed at ensuring that it changes or adjusts according to the desires of its customers. Since the health care market is a competitive one, not meeting the expectations of customers means that other health care providers will take advantage of the situation win over most customers.

Customers are integral to the success of any business, and this is because they are the ones who buy products and services hence increasing revenues. Customer satisfaction and loyalty are important since they will ensure that customers are retained by the company since they will be constantly asking for the company’s products because it meets their needs. Customer satisfaction entails ensuring the company’s products meet the needs of its customers such as timely delivery and the product they buy meets its expected outcome. The success of a business largely depends on customer satisfaction since if the customer gets the expected results they will be loyal to the organization. Therefore, customer loyalty entails the customer always using the services of a particular company despite the fact that there are other providers with the same product. Customer retention entails having loyal customers who will not get the same services from a competitor (Adams, 2006). Lack of loyal customers will imply that a competitor will satisfy the desires of customers, hence the rate of retention of the organization will decrease, and this is how to assess customer loyalty.

A distinction between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty is important for an organization as it considers its financial investment in marketing strategies because it will ensure that the right resources are directed towards the loyal customers since they are the key to success.

Organizational branding is important because it makes the customers associate themselves with the organization’s products. It enables the customer to differentiate the organization’s products and services from those of a competitor hence creating customer loyalty (Berkowitz, 2010).

Market segmentation entails understanding the needs of different target groups that have different needs and meeting those needs. It is important because customers from different places will have different needs and understanding how to satisfy them creates customer satisfaction. I go for regular checkups at Kaiser Permanente, which is a health organization that provides healthcare services for its members to ensure that the community is healthy. The organization can apply market segmentation by opening branches in many states so that regardless of my location, I am able to get services from its branch in my current location. Branding is the relevant element of product strategy for Kaiser Permanente to use since the company name will be vital when deciding the hospital to choose to visit.

 

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