Question One
In order to tame counter the increasing costs resulting from shipping and employ training, Zappos could instead the company look for another value adds opportunities costing less for its employees instead of raising their pays. This approach can work best especially when there is a possibility of losing key talents among employees. Strategies such as flexible working hours can lead to improved employee satisfaction that will ensure retention with no offering salary increment.
Training employees in other areas of specialization such as expense analysis and asking them to identify possible expenses reduction areas also come in handy. Employees then identify items with low-cost alternatives and meeting the company’s needs. In some cases, the identified items can be left out entirely without interfering with the company operations. Rewards for helping reduce expenses can be either in financial or incentive form, but incorporating recognition has proven motivational.Question Two
Offshoring is a form of outsourcing involving relocating a company’s business process(s) to a foreign country. For the case of a call centre it entails obtaining other service provider in a foreign country to help with the operation and management of the call centre. I think Zappos should opt for offshoring will help it with reducing or eliminating operating, infrastructural, overhead and labour cost since external service providers handles all those on its behalf. Since external service providers handle everything relating to hiring, training, and scheduling and much more, staffing issues gets eliminated thus saving Zappos time and resources on the same. Outsourcing call centre operations in most cases allows companies to offer 24/7 customers support at what can be considered a fraction of the actual price. The outsourced call centre can be a less costly solution to an expensive problem, only used in answering calls when call volumes are high. Properly planned offshoring raises a company’s confidence in its ability to satisfy their customer needs (Read, 2005). Question Three
Getting customers and retaining them is another daunting task. Ensuring that customers keep coming back is most essential than attracting them. Zappos can enhance its customers service through coming up with loyalty programs for its customers. Loyalty programs are essential in creating and maintaining engagement. Zappos can test different reward scenarios to measure which one boost customers’ buying habits. Customer engagement in earning can also be improved by managing expiry dates through different promotions (Read, 2005).
Serving customers in real time has proven effective in many businesses. It is normally perceived by people to be expensive, but that is not true. Use of targeted content and promotions has been used to send focused messages to customers.Question Four
Customer retention is in the mind of everyone with a business idea. Strategies one can employ to build customer loyalty include, but not limited to, setting customer’s expectations early enough. The best way to ensure this is through setting high expectations early of your customers. Doing this eliminates uncertainty and in the long run ensuring client’s needs are met in good time (Welsh, 2008).
Ensuring that you are an expert in your field of operation ensures loyal customers. Being an expert in a specific field mean, your customers will take you as their trusted advisor on any issue. Once trusted by a client, they will always rely on thus leading to dependency and identify with you all times. By putting customer interests first, your reward will eventually be trusted, that forms part of any long-term partnership.Question Five
Competition is an inevitable in business; therefore, developing counter strategies must be formulated. Approaches to remain relevant with competitors and customers are; building trust with customers through relationships. Research has it that the trust improves commitment and proposes building trust via shared values. Encouraging shared values here means developing interest in one’s customers and the business they do (Welsh, 2008).
References
Welsh, K. (2008). Happy about customer service? creating a culture of customer service excellence. Cupertion, CA.
