Customer Acquisition - Meaning & Process

Customer acquisition is the process of acquiring new customers for business or converting existing prospect into new customers. 

The importance of customer acquisition varies according to the specific business situation of an organization. This process is specifically concerned with issues like acquiring customers at less cost, acquiring as many customers as possible, acquiring customers who are indigenous and business oriented, acquiring customers who utilize newer business channels etc.

The whole process should concentrate on following considerations:

1. Primarily it is important to determine and focus on psychology of customers, like how the customers feel and think and then selecting the product segment to be presented to them.
2. Concentrating on how the customers are influenced by the surrounding environment like the business culture, technology, media etc.
3. Analysis of customer behavior and tendency while buying specific range of product.
4. Studying the customer’s limitation of knowledge processing power which influence the decision making power.
5. Finally it’s very important to engage best strategies for effectively convincing new customers and improving marketing campaigns.

6.   Customer acquisition techniques change with technological changes. There is always a need to optimize and upgrade the traditional ways of marketing channels available. Exploring new methods to entertain customers is important to remain in competition and have high acquisition rate.

7.   Acquiring a customer depends on how effectively the organization is able to build a comprehensive relationship with that customer. When suppliers have healthy relationship with customers, the revenue of the organization always increases as customers tend to buy more and more. There is possibility that a satisfied customer seek to buy special category of related products apart from the regular ones from that particular supplier. For instance if a satisfied and loyal customer has a home insurance policy from an insurance company then there are positive chances that he could also insure his property and car if he is fully satisfied with the services of that insurance company. This will definitely result in growth of business.

8.     While acquiring, the nature of response provided to acquisition is the key aspect to create an impressive opinion in customer’s mindset. Hence, the suppliers should always have prompt, responsive and experienced executives to serve customers. For example, if a customer calls and asks about some critical features of any product and the executive fails to explain it or being non-responsive to most of his questions then the customer could probably divert his way to some other organization for better response which could definitely result in end of the deal and relationship with that customer.

9.     Improving customer acquisition is the primary challenge which an organization faces. Hence it is important to identify critical approaches to enhance customer acquisition power. This includes acquiring more number of customers or more number of attractive customers at low cost. One of the best strategies to acquire new customers is performing promotional campaigns. These campaigns should be efficient and well targeted to customers. Encouragement of customer referrals can also attract new customers. It is always a cost-free advocacy by customers to provide referrals to supplier when they feel satisfied and encouraged and when they have a healthy relationship with customers. These referrals or customer’s reference of other customers act like a piece of cake for suppliers as there is no cost and struggle involved in this.

10.  For enhancing the revenue, the organization should always balance the number of customers acquired with number of customers who divert to different organizations. Failing to which will definitely effect the economic growth of the organization.

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Customer Relationship Management - What is CRM ?

Every business unit emphasizes on spurting a long term relationship with customers to nurture its stability in today’s blooming market. Customer’s expectations are now not only limited to get best products and services, they also need a face-to-face business in which they want to receive exactly what they demand and in a quick time.

Customer Relationship Management is an upright concept or strategy to solidify relations with customers and at the same time reducing cost and enhancing productivity and profitability in business.

An ideal CRM system is a centralized collection all data sources under an organization and provides an atomistic real time vision of customer information. A CRM system is vast and significant, but it be can implemented for small business, as well as large enterprises also as the main goal is to assist the customers efficiently.

Usually an organization consists of various departments which predominantly have access to customer’s information either directly or indirectly. A CRM system piles up this information centrally, examines it and then makes it addressable within all the departments. Lets take an example of an international call center which uses a CRM tool called ‘xyz’ and is integrated with a phone and a computer system or laptop. Now this system automatically perceives which customer is calling. Before the executive attends the phone the CRM system brings forth the customer details on the computer or laptop screen and also indicates what the opportunity of deals is with that particular customer, what the customer had already purchased or ordered in past and what is the probability of buying in future. Not only this, it can also highlight what all products best suit this customer. For finance department it may show the information regarding the current balance and for accounting department it may pop out the information regarding the recent purchases by the customer. All these pieces of data are stored in the CRM database and are available as and when it is needed. 

According to this example, CRM system provides a well defined platform for all business units to interact with their clients and fulfill all their needs and demands very effectively and to build long-term relationship.

Wangling this kind of relationship with customers is not easy to manage and it depends on how the systematically and flexibly a CRM system is implemented or integrated. But once it’s accomplished it serves the best way in dealing with customers. In turn customers feels gratitude of self-satisfaction and loyalty which results in better bonding with supplier and hence increasing the business.

A CRM system is not only used to deal with the existing customers but is also useful in acquiring new customers. The process first starts with identifying a customer and maintaining all the corresponding details into the CRM system which is also called an ‘Opportunity of Business’. The Sales and Field representatives then try getting business out of these customers by sophistically following up with them and converting them into a winning deal.

Customer Relationship Management strategies have given a new outlook to all the suppliers and customers to keep the business going under an estimable relationship by fulfilling mutual needs of buying and selling.

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Import & Export Management

Perspective on International Trade

International trades between countries and across continents have existed for centuries including previous civilizations. Traditionally international trade consisted of traded goods like textile, food items, spices, precious metals, precious stones, and objects of art and various items across the borders. Everybody has heard of the silk route as well as amber road and other famous routes that existed and the ports and settlements that flourished due to the trade, which was carried on through land route as well as sea routes.

We have come a long way since the earlier times and International trade today has taken on new dimension. It was a fact earlier that impact of trade between two countries was not limited to economics alone, but fuelled political, social ambitions too.

Today with the advancement of technology and impact of globalization has made it necessary for all countries to engage necessarily in international trade for their survival.

Various factors including but not limited to industrialization, development of transportation, globalization, technology that enables trade and communication has contributed to change in the format of business organizations as well as trade practices.

Companies and Organizations today are no longer entities with a local identity. Multi national organizations have emerged through the previous century with footprints all over the globe. They have in fact shrunk the earth and changed the way businesses are conducted. Companies no longer limit themselves to local markets. 

They no longer depend upon local resources. These companies setup manufacturing wherever it is conducive in terms of cheaper resource availability as well as support from local government and in terms of markets, geographical boundaries do not bother them. They are present everywhere.

Technology in terms of communication as well as software technology has changed the way business organizations manage activities be it manufacturing, procurement, finance or sales. Today software applications drive the processes and work at the speed of thought.

In present scenario, no country can afford to remain isolated from and not participate in globalization.

While countries do open their economies to global competition, they need to tread very carefully not to upset their domestic economy and protected industries. This balancing act is often managed through individual countries trade and tariff policy, which forms a part of each countries foreign trade policy that governs its approach to international trade and commerce.

Post Second World War, World Trade Organization has been playing major role in facilitating and attempting to streamline the global trade and tariff structures with an aim to move towards free trade. However in reality, free trade may just be a dream as long as there is no parity between developed and developing economies.

Today most of the countries are party to several bi-lateral as well as multi lateral tariff and trade agreements like GATT — General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade though which they regulate imports and exports to and from specific countries.

In the last few decades we have seen the emergence of services export and imports and it is continually growing.

Developing countries are harnessing their intellectual capital to provide software services to the developed countries.

Today’s international trade has many more new dimensions like intellectual property, a variety of services, trade related investments, Bilateral and Multilateral Trade Agreements, Establishing terms for trade in services, investments as well as creating climate for dispute settlement.

Managing International trade has multi dimensional aspects, which need to be considered, by each country. Any political, economic or other events anywhere in on the earth have an impact on each countries international trade. We have seen the impact of recession in one country affecting across the globe. We have also seen impact of financial markets crash in one country having ripple effects all over the world.

Any Business Manager holding responsibility of a business function in an organization today would have to be equipped with the macro level understanding of the world trade, macroeconomics, macro finance and its impact. He needs to understand at the micro level export and import policies and procedures of various countries to be able to steer his business ahead in accordance with the existing environment. It is his ability to fore see the risks, assess the impact and manage the risk that is going to be detrimental to his organization’s success.

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Seven C's of Effective Communication

There are 7 C’s of effective communication which are applicable to both written as well as oral communication. These are as follows:

1. Completeness - The communication must be complete. It should convey all facts required by the audience. The sender of the message must take into consideration the receiver’s mind set and convey the message accordingly. A complete communication has following features:
• Complete communication develops and enhances reputation of an organization.
• Moreover, they are cost saving as no crucial information is missing and no additional cost is incurred in conveying extra message if the communication is complete.
• A complete communication always gives additional information wherever required. It leaves no questions in the mind of receiver.
• Complete communication helps in better decision-making by the audience/ readers/ receivers of message as they get all desired and crucial information.
• It persuades the audience.
2. Conciseness - Conciseness means wordiness, i.e, communicating what you want to convey in least possible words without forgoing the other C’s of communication. Conciseness is a necessity for effective communication. Concise communication has following features:
• It is both time-saving as well as cost-saving.
• It underlines and highlights the main message as it avoids using excessive and needless words.
• Concise communication provides short and essential message in limited words to the audience.
• Concise message is more appealing and comprehensible to the audience.
• Concise message is non-repetitive in nature.
3. Consideration - Consideration implies “stepping into the shoes of others”. Effective communication must take the audience into consideration, i.e, the audience’s view points, background, mind-set, education level, etc. Make an attempt to envisage your audience, their requirements, emotions as well as problems. Ensure that the self-respect of the audience is maintained and their emotions are not at harm. Modify your words in message to suit the audience’s needs while making your message complete. Features of considerate communication are as follows:
• Emphasize on “you” approach.
• Empathize with the audience and exhibit interest in the audience. This will stimulate a positive reaction from the audience.
• Show optimism towards your audience. Emphasize on “what is possible” rather than “what is impossible”. Lay stress on positive words such as jovial, committed, thanks, warm, healthy, help, etc.
4. Clarity - Clarity implies emphasizing on a specific message or goal at a time, rather than trying to achieve too much at once. Clarity in communication has following features:
• It makes understanding easier.
• Complete clarity of thoughts and ideas enhances the meaning of message.
• Clear message makes use of exact, appropriate and concrete words.
5. Concreteness - Concrete communication implies being particular and clear rather than fuzzy and general. Concreteness strengthens the confidence. Concrete message has following features:
• It is supported with specific facts and figures.
• It makes use of words that are clear and that build the reputation.
• Concrete messages are not misinterpreted.
6. Courtesy - Courtesy in message implies the message should show the sender’s expression as well as should respect the receiver. The sender of the message should be sincerely polite, judicious, reflective and enthusiastic. Courteous message has following features:
• Courtesy implies taking into consideration both viewpoints as well as feelings of the receiver of the message.
• Courteous message is positive and focused at the audience.
• It makes use of terms showing respect for the receiver of message.
• It is not at all biased.
7. Correctness - Correctness in communication implies that there are no grammatical errors in communication. Correct communication has following features:
• The message is exact, correct and well-timed.
• If the communication is correct, it boosts up the confidence level.
• Correct message has greater impact on the audience/ readers.
• It checks for the precision and accurateness of facts and figures used in the message.
• It makes use of appropriate and correct language in the message.

Awareness of these 7 C’s of communication makes you an effective communicator.

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