Background information (Abdulaziz abdula).
I am Abdulaziz Abdullah, a Kuwaiti citizen a student goodwill ambassador of save the children, international humanitarian organization whose mission is ensuring that the welfare of young children is religiously safeguarded by all the societal stakeholders. I have grown up in this country, having schooled in native institutions from baby class to the university where I enrolled two years ago.
This might mark a much awaited professional journey I have been preparing myself for in the recent past. I was among the twenty two lucky students in my native country who were given the green light to learn more about humanity and after impressive manifestation in decision making, exemplary delivery of last mile services to the community, I am expected represent organization in the university, by encouraging people to master the art of philanthropy. . Since the time I joined the university, I have interacted with people from all walks of life, managed to learn a lot about handling different situations in life, and appreciate every part of it.
I am the first born in a family of four children; two brothers and a sister. Have been staying with my parents since I was a young boy. It feels great to be near my two greatest mentors, as well as maintaining the warmth of a closely-knit family. I have never been in an awkward feeling since my brothers up my mood when in acrimonious situations.
Against my plans, my parents decided I should not go and a study in a foreign university, since the provision of education, as they argued, is uniform, only my attitude will determine. This brought to a sad end my ambitious dream of once enrolling in the prestigious Harvard business school after one of my high school teachers said every good word about the institution.
There came a time I was seriously considering opening a bank account for undertaking different tasks, at the fore front being paying my school fees. After some the choice we settled on was National bank of Middle East. Will vividly remember one of my weekends I decided to stroll through the city since I had very little to do. It was then I met one of the dedicated marketers of the bank (most of the banks in this country use the old order where sales are done through direct sales force as opposed to the modern method where appointed agents take the task of marketing the products of different firms.)
In attempt to persuade me, she made some clarifications on the different products that the company offers to the customers. After much searching, I left nothing to chance and I had to seek clarifications were I did not understand. A day was set when I would go and open an account. The marketer was not willing to leave me undecided and it took several assurances from me that I will not be hijacked by any other marketer from the same bank since that was where my interest was.
Some quick consultations ensued between me family members, with mum at the fore front advocating for another institution; Barclays. Her argument was that with Barclays being the oldest commercial bank in history, my money will be safe in their hands. My dad had a different opinion that I consider accessibility of the institution I will end up banking with since banks are all the same. This impressed me a lot.
I proceeded to phone my point lady who had introduced to me all the products that the company offers and she was glad to set a date that we had to go and have the account opened. All she did was to introduce me to the banking officials the next day. I was full of expectations, brimming with confidence on what will happen at the banking hall.
On the material day, I spend two and half hours in the bank, materially on the queue and having one on one conversation with the banking clerk. As expected, it has been a smooth ride since I have not been having petty problems with my bank when it comes to any problems that may arise, as well as being happy since all the hiccups that strike any operation is accompanied by a justification as well as amicable solution to all the problems by the banking officials
Analysis
- Marketing (the part of direct of sales force)
It is a well-known fact that a company directly attributes its performance to the employees it has recruited. Hence this is taken as very key step towards attaining high levels of corporate success. All along my discussions with the lady marketer,Mrs Said, there were unique characters that stood out.
I) Professionalism.
This is the ability of a person to trim his /her discussion to only the lines that meet the threshold of professional etiquette. Any kind of unnecessary nagging of a customer to take an offer that may not be good to his terms are ignored, as well as acknowledging some of the weaknesses that the client brings out on the product in question, with the commitment to correct it as nearly as possible. This are some of the tactics that were evident on Mrs. Said and I remain steadfast that my acceptance of being a member of her banking family was not as a result of well constructed words from a PR machine but a combination of facts well brought out by a competent marketer.
For this, I associate the success of the bank the openness and outspoken character of the marketers, and investing more resources on training facilities (Sylvester,2009).
II) Competence
The idea of approaching well trained marketers will go down as one of the best ways to attain high levels of success in the corporate world. As far as businesses are concerned, It has been the choice of many to use shortcuts in some of the operations so as to retain some of the relationships with family members and close friends. But the truth remains that all those desperate measures will come to haunt however applies them in the corporate arena since all that matters is how your team is capable of explaining to clients what the company is offering, solving all the problems that arise in the market as well as doing away with all the misconceptions in that customers and potential clients might be having. All this was portrayed by all the staff of the bank I interacted with, right from the marketer to the banking clerks. It is the only way to move forward (Olsesson, 2012).
b)Competent leadership.
Effective management of companies calls for the best brains to lead the company. It has been said time and again that a fish rots from the head, and so applies in corporate leadership. When the top leadership does not guide the junior members on the way forward as well as how to navigate problems, then all we expect to follow is dysfunction of the how organization (Osborne2012).
- Customer care.
It is a well-known fact that what happens in the banking hall determines whether one will remain a loyal customer or not. It is thus very delicate on how you handle customers since this will directly affect the relations of customer with bank. On these note, and then I expect the following
- Hospitable treatment all the customers that will be banking on the experience of the bank staff to solve their problems. Every client should be approached with a lot of care and delicate treatment since departure of one client means that he or she is not what was expected .As a result of the expectation gap, it will be a matter of when the client will dump the company since he/she will have the expectation that other businesses will solve his/her problems better. Along these lines, the company will thus continue to hemorrhage customers to their competitors since their operations are superior to the ones that are currently provided by the company in question (Olsesson, 2011).
- It is required of every company to take excessive care on how long customers will stay in their halls. Every day, customers will be looking forward to have their issues responded to promptly, leaving them with enough time to attend to other issues that directly affects them. Hence, it will be expected that when they take a lot of time in the bank for example, most of them feel uncomfortable and will be looking for all avenues to satistfaction.If such a chance avails itself, then a competitor will get a customer at the expense of current bank. As such, areas like staffing, competency of staff employed should be well taken care of (Osborne, 2012).
Employing enough personnel is key to ensuring that all the customers that come to the company will be addressed each at the point of his her need .Understaffing will only cause delays, attract negative comments from customers, leading to competitors gaining ground. Looking at it critically, it will also leave the staff frustrated due to the loads of work they have to do during the short period of time they have, making it not worthwhile to continue rendering their services when competitors of their current employers is looking for equally talented team to drive their sales forward. This has been the dilemma that faces most of the employers since balancing employee satisfaction as well as keeping costs at the recommended levels will always be a tough task for the managers to meet (Osborne,2012).
Customer feedback is very important for every company. It has been suggested that all what the customer seeks is satisfaction of his/her needs, and when this will not be satisfied completely, complains will arise. It will thus be to the best interests of the company to tackle every complain step by step as a way of taming all the complaints and ensuring that All that made clients complain will not happen again (Malcom,2011).
The following are some of the ways customer feedback will be collected for analysis.
- Having suggestion n boxes that will be used during the normal working time of the business. Any customer who has something to tell the management of the company will do so in writing. All the complains and compliment as well as suggestions will be dropped in the aforementioned area, which will be later collected for analysis prior to acting on the weakeness,as well as upholding the strengths (Sylvester,2009).
- Providing direct link between the senior management team and customers. As a way of example, say the national bank of Middle East will have one of the senior executives, probably the chief executive officer handle serious complaints from customers. Say the company has an email like `promise national bank of middle east.com’.This will clearly give all the clients of the company pride of having a direct access to the top management who will be willing to listen to their grievancies.This also will lead to the seniors management knowing which parts of the entire team is not meeting the service threshold set y the company, hence providing them with fertile grounds to reprimand their managers on the same (Malcom,2011).
References:
MalcomM.N (2011).The essentials of marketing (6th edn).New York. Sage publishing.
Sylvester K. (2009).Basics of marketing.London:Mc GrawHill.
Osborne G.K.(2011).What marketers need to know.New York:Mc GrawHill.
Benedict N.(2012).Marketers bible (7th edn).London : Oxford printing press
Olsesson M.O(2011).Marketing principles for financial institutions.Washington :Sage publishing.
