A strategic plan is the result of the choices made by the corporate executive on how to deal with customers and how to conduct the operations of the company in order to maximize profits and progress the company’s agenda. To formulate an effective strategy plan, the executives need to know the Result they want to achieve, the Purpose of the strategy and the Massive action plan they need to achieve that result. To formulate a successful strategy, plan the executives should have a shared vision for the organization and the aims of the strategy. The aim of a strategic customer plan is to maintain sustainable customer relations with the target market that is mutually beneficial (Peppers & Rogers, 2007). The relations should have the potential to attract potential business. The relationship between the organization and its customers has several elements; its mutual, iterative, interactive, it should have benefits, it should have trust, and it should be unique to every client.
The formulation of a customer strategy plan has various aims. It aims at retaining top customers. In the case of a traffic department, the goal is to ensure the satisfaction of both the corporate and non-corporate clients. Formulation and implementation of a customer strategy plan is an important aspect of every organization's customer relationship management. The strategy also involves the increase of the organization’s revenue. Therefore, the customer relations should be designed to increase the customer base and increasing the number and volumes of each customer sale. In a traffic department, the only way to increase revenue is to reduce the expenses of the department or increase the fees charged by the department for various services it offers. The strategy should also be low maintenance to reduce the expenses of the department and support the departments target of being self-sustaining. The strategy should also be aimed at enhancing the relationships. A business organization needs to enhance its relationship with consumers, competitors, its suppliers, government institutions and other publics (Peppers & Rogers, 2007). A traffic department, on the other hand, has relationships with its customers, other government institutions, and large corporations as well as foreign institutions and governments. An organization also needs to build loyalty from its customers. In the case of a traffic department, the loyalty will be through the provision of quality services that are accompanied by a courteous and warm demeanor. If the services are provided through online systems, they should be provided effectively through reliable systems. Strategic planning is also aimed at increasing the level of retention. In a traffic department, the aim is to ensure that many customers return and that they act according to the state laws. The aim of any given state institution is to ensure that the citizens maintain law and order and that they follow the stipulated regulations rather than waiting for the laws to be enforced upon them.
When formulating a customer strategy plan, the organization must first evaluate the existing market and the relevant customer information. It should then evaluate the customer response and feedback on the various services provided and the improvements and enhancements that can be made. The formulation of a customer strategy will also involve benchmarking exercises with other companies and institutions to evaluate their strategies, their challenges and the improvements that can be made to those strategies; this involves the application of MGC strategies. The comparison will allow for the formulation of a plan that will encompass the best aspects taken from different institutions.
In Sharjah Traffic departments, they have many operations such as vehicle license section, driving license section, fines section, tracking section, and accident section. In each department specialize in providing the services to the customers (UAE Trade and Commercial Office, 2016). In the Traffic departments, they have a unique system (uniform system) and that system is accurate for the Traffic and include it to the seven Emirates. In all departments, they have a lot of customers, whether personality and companies. In the vehicle license section, they are doing many operations such as that registration, renewal, transfer, export, damage of cards, replacement of card, damage of the plate number, replacement of the plate number, deport tourist, payment the fine, and revealed the number of the vehicle, etc.
When formulating a strategy, the department has to decide whether it will formulate a different strategy for each category. This involves evaluating each customer portfolio independently to come up with their value and needs. By using a specific strategy for each type of customer, there is a risk of discriminating against one customer (Peppers & Rogers, 2007). This will lead to customer dissatisfaction. There is also the risk of alienating some customers. It also gives some of the priorities over the others among the staff this creates customer dissatisfaction and thus the department may lose some of its customers. If it uses an all-inclusive strategy, it runs the risk of losing some of its largest clients. Some clients require specific services as such, they require specific strategic plans of services. Having a generalized strategy leads to the poor service provisions and thus alienations of these customers. It is clear that the traffic department handles customers of cultures and backgrounds drawn from more than 120 countries (UAE Trade and Commercial Office, 2016). It is noteworthy that the body language and choice of words differ across the customers. To improve their ability to handle cross-cultural customers, officers from the traffic department are trained in managing public expectations, body language, work and personal life-related pressure and multiple languages. An officer must comprehend more than a single language to enable him or her serve customers drawn from different countries (UAE Trade and Commercial Office, 2016).
The department should formulate a plan that caters to all its customers equally. As such, it should have different sections to deal with different customers this will allow ease of service rather than having generalized customer service desks. The departments will have autonomy of providing services as they see fit rather than having centralized service provision desks. Since the departments serve different clients with different needs, it is important that the subsections are tailored ton suit every category. As part of their strategy, it should have a section to deal with governments and in that section, it should have subsections to deal with cases for each particular government complete with the strategies, policies and regulations for each government (Peppers & Rogers, 2007).
The strategy should involve the transition of the structure of the department. Today the department is run like a public organization, including the bureaucratic hurdles involved in decision making as well as the poor service delivery methods involved in many public institutions. Changing the structure will allow the department to be private institutions. Research shows that private institutions run more effectively and efficiently than public institutions. They also have more effective methods of decision making and service delivery despite being more expensive. Furthermore, customers are willing to pay more for quality service. This organization structure treats the services provided as products, therefore, they customize the products and brand them as they would the tangible products. They also market the services as they would the products. If applied this strategy would mean that their department would market its services and that the staff would have the same benefits as those accorded to employees of private institutions these will motivate them to perform better. In private organizations, the customer is the boss therefore it is imperative that the services provided to satisfy the customer’s needs. The staff is required to go out of their way, but within the organizations purview to cater for the customers’ needs as they would their bosses. Since their profits and success are dependent upon its customer services, it is imperative that they satisfy all their customer needs.
Implementing a performance measurement framework is also an important part of any plan. It evaluates the implementation of the plan and the performance of the employees with regard to the feedback given by the customers. The performance is evaluated using frameworks and targets set by the organization’s executive in collaboration with the employees as well as against the expectations of the customers.
The implementations of a technology-enabled customer service program whereby most of the services are provided online rather than through the physical access to the department offices (Bonnell & Gold, 2006). Such a system would reduce the backlog of cases in the department and free up the staff caseload to deal with critical matters that require their personal attention. The evolution of customer needs means that today the customers are specific in what they need to be done and how they want it done as such the department should strive to catch up by creating a system that enables the customers to apply, renew their licenses and pay their fines from the comforts of their homes or offices.
A customer strategy is an important aspect of every organization that strives to achieve success in its given field. It is important that such an organization adapt to the changes in technology and in its customer needs to achieve this success (Bonnell & Gold, 2006). When creating a customer strategy plan the main aim is to build a lasting relationship with the clients and to extend the Life Time Value (LTV) of the services provided when coming up with the strategy the executives should involve professional risk managers to evaluate the risks involved in changing the current strategies.
References
Bonnell, B. & Gold, T. Eds (2006). Electronic Customer Relationship Management (2002). England: M E Sharpe
Peppers, D., & Rogers, M. (2007). MANAGING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS: A Strategic Framework. John Wiiley & Son, Inc.
UAE Trade and Commercial Office (2016). National Transportation Authority. Accessed on 27th May 2016 from http://www.uaetrade-usa.org/index.php?page=economic-sectors-in-uae&cmsid=61
