Writing Assignment

Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty,  Management and Empowerment

Directions

       This week you want to take a closer look at Verizon Wireless’ website to identify how they interact with their customers.  If they have Facebook pages or other social media, check them out as well and add that information to your research data.

       You may want to find a Most Valuable Customer of the product or service if you are not one yourself, or alternatively think like an MVC.  What is the evidence of an MVC of your product or service.  It isn't just that the customer regularly buys the product or service.  It means that the customer is treated differently -- better -- than other customers.  It means that the MVC represents about 20% of the company's revenues.   These are the customers with whom the company regularly communicates, offers special deals,  and other ways as outlined in the text and as you can find with just a little bit of googling on the internet. 

       You may want to calculate the lifetime value of a most valuable customer.  See the discussion of the lifetime value calculation in the week's reading, and calculate the LTV using this simple equation:  LTV = (Price - cost to produce the product) * number of annual purchases * number of years expected to purchase - initial acquisition costs.  For simplicity sake, you can assume your customer will have a relationship with you for ten years and you can make an educated guess as to how much the initial acquisition costs were to get him as a customer in terms of advertising or other types of promotion efforts.   If you are not an MVC yourself, make and share your assumptions about your calculation. If you are not an MVC, you might want to find someone who is and ask them why they are loyal to the product or service and what they feel the company does for them that is special that they don't do for other customers.  

       You may need call or visit a store to take a look at your product or service if the website does not provide you everything you need to evaluate the company's product or service privacy policy.  Usually the privacy policy is available on the website.

       Prepare your assignment beginning with a title page with your name and product or service.  Then answer the following four questions in order and number the beginning of your response to each question. 

1.     Customer Empowerment.    How does your product or service offering empower its customers as discussed in the course readings this week?  In other word, how are customers part of the marketing for the company? Identify the feedback vehicles they may use, especially social media. Do the social media efforts seem to be creating buzz marketing? If not, what could they do to generate more ‘buzz’? 

2.     Customer satisfaction.  How does your product or service offering communicate ways for customers to express their dissatisfaction and if possible, outline what remedies the product or service may be taking to ensure satisfaction.  

3.     Customer Relationship Management.  Does it appear that your product has a customer relationship management strategy?  In other words, do they treat the top tier of customers differently than other customers? If so, what is your evidence?  If not, should they have a CRM strategy?  Or, are there compelling reasons why your product or service should treat all customers the same?  Refer to course content concepts in your response.  

4.     Customer privacy.  Review your product or service offering's privacy policy (usually published on its website). Analyze whether you think they do enough to protect the customer’s privacy or what steps you might suggest they take to protect customer's privacy.  Refer to the privacy policies or the information on warranties and guarantees.  The company's customer support page might also be useful. Do they pubish a remedy should the customer's privacy be breached?  Should they?

Be sure to follow all of the submission requirements outlined in the syllabus and provided below again for your easy reference:

• Prepare as a word processed document (such as Microsoft Word). 

• Your assignment should be the equivalent of two pages of double-spaced text, approximately 1/2 page for each of the four questions.

• Use a simple 12-point font such as Times New Roman.  Use black ink for majority of your work and only use colors if it enhances your ability to communicate your thoughts.  

• If the writing assignment requires external research, be sure to use footnotes and include a bibliography.  You may use APA style.