Customer Expectation as Key Driver to Online Marketing Business

Internet is changing the customer’s expectations as well as behaviour. Understanding the customer behaviour pattern holds the key to successful online business for Companies. Companies have begun to realise that the product as well as marketing strategies that work for traditional sales channels do not hold good for their E Commerce business models.

We now see that Organisations are slowly moving away from focussing on product technology, production efficiency as well as cost reduction strategies and getting to understand their product delivery and services from the E Customer’s perspective.

E Customer’s perspectives are forcing the E Commerce companies to change the value proposition of their business. The Customer’s perception of value is what holds good in the E Commerce scenario and the Companies have got to re engineer their business strategies as well as functions in line to deliver the so called ‘Value Innovation’.

If you look at the internet scenario, you will notice that the availability and reach of the competitors to the prospective customer’s is easier and the e market is crowded with competitors. How big or small, how old or new these organisations are, doesn’t matter to the prospective customer. What the customer is looking for is largely determined by his domestic situation.

Generally speaking, all customers who are browsing the internet looking to make a purchase are looking to finish with the purchase immediately due to lack of time. The time and speed as well as convenience of the e business model is what is prompting them to opt for online purchase.

The next criterion that drives the customer to buy online is the fact that they are able to quickly check out the rates amongst competition and go for the cheapest deal. At this stage the quality of the product or service is already taken for granted that it is expected to be nothing but the best.

The other factor that helps the customer go for the ‘click’ perhaps is the familiarity of the brand. In such a scenario, companies have no option but to keep ahead of the game by innovating and using technology and come out with ‘value perception’ schemes.

If you try to recall some of the most familiar names and brands on the internet the names like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, Amazon, EBay etc come to one’s mind easily. These companies have successfully engineered themselves to get closer to the customer and to provide the value perception.

Mac Donald’s have successfully built a brand internationally, a brand that promises certain quality and Customer experience. You get to see the One Dollar Store, No Frills flying and Daily lower prices by the retail giants having become popular with customers who feel happy with the value proposition.

Amazon.com has been hugely successful in using technology to deliver as well as exceed customer expectation in terms of value proposition and customer experience. The story of Amazon.com has become a case study with all business management courses.

Amazon has become an online business giant within a short span of time beating their rivals and continue to grow exponentially year on year. The reason for the success lies in understanding the Customer Expectation and using Technology to build and deliver value proposition to customers and achieve Customer delight. They have invested extensively into building e mail infrastructure that has made it an easy, pleasant and interesting to look for books as well as compare and buy them online.

Having added rich features of providing previews, press releases as well as by introducing the authors to the customers through the interviews, they have exceeded customer expectation and changed the value proposition for the customer.

Customer gets tangible value in terms of free shipping, availability of used and second hand books and many more add on benefits when he chooses to buy more from the online store. Innovation is not only limited to the normal online transactions alone.

Amazon makes it a point to listen to the customers and try to offer customized solutions. The customer looking for any particular book that is out of print or not available in inventory can contact the Customer service who will try and arrange for the specific book from the publishers or suppliers as the case may be. These innovations have made them the leaders in their field and has won customer loyalty.

Amazon’s customers are not the same as those who would buy from any book store. The geographic spread of the customers is across nations and international sales happy to hold a major share in its total sales, which means Amazon needs to have end to end service capability across all countries to be able to effect deliveries to the customer at his door step.

Innovation, building back-end capabilities and continuing to listen to the Customers and pre-empting their requirements for the future are the drivers that help with the Company’s business strategy.

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