The Creation of Customer Satisfaction

The creation of customer satisfaction is accepted as being of major importance in business. The importance is based on the understanding that a business exists to make profits and that a business makes profits when customers buy the business's product or service. Without customers handing over their money to the business, a business cannot

The shift to relationship marketing is described saying, "a shift is clearly taking place from marketing to anonymous masses of customer, to developing and managing relationships with more or less well-known or at least somehow identified customers" (Gronroos 22). This shows that relationship marketing refers to an approach where the organization understands its customers and creates relationships with them. Customers are not treated as one mass group of people, but as individuals that interact with the organization and develop a relationship with it. One source describes how relationship marketing has become increasingly important to organizations, with companies recognizing how important it is to retain customers and what a positive impact this has on profitability (Gronroos 10).

This is relevant to the topic because it means that organizations must link their marketing activities to consumer needs. This is one the basic principles of marketing, where marketing activities are meant to be designed to identify and provide for consumer wants and needs. In short, a company that tries to market a product that consumers have no need or want for is likely to be wasting its time. In contrast, a company that identifies a consumer need and provides what the customer needs is likely to succeed. This is relevant to the topic for several reasons. Firstly, it means that the perception of the product or brand is not the only consideration an organization should have. An effective marketing strategy also needs to ensure that the perception of the product or brand matches with what consumers want and need. For example, an organization might decide that it wants to be perceived as an ethical and environmentally friendly company. The organization might spend time, energy, and advertising dollars creating this image of the company. The organization might be successful and consumers may have this impression of the company. However, if this is not important to consumers, it is not likely to make any difference to sales. In addition, if this is not accompanied by the company ensuring that its products meet consumer needs, it will not be effective. This shows that the image or perception of a product or company is only one factor that needs to be considered. It is just as important to ensure that the product or service meets the basic needs of consumers. In short, it does not matter how positively a consumer feels about a company. A consumer is not going to purchase an item only because they think positively about the company. They must also gain something from the purchase, which means that the product or service has to meet some need. This shows that image and perception is part of the marketing strategy, but is ineffective if the basics of marketing are not considered.

An understanding of consumer behavior will also show why the approach to marketing based on creating an image or perception is not enough. To start with, it is important to notes that consumer attitude has a major impact on consumer behavior. If a consumer has a positive attitude about the product, they are likely to buy it. If they do not, they are unlikely to buy it. Consumer attitude is not as simple as how a customer feels about a product. Instead, consumer attitude is divided into three parts.

The creation of value cannot occur with only a focus on the overall impression or image of the company, because value is not created in this way. Value is created by the services or features made available to the customer. This means that just focusing on the bigger picture will not allow the organization to add value. In turn, the organization misses out on a major source of increasing its effectiveness.

In other cases, marketing activities create wants that are not based on obvious needs. For example, there is no obvious need for a person to purchase cologne or perfume. That is, it is not essential to a person's survival to smell good. H

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Approximate Word count = 3410
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page double spaced)