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论优化服务营销增强顾客忠诚（文献翻译） 5
than treating all its customers the same, the company pays particular attention to enhancing their relationship with the good, tries to move the bad to the good, and discourages the ugly. Other companies also try to identify segments — or, more appropriately, tiers of customers — that differ in current and/or future profitability to a firm. This approach goes beyond usage or volume segmentation because it tracks costs and revenues for segments of customers, thereby capturing their financial worth to companies. After identifying profitability bands, the firm offers service and service levels in line with the identifying segments. Building a high-loyalty customer base of the right customers increases profits.
Although some people may view the FedEx grouping of customers into “the good, the bad, and the ugly” as negative, descriptive labels of the tiers can be very useful internally. Labels are especially valuable if they help the company keep track of which customers are profitable.
Virtually all firms are aware at some level that their customers differ in profitability, in particular, that a minority of their customers accounts for the highest proportion of sales or profit. This finding has often been called the “80/20 rule”— 20 percent of customers produce 80 percent of sales or profit.
In this version of tiering, 20 percent of the customers constitute the top tier, those who can be identified as the most profitable in the company. The rest are indistinguishable from each other but differ from the top tier in profitability. Most companies realize that there are differences among customers within this tier but do not possess the data or capabilities to analyze the distinctions. The 80/20 two-tier scheme assumes that consumers within the two tiers are similar, just as conventional market segmentation schemes typically assume that consumers within segments are similar.
However, more than two tiers are likely and can be used if the company has sufficient data to analyze customer tiers more precisely. Different systems and labels can be helpful. One useful four-tier system, includes the following:
1. The platinum tier describes the company’s most profitable customer, typically those who are heavy users of the product, are not overly price sensitive, are willing to invest in and try new offerings, and are committed customers of the firm. 2. The gold tier differs from the platinum tier in that profitability levels are not as high, perhaps because the customers want price discounts that limit margins or are not as loyal. The may be heavy users who minimize risk by working with multiple vendors rather than just the focal company. 3. The iron tier contains essential customers who provide the volume needed to utilize the firm’s capacity, but their spending levels, loyalty, and profitability are not substantial enough for special treatment. 4. The lead tier consists of customers who are costing the company money. They
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demand more attention than they are due given their spending and profitability and are sometimes problem customers — complaining about the firm to others and tying up the firm’s resources.
Not that this classification is superficially reminiscent of, but very different from, traditional usage segmentation performed by airlines such as American Airlines. Two differences are obvious. First, in the customer pyramid profitability rather than usage defines all levels. Second, the lower levels actually articulate classes of customers who require a different sort of attention. The firm must work either to change the customers’ behavior — to make them more profitable through increases in revenue — or to change the firm’s cost structure to make them more profitable through decreases in costs.
Examples of effective use of the customer pyramid approach exist in a number of business contexts. Financial services firms are leading the way, perhaps because of the vast amounts of data already housed in those firms. In 1994 Bank One realized that all financial institutions had grossly overcharged their best customers to subsidize others who were not paying their way. Determined to grow its top-profit customers, who were vulnerable because they were being underserved, Bank One implemented a set of measures to focus resources on their most productive use. Next it identified the profit drivers in this top segment and thereby stabilized its relationships with key customers.
Once a system has been established for categorizing customers, the multiple levels can be identified, motivated, served, and expected to deliver differential levels of profit. Companies improve their opportunities for profit when they increase shares of purchases by customers who either have the greatest need for the services or show the greatest loyalty to a single provider. By strengthening relationships with the loyal customers, increasing sales with existing customers, and increasing the profitability on each sale opportunity, companies thereby increase the potential of each customer. Whereas profitability tiers make sense from the company’s point of view, customers are not always understanding, nor do they appreciate being categorized into a less desirable segment. For example, at home companies the top clients have their own individual account representative whom they can contact personally. The next tier of clients may be handled by representatives who each have 100 clients. Meanwhile, most clients are served by an 800 number, an automated voice response system, or referral to a website. Customers are aware of this unequal treatment, and many resist and resent it. It makes perfect sense from a business perspective, but customers are often disappointed in the level of service they receive and give firms poor marks for quality as a result.
Therefore, it is increasingly important that firms communicate with customers so they understand the level of service they can expect and what they would need to do or pay to receive faster or more personalized service. The most significant issues result when customers do not understand, believe they have been singled out for poor service, or feel that the system is unfair. Although many customers refuse to pay for quality service, they react negatively if they believe it has been taken away from them
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unfairly.
The ability to segment customers narrowly based on profitability implications also raises questions of privacy for customers. In order to know who is profitable and who is not, companies must collect large amounts of individualized behavioral and personal data on consumers. Many consumers today resent what they perceive as an intrusion into their lives in this way, especially when it results in differential treatment that they perceive is unfair.
Prudent business managers are well aware that past customer purchase behavior, although useful in making predictions, can be misleading. What a customer spends today, or has spend in the past, may not necessarily be reflective of what he or she will do(or be worth) in the future. Banks serving college students know this well — a typical college student generally has minimal financial services needs ( i.e., a checking account) and tends to not have a high level of deposits. However, within a few years that student may embark on a professional career, start a family, and/or purchase a house, and thus require several financial services and become a potentially very profitable customer to the bank. Generally speaking, a firm would like to keep its consistent big spenders and lose the erratic small spenders. But all too often a firm also has two other groups they must consider: erratic big spenders and consistent small spenders. So, in some situations where consistent cash flow is a concern, it may be helpful to a firm to have a portfolio of customers that includes steady customers, even if they have a history of being less profitable. Some service providers have actually been quite successful in targeting customers who were previously considered to be unworthy of another firm’s marketing efforts. Paychex, a payroll processing company, became very successful in serving small business that the major companies in this industry did not think were large enough to profitably serve. Similarly, Progressive Insurance became very successful in selling automobile insurance to undesirable customers — young drivers and those with poor driving records — that most of the competition did not feel had a sufficient relationship value. Firms, therefore, need to be cautious in blindly applying customer value calculations without thinking carefully about the implications.
2.3
Relationship Challenges
Given the many benefits of long-term customer relationships, it would seem that a company would not want to refuse or terminate a relationship with any customer. Yet, situations arise in which either the firm, the customer, or both want to end (or have to end) their relationship.
The assumption that all customers are good customers is very compatible with the belief that “the customer is always right,” an almost sacrosanct tenet of business. Yet any service worker can tell you that this statement is not always true, and in some cases it may be preferable for the firm and the customer to not continue their relationship.
A company cannot target its services to all customers; some segments will be
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more appropriate than others. It would not be beneficial to either the company or the customer for a company to establish a relationship with a customer whose needs the company cannot meet. For example, a school offering a lock-step, daytime MBA program would not encourage full-time working people to apply for its program, nor would a law firm specializing in government issues establish a relationship with individuals seeking advice on trusts and estates. There examples seem obvious. Yet firms frequently do give in to the temptation to make a sale by agreeing to serve a customer who would be better served by someone else.
Similarly, it would not be wise to forge relationships simultaneously with incompatible market segments. In many service businesses(such as restaurants, hotels, tour package operators, entertainment, and education), customers experience the service together and can influence each other’s perceptions about value received. Thus, to maximize service to core segment, an organization may choose to turn away marginally profitable segments that would be incompatible. For example, a conference hotel may find that mixing executives in town for a serious educational program with students in town for a regional track meet may not be wise. If the executive group is a key long-term customer, the hotel may choose to pass up the sports group in the interest of retaining the executives.
3 Service Recovery
3.1 The Impact Of Service Failure And Recovery
Service recovery refers to the actions taken by an organization in response to a service. Failures occur for all kinds of reasons — the service may be unavailable when promised, it may be delivered late or too slowly, the outcome may be incorrect or poorly executed, or employees may be rude or uncaring. All these types of failures bring about negative feelings and responses from customers. Left unfixed, they can result in customers leaving, telling other customers about their negative experiences, and even challenging the organization through consumer rights organizations or legal channels.
Research has shown that resolving customer problems effectively has a strong impact on customer satisfaction, loyalty, word-of-mouth communication, and bottom-line performance. That is, customers who experience service failures but who are ultimately satisfied based on recovery efforts by the firm, will be more loyal than those whose problems are not resolved. That loyalty translates into profitability, Customers who complain and have their problems resolved quickly are much more likely to repurchase than are those whose complaints are not resolved. Those who never complain are least likely to repurchase.
Similar results were reported in a study 720 HMO members in which researchers found that those who were not satisfied with service recovery were much more likely