Introduction
The sphere of goods and services promotion as one of the most rapidly developing sectors requires the active involvement of relevant strategies and techniques providing the assessment of significant factors. Marketers resort to various resources, including both theoretical aspects, for instance, the modern principles of preserving customer interest, and practical techniques related to the introduction of innovations. Promotional work is the area where consumer participation plays an essential role and largely determines and companies’ policies. This work is aimed at describing such concepts as customer value, satisfaction, and loyalty in the context of marketing management and their benefits for business organizations.
Customer Value, Satisfaction, and Loyalty in Marketing Management
The concepts of value, satisfaction, and customer loyalty are important criteria influencing current trends in companies’ operations and governing target asset allocation strategies. It is also essential to note that these terms are interconnected and intersect constantly. According to Xu, Peak, and Prybutok (2015), “both customer value and satisfaction are significant antecedents of customer loyalty” (p. 174). Therefore, each of the phenomena should be considered in more detail concerning marketing management.
Customer Value
Sellers’ resources are not inexhaustible, and their desire to establish contact with customers and thereby ensure a stable profit is justified. For this purpose, as part of marketing activities, measures are taken to assess customer value, the category that, like Ali, Kim, Li, and Jeon (2018) remark, allows identifying a group of buyers with the greatest investment attractiveness and plan further activities based on the obtained indicators. Sellers are interested in the recovery of their investment in relationships with clients; therefore, marketers aim their activities at determining prospects for interaction with consumers and the value of each customer’s contribution.
Customer Satisfaction
The degree of customer satisfaction affects client re-purchase decisions and feedbacks. This, in turn, stimulates demand and contributes to promoting certain products in the market. Xu et al. (2015) argue that this concept “transforms the initial consumption and purchase to post-purchase phenomena such as attitude change, re-patronage, and brand loyalty” (p. 177). An opportunity to influence the preferences of consumers and achieve their recognition opens up significant prospects for marketers, for instance, selling a large number of products, obtaining stable profits, and other positive outcomes of promotional work. Therefore, customer satisfaction is one of the valuable aspects of marketing management.
Customer Loyalty
Customer loyalty involves the commitment of consumers to one brand or a specific product. The basis of this phenomenon is client contentment with the quality of a particular product, its presentation, service, and other aspects that form a positive attitude. The result of this commitment is repeated purchases, and marketers seek to improve these indicators by creating new involvement strategies.
Ali et al. (2018) note that the experience gained “can be considered to be a vital determinant of customer loyalty,” and due to modern capabilities and technologies, buyers have an opportunity to appreciate the ingenuity of sellers (p. 2). The difficulty lies in the fact that competition is the inevitable outcome of any active business. As a result, marketers are forced to make efforts to provide a certain company with a stable client base and, consequently, profits.
Importance of Focusing on Customer Value, Satisfaction, and Loyalty
Since all three considered marketing concepts are closely interrelated with one another, their importance to the success of a company’s activities can be viewed in a general context, although each of the phenomena has its unique features. According to Chen and Wang (2016), creating a positive business environment means complying with the conditions for effective interaction between customers and sellers to avoid the loss of demand and profits.
The significance of the concepts under consideration is largely due to competition as the inevitable phenomenon of the modern market. In case buyers stop preferring products of a certain brand, their owners will not only lose their potential source of income but also will not be able to hold leading positions, which is fraught with the complete loss of business status. However, if marketers of the company achieve customers’ interest in specific goods and services, as evidenced by ever-increasing demand, such an organization acquires the image of a reliable and strong participant in the business sphere. Therefore, the concepts of customer value, satisfaction, and loyalty should be taken into account when planning a development strategy.
Among the priorities of any company, it is necessary to note the formation of prerequisites for effective relationships with customers. Such factors may include brand awareness and a good image, high quality of goods sold and services provided, product competitiveness, and positive interaction with consumers.
As Chen and Wang (2016) state, all these aspects help to ensure that those clients whose needs can be fully satisfied are ready to return to a particular seller. In this case, a permanent target audience appears, which is of particular value to any company due to the large volume of purchases made. The value of this interaction is also related to the fact that potential clients may get acquainted with the positive experience of other people, thereby increasing product awareness and the success of a certain organization in the market.
Marketers’ ability to retain customers contributes to the financial growth of companies and largely determines business success. When utilizing data about what values are essential for customers at a specific period, what needs are considered to be the most relevant, and on what factors the changes in preferences depend, promotional work specialists can develop appropriate product introduction strategies. Therefore, in the context of marketing management, the considered concepts of long-term customer relationships play a significant role.
Conclusion
Such concepts of long-term customer relationships as customer value, satisfaction, and loyalty are the essential factors of successful marketing management. The advantages of these criteria include sellers’ opportunity to assess consumer interest and retain buyers. The economic growth of business organizations, which is carried out due to a constant target audience, is the evidence of marketers’ effective work about all the strategies considered.
References
Ali, F., Kim, W. G., Li, J., & Jeon, H. M. (2018). Make it delightful: Customers’ experience, satisfaction and loyalty in Malaysian theme parks. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, 7, 1-11. Web.
Chen, C. F., & Wang, J. P. (2016). Customer participation, value co-creation and customer loyalty – A case of airline online check-in system. Computers in Human Behavior, 62, 346-352. Web.
Xu, C., Peak, D., & Prybutok, V. (2015). A customer value, satisfaction, and loyalty perspective of mobile application recommendations. Decision Support Systems, 79, 171-183. Web.