Inter-Global Medicare - Customer Satisfaction - Essay Example

IMC & SATISFACTION Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Advertising Strategy 3 Measuring the Effectiveness of Advertising 3 Other Promotional Strategies 4 Measuring Customer Satisfaction 5 Addressing the Gaps in Customer Expectations and Experiences 5 References 7 IMC & Customer Satisfaction of Inter-Global Medicare Advertising Strategy Advertising is a means of mass communication wherein the consumers are persuaded to avail any product or service offered by an organization that can effectively result in increasing the satisfaction of the customers (Green, 2011, p. 12). Advertising strategy is an integral and crucial part of the marketing plan of an organization. In case of Inter-Global Medicare, its advertising strategies are needed to be designed in such a way that it leads to increased satisfaction for its customers and help in achieving its overall marketing goals and objectives. Since, the company would try to offer its products and services to its customers in a cost effective way, hence the advertising strategy should be such which does not lead to incurring high cost for the company and at the same time communicates to its potential target customers in an effective manner. The best way to advertise the products and services offered by Inter-Global Medicare would be the use of digital media. Digital advertising tools such as through its websites, social networking websites, search engines, e-mails, etc. could be effectively used by the company to advertise its products. This can help achieve the overall marketing goals of the organization by reducing the costs incurred on advertising and thereby adding to the profits of the company. Through by effectively utilizing digital media the company would be able to communicate with greater number of people while incurring less cost, and could thus help in boosting the sales and profitability of the company. Measuring the Effectiveness of Advertising The job of advertising the products and services of Inter-Global Medicare is not complete until and unless a measuring tool is designed which can evaluate the effectiveness of the advertising strategies employed by the organization (Wells, 1997, p. 4). Now since it is suggested that the company would use digital advertising strategies, it would be ideal for the organization to design an internet based tool that would have a response corner on all the websites where the company products and services are advertised. Whenever a consumer visits the websites and clicks on the advertisement, he would be required to give feedbacks and fill in his contact details. Analysis tools are available which can be used by the company to measure the number of customers who have actually visited its advertisements and what are their viewpoints or queries regarding the products and services offered by the company. In this way it can prove to be an effective tool for measuring the effectiveness of the advertising strategy employed by Inter-Global Medicare. Other Promotional Strategies Apart from advertising three other promotional activities can be undergone by Inter-Global Medicare. They are: a) Publicity, b) Sampling, and c) Sales promotions (G. E. Belch & M. A. Belch., 2003, p. 690). Promotion is all about communicating with the potential customers of the company about the products and services offered by them and publicity is a cost effective and reliable method of undergoing promotional activities. Hence, Inter-Global Medicare could use various public relation vehicles to promote its products and services like sponsorships, endorsements, and press releases. Sampling is another means of promoting the products offered by the company wherein free sample of the products of the company or discount coupons can be offered to the customers to prove its cost leadership in the market. This would help to increase the customer base of the company. Lastly, sales promotion using the pricing strategy is an effective way of promoting the products of the company and increasing its sales. It can be done through offering discount coupons, cash refunds, organizing contests, loyalty rewards, etc. Measuring Customer Satisfaction Customer satisfaction is critical towards the success of any business organization. Hence, it is important for organizations like Inter-Global Medicare to measure satisfaction levels of its customers to determine how it is managing its business operations to achieve its future goals and objectives. The company would also be able to measure its strengths and weaknesses and identify new prospective markets for its products through the measurement of customer satisfaction levels. There are various ways that can be implemented by the company to measure customer satisfaction like, unsolicited feedback, follow up calls, customer tracking and customer surveys (Hill, Brierley, & MacDougall, 2003). For Inter-Global Medicare, the best option would be to organize online customer surveys at regular intervals to keep a track on how well the company is performing and what are the perceptions of the customers regarding their offered products and services. Hence, analyzing those customer satisfaction surveys the company could address any issues concerned with the business activities followed by them and build upon their strengths to further increase the customer satisfaction levels. Addressing the Gaps in Customer Expectations and Experiences The first step towards addressing the gaps between customer expectations and experiences is to properly identify the customer expectations and their perceptions about the products and services being offered by Inter-Global Medicare. As discussed earlier customer satisfaction or feedback surveys would be utilized by the company to measure the customer satisfaction levels. The survey responses can be helpful to identify the customer expectations and then a list could be prepared after reviewing the results of the survey which would include the customer expectation gaps. Next, a list of ways could be formulated which could address all the issues cited in the customer feedback list. As for example if poor customer service is one of the issues of the company then training sessions could be organized for the employees to educate them as to how to deal with the customers in an effective manner. An audit could be organized for comparing the price and quality of the products and services offered by Inter-Global Medicare with that of the current market trends. This would help to assess the optimum price and quality of the products that could be offered by the company. Hence, the existing gap between the customer expectations and experiences could be narrowed down by implementing corresponding changes in the marketing strategy employed by the organization. Both the employees of the organization and the customers are needed to be made aware of the changes in the business activities taking place in the company (Grönroos, 2007). References Belch, G. E., & Belch, M. A. (2003). Advertising and promotion: An integrated marketing communications perspective. (6th ed.). New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill. Green, J. (2011). Advertising. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group. Grönroos, C. (2007). Service management and marketing: Customer management in service competition. (3rd ed.). New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Hill, N., Brierley, J., & MacDougall, R. (2003). How to measure customer satisfaction. (2nd ed.). Hampshire: Gower Publishing, Ltd. Wells, W. D. (1997). Measuring advertising effectiveness. London: Routledge. Read More