COURSE OVERVIEW:
More and more managers are looking for customer focus to help fight the pressures of rising costs, global competition and falling sales. But it’s not simply a case of trying to get closer to your customers. There are more strategic decisions that if made can make your marketing more lean, more focused and more successful.
Market orientation is an approach to business that prioritises identifying the needs and desires of consumers and creating products and services that satisfy them. Companies that have a market orientation consider the opinions and needs of their target market as a critical component of their research and development (R&D) for new products.
It may sound obvious, but advocates of market orientation argue that the conventional approach to product development is the opposite. That is, marketing strategies focus on establishing key selling points to promote existing products rather than designing products that have the qualities consumers say they want.
Market orientation is a customer-centred approach to product design. It involves market research aimed at determining what consumers view as their immediate needs, primary concerns, or personal preferences within a particular product category.
Market orientation often includes improvements in customer service and product support geared to solving concerns raised by consumers. This helps ensure customer satisfaction remains high with the company as a whole and promotes brand loyalty and positive word-of-mouth advertising.
To be successful, companies need to ensure that all departments adopt and promote the market orientation approach so that it becomes an integral part of the corporate culture. When effective, market orientation can help a company increase customer retention and propel growth in new demographics.
This course will help you understand market orientation and what it means for you. It will help you recognise ways you can contribute to customer value in your organisation and understand how to improve customer satisfaction and customer relationships. Also, will help you evaluate changes that could be made to structure, products and services to enhance the offer.
The first part of this course explores why marketing and customers are an important aspect of management and who your customers are. The second part evaluates how you can make an effective contribution to customer satisfaction in your organisation. The third part discusses how positioning, pricing and branding strategy is the key to the growth and development of most organisations. The fourth part explores what product and service management means and how it can be improved. Then discusses how to monitor customer satisfaction and after-sales service.
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
- Learn about market orientation and what it means for you as a manager
- Understand the marketing concept
- Understand the framework for market orientation and types of orientation
- Understand the marketing mix and its contribution to growth and development
- Identify and overcome barriers to successful market orientation
- Recognise and develop customer groups and set aims, targets and conditions for success
- Understand what resources are required for effective market orientation.
- Learn about the factors you can influence that make customers satisfied
- Understand the internal environment for customer focus
- Evaluate your understanding of your own and your customers’ values
- Understand the importance of key account and customer relationship management
- Understand the elements of key account management
- Assess relationships between customers and suppliers within partnerships
- Evaluate the need for positioning and branding or special identity to capture a position in the market
- Understand and develop positioning strategies
- Identify the common positioning errors
- Identify the advantages and disadvantages of branding strategies
- Review pricing policies and pricing objectives
- Understand what factors affect pricing and positioning in the market
- Identify basic buying behaviours and the key decision-makers
- Understand the concept of the total product
- Understand the product life cycle and how products can be improved
- Understand the product-service continuum and how services can be improved
- Communicate the value proposition and improve customer satisfaction
- Measure customer satisfaction through the SERVQUAL model
- Learn about customer satisfaction and what happens when it goes wrong
- Examine how the marketing offer can be improved through products and services
- Monitor customer value and examine after sales service
COURSE DURATION:
The typical duration of this course is approximately 2-3 hours to complete. Your enrolment is Valid for 12 Months. Start anytime and study at your own pace.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
You must have access to a computer or any mobile device with Adobe Acrobat Reader (free PDF Viewer) installed, to complete this course.
COURSE DELIVERY:
Purchase and download course content.
ASSESSMENT:
A simple 10-question true or false quiz with Unlimited Submission Attempts.
CERTIFICATION:
Upon course completion, you will receive a customised digital “Certificate of Completion”.