Task 1–Briefing note for a new manager who is inexperienced in our products and markets
Scope of the briefing note
The scope is a better understanding on our products and customers.
Purpose
The aim is to provide a general view about our products and customers to our new manager. Further more we will have a deeper look at how market research can ensure a high level of customer satisfaction in our branch.
Background
Our new manager has joined us from a different area and that’s why he is inexperienced in our products and clients.
Proposal
Organize a training session for the new manager and introduce our markets in which our organization operates and our main products.
Insight
Our company is specialized in global market research focusing on advertising, marketing communication, media and brand equity research. Our company is a leader in understanding the influences on brand choice and how market communication can affect the clients’ brands.
Our clients are the biggest multinational companies as Kraftfoods, Johnson&Johnson, Nestle, Nokia, Unilever etc. We help them to understand their consumer needs and to gain a better understanding we offer different market research techniques as quantitative and qualitative research methods. Both techniques have own features and which methods are used it is based on mostly our clients’ objectives and budget. Our clients mostly do not possess any marketing background and in this case they just tell us what they imagine. During the meeting the final methods will be specified and if the main part is clear for both sides, then we create the final proposal with the final price.
Quantitative data is built on individual responses, statistically measured, very structured, and can be repeated in the future. A very important feature has to be mentioned as well that the results are directly comparable. Quantitative data can be created for our clients using different products as copy testing (advertising pre-testing) and tracking.
Copy testing helps to associate the relevant images, moods and messages memorably with the brand. We can say if the commercial is entertaining or involving to the consumers, the people will remember this ad and the brand or not which plays an important role in the brand awareness.
Tracking studies help in evaluating the effects of the clients’ marketing decisions and it is about change in the consumers’ relationships with brands. It gives us a clear understanding what has changed and why those changes have happened. Tracking data gives us answers for different areas as changes in the brand performance, development of consumers’ relationships with their brands and the influence of advertising and marketing support.
Qualitative research method is more opened, dynamic and very flexible in our branch. This data is statistically not relevant because these studies cannot be repeated. It is typically deep diving in the information and goes beyond superficial responses. It counts on the creativity of the researcher and the respondents. It involves verbal and non-verbal communication.
This method is recommended to our clients if they want to understand in-depth what is going on consumers’ minds and need to generate insights, mostly on motivation, behavior, attitudes, habits or trends. Specifically our clients can use this method in case of strategy building, initial idea generation, new product concept development, advertising concept and creative development, understanding brand essence, shopping behavior and habits.
Two main types of qualitative research are famous and preferred. One of these is the group discussions which are best to conduct with 4-8 people. More people are difficult to handle by the moderator who leads the discussions. There are a lot of advantages of the group discussions as group dynamic, arguments and it is possible to explore responses to different point of views. Influencing each other or dominating people can be considered as a disadvantage of this technique. Different projective techniques can help the client and the moderator in better understanding of the consumers. The following techniques are used by our organization:
-Using collage which helps to understand the image of a brand
-Sentence completion and bubble drawing help in exploring the feelings
-Mapping / grouping helps in the segmentation of the brand. We can gather information how the people are thinking about the target audience, who they are (males or females), how old they are, where they live, what is their lifestyle, singles or couples with children, what their hobbies are etc.
-Association technique which very spontaneous and tells the first impression about the brand
The other main type is the in-depth interviews which are used for delicate topics. The individuals are the centre of the interviews and it is focused on the response of an individual. The ideal number of interviewing is 1-3 people. The client can be assured that the respondent is not influenced by other person and it provides pure response which can be an advantage. In-depth interviews are not always as rich and deep and the success largely depends on the respondent’s personality.
Task 2–Short essay addressing how well one particular marketing management concept/framework can help my organization to improve a higher level of customer satisfaction
In this task I would like to give a better understanding on internal marketing and how it is important in our organization’s every day life.
Internal marketing is a management philosophy and it is used by almost all types of companies as our company does as well. It is a process applied within the company or organization and motivates, empowers the employees at all management level to satisfy the customers. This should be build strong connection between the employee brand experience and customer brand experience.
I want to draw an attention for the core objectives of internal marketing which were defined by Berry and Parasuraman. The elements of the internal marketing are attraction, developing, motivation and retaining qualified employees (Berry and Parasuraman, 1992).
To reach highly effective internal marketing success within the company I think the following components are needed as to have the senior management support, an implemented organizational structure, HR partnership, employee engagement and internal brand communication.
It is enough to send email newsletters on regional and global level on regular basis to the employees. Generally we can say that the internal marketing communication is less expensive as the external communication. This approach has been using by our regional managers who are sitting in different places in Europe. We receive an update about regional news on monthly bases and our global CEO sends to everyone the global news and announcements.
Based on this initiative our managers have started to send us a monthly update via email about our achievements, business news in terms of profitability and gross margin in Switzerland. We can use our intranet as well for the latest news, information. Nowadays we can follow the initiatives, market ideas, brands via social media as Facebook or Twitter as well. I think to make development on internal communication programs is very positive because all the employees are informed about the latest news and it can improve the quality of the service (Hooley et al, 1998).
Parallel to this our senior management team makes an effort to keep up-do-date the employees about the new businesses or about the on-going projects which are client related. I believe that the best communication is still face-to-face because there are thoughts, opinions, ideas which come up through via open communication on ad-hoc meetings. Our team has started to have regular catch up outside of the office 1 time per week where there is no limitation on topics with the senior management and we have started to organize kick-off meetings regarding the projects which can help us to provide a better service to our clients.
In terms of organizational structure it has to be clear how the internal marketing communication is working within the company. Our company utilizes the communication with all employees on each level to ensure that everyone understands the client needs and is happy in their jobs to serve effectively the final customers. That’s why cross-functional meetings are held on monthly basis which is also new initiative in our company because of the growth of the company. From time to time more and more employees are joining to our company which has created the needs for the communication on all levels.
I think the organizational culture also determines the good quality of service towards the clients because it shows the employees engagements.
For successful internal marketing, I think human resources staff has also a very effective role. HR team must consistently seek to integrate innovations to train, communicate and receive feedback. HR has to use good HR practices as good workplace, job design, recruitment, development, rewards and recognition. All these things using with the appropriate technologies will create employee satisfaction which will be lead to customer satisfaction. These elements are shown in the service-profit chain by Heskett (Heskett et al., 1994).
Our company is running globally an employee satisfaction survey per year which is evaluated on regional level and country level. The data is compared to the previous years. One of the big changes is related to our office because our management team has requested to run this survey 2 times per year. The background is that the office is quite new and the management team wants to know how the employees think, feel about the company and customers. I am very curious if improvements will be shown by the figures in the next survey which will be run in June. Personally I feel improvements in our team as the communication among the team members has been improved in a positive way, the team members help each other in difficulties and help to understand our clients. These changes have affected our productivity and we can focus on the client’s needs more and more.
The other important element of HR activities is to organize different trainings for the employees from a specific level which help to provide a better service to the clients. These are specific internal trainings on our products, analysis, client’s management. Personally I took part in a training 2 weeks ago which linked to the qualitative studies and in May the whole team will participate in a special tool training which will help us to follow the projects step by step and that’s why we can keep better the deadlines towards the clients. It is essential to implement this tool because we have more and more projects, the timings are not automated yet for us which would make easier our every day work life. I am convinced that we can improve our deliveries dates if this tool will be implemented and used correctly by the employees within the company.
Employee engagement is an important result of an efficient and collaborative work environment where employees feel involved and motivated. To have this information the management team can initiative different internal researches which can help them to understand the current situation and the internal initiatives will create behavioral changes. In our case the management team conducted different informal meetings with us at the beginning of this year and the ideas were sought from us as employees. So the changes which are made mostly reflect our thoughts as common discussion about our needs and clients’ needs and the two sides were brought together in one for improvement in terms of trainings.
Piercy has pointed out the importance of internal and external satisfaction in his matrix which shows the relation between the customer satisfaction and the internal market. If I analyze our company and see the matrix, I am convinced that our company has reached improvement via different appraisals. At the beginning of this year our company has suffered from high staff turnover that’s why I put our team to the ‘alienation’ area. After a few months I can say that our team has reached the ‘coercion’ area where customer satisfaction has been generated by management control and higher values are reached (Piercy’s matrix, 1998). The aim is to reach the ‘synergy’ area which is the ideal world as happy customer and happy employees. From my point of view, it is difficult to reach this ideal world, which almost impossible till the people are working with people.
Internal brand communication should inform and engage employees to support brand initiatives. The internal materials as newspapers, flyers, brochures reflect the success of a brand and a company. These communication channels should aim to provide a better understanding about the work context whose don’t have strong connection to the clients. Our company uses a lot of formats of printed communication to make stronger the image of a brand or a company and it can provide an opportunity for market ideas, strategies (Helman and Payne, 1995).
Conclusion
I think that the internal marketing is an effective method to keep the connection between the employees and the brands. It depends mostly on the company culture and the individuals who are working for the company. Although each individual has to be interested in the work context otherwise it will create a negative interact with the stakeholders.
It is important that employees should feel the respect and involvement in creation of the company success. With these feelings the motivation will be sustained on long-term and the employees will reach a high performance.
The managers have also tasks and they should create the trust and commitment which is a good base to build successful external relationships. On the other hand the managers have to be sure that the employees are highly motivated which also helps to achieve a higher customer satisfaction.
REFERENCES
The Open University (2011) ‘B716 Management perspectives and practice’,
Managing marketing, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, The Open University