Introduction
Best Buy is leading consumer electronics retailer in the USA. Its new program, Customer Centricity, is aimed to sustain its brand image and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. The uniqueness of this approach is that it combines such important elements as culture, segmentation and effective marketing. For Best Buy organization structure to the point is focused on customer satisfaction. For best Buy, to remain competitive, this is not enough. Customer centricity strategy becomes customer-driven and commitment-based. The intended strategy must further evolve to optimize customer loyalty and value. Where the new strategy is focused on customer needs, customer-driven, commitment-based structures concentrate on exceeding and anticipating them.
Customer Centricity Strategy
The main idea of customer-centricity strategy is to put customers at the center of business. All strategies and goals of the company are aimed to meet customers’ needs and demands. These structures have goals of customer satisfaction, connecting personal performance objectives, and group assessment to this objective; the goal of customer-driven arrangement is customer retention. The strategy aims to improve loyalty and create a new culture at Best Buy. Performance, evaluation, recognition, and reward are now related to creating value and to retention goals. Best Buy customers have a definite partnership role on corporate goals. At Best Buy a cross-functional approach to a customer included customers helps the company significantly reduce an industry headache–transaction time involved in the sales itself. At best Buy, sales managers become “advisors” for existing customers, filling their non-selling time (almost 80% of their working day) with contact and other post-sale promotion activity. Changes in employees-centric culture led to new vision of the company and its mission statement (Doyle and Stern 32, see appendix 1,2,3).
Rationale for this Shift
The rationale for this shift was caused by market demands and increased competition, geographical expansion and acquisition strategy. As a commitment-based company, Best Buy is more actively involved in service delivery. Customer service operates as a profit center. There are more cross-functional strategies, more cross-training, more cross-boundary education on behalf of the customers. Business expansion and growth demanded new methods of doing business and new tools in customer communication. Best Buy staff can provide sales follow-ups, enhancements, and add-ons. Best Buy employees can reclaim lost customers. They can survey current or lost customers and generate unexpressed claims. Best Buy conducts outbound communication and promotional programs. In addition, Best Buy employees support customers in such areas as finance and delivery.
The Key Areas of Success
The key areas of success are new culture and responsiveness to change. Best Buy operates synergistically and proactively, generating value and affiliation for the customer. Systems allow Best Buy to learn about the needs, problems, expectations, and complaints of its internal and external consumers. They guide the design and modification of products and services. They deliver these products and services to the end customer. Best Buy management provides for information gathering, storage and retrieval, and interchange inside and outside the organization. The customer-centricity helps Best Buy learn about best practices, industry, and the world beyond. Customer Centricity is a disciplined approach to learning from others, and applying that knowledge and insight for development. Customer Centricity supports performance target goal-setting, maintenance or improvement of competitive stance, and a focus of Best Buy resources on proactive, meaningful change (Ingram, et al 31). Best Buy talks about internal communication and listening. Closely related to employee communication are skills enhancement and internal and external staff empowerment. As with interaction, these are areas of challenge for best Buy.
Evaluation of the Strategy
Controls and statistical measures can be used by Best Buy to evaluate effectiveness and efficiency of the new strategy. These measures can involve historical sales comparison, financial analysis and evaluation of customer’s personal surveys and responses. The proposed approach generates calendars and recommended customer contact updates, enabling front-line sales staff to be more proactive and creative. A satisfaction focus equates to innovations, systems, style, staff, strategy, skills, and shared values. Focusing on customer attitudes at Best Buy is reactive, frequently correlating well with potential or actual defection levels. Focusing on customer behavior, or intended behavior, is proactive and necessitates transformations (Fill 41). Similarly, new model is responsible for acquiring new customers. Sales managers, in fact, are often compensated on the size or the number of new customers generated during a given period. Customer service, the group having heavy customer communication, also has a largely reactive relationship with buyers.
Conclusion
The case of best Buy vividly portrays that customer-centricity strategy allows companies to concentrate on a potential buyer and meet his needs and demands. Becoming committed to improving customer loyalty and value, while oriented to positive bottom-line results, leads to innovations and serves to include and involve staff in the company’s objectives. Customer orientation tends to be more gradual, interactive, and lasting. Above all, priorities for improvement at Best Buy are driven by customers. Best Buy seeking to focus on customers can afford traditional hierarchies and bureaucracies. Fiefdoms and decision-making control or information hoarding inhibit communication and cross-functionalism and create barriers to listening and cooperating, improves attention to customers. Customer centricity strategy was a real success to best Buy as it creates a new effective culture and attracts more buyers. The responsibility of staff is to help sales attract new customers and to help other stakeholders, particularly customer service, satisfy current customers.
Works Cited
Best Buy Co. Inc. Case Study. Darden Business Publishing.
Doyle, P., Stern, Ph. Marketing Management and Strategy. Financial Times/Prentice Hall; 4 edition, 2006.
Fill, C. Marketing Communication: Contexts, Contents, and Strategies 2 edn. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003.
Ingram, et al. Marketing: Principles and Perspectives/ McGraw-Hill/Irwin; 4 Edition, 2003.