Summary of Case: Google –An Entrepreneurial Juggernaut: The birth of Google was in 1998 by two young doctoral students from Stanford University, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. They dropped out of Stanford to start up their business. In the mid-1990s searching on the internet was not efficient and time consuming. Therefore search engines helped with organizing the internet like yahoo and Alta Vista. They still did not perfect searching on the internet, so Page and Brin analyzed Web links, and they developed a ranking system for searching on the internet, that depended on the relevance to the object of the search.
They first made this search engine available to students and faculty on Stanford campus, by word of mouth. It was very successful on campus, and required capital to grow their venture. With the help of one of their professor they found an investor who invested $100,000 dollars. They were able to incorporate the company to Google Inc. Many other invested in their company, and finally two venture capital firms invested $25 million, Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital. With the growth of the company the revenues that were expected were not enough for the growing company. Brin and Page decide on using advertising to increase revenue.
They were very strict with the standard of the advertisement meaning size and type of ads. The ads that had an association with the search would pop up. They did not run ads unless they had something to do with your search. This was very smart for Google to design this type of advertisement, because it focused on a market that was interested in that type of advertisement. This was called target advertisement. Instead of focusing on a large number of people like TV, Google focuses on a targeted market those who seeked ads with a particular search for the individual user.
During the 2000 hardship in the internet, many companies laid off and bankrupted, but Google stood strong, and continued to grow. They also acquired large firm advertisement business, like Wal-Mart and Acura car dealership. In the year of 2001 Brin and Page finally decide to hire a CEO by the name of Eric Schmidt. He led Google to enter pacts with yahoo, AOL, EarthLink and Ask Jeeves. The company was running strong and had huge financial success. They finally went public and Bin and Page became instant millionaires. Apply historical and current theoretical framework:
Using the holistic marking concept is based on 4 types of markets that are interdependent to make a company successful. The four markets are the following: internal, integrated, performance, and relationship. With Google, the company itself was already very successful, but it can be more successful with the usage of this concept. The component that is missing for Google in the holistic marketing concept is relationship market. Here is an example of holistic marketing dimensions. The concentration of this concept is that the whole thing matters in marketing. It integrates the new concept with the societal marketing concept.
Integrated marketing is used to meet customer needs, and utilizes all resources efficiently and effectively. Relationship marketing is used to acquire permanent relations with customers. Internal marketing is used to make all associates of the company customer-oriented. Performance marketing is able to ensure financial responsibility in revenue terms. Also in the performance marketing social responsibility is practiced to promote consumer and social welfare. With Google, the problem is they are absent in the relationship marketing that is part of the holistic marketing concept.
They do not have a customer service department; they deal with their customers by an automatic response. Therefore, they do not have a person to help their customers. Because they lack a service department they lose the relationship with customers, also with their marketing channels (supplier, distributors etc. ). The goal a relationship market is to have marketing networks, which consist of customers, supplies, distributors, etc. Having a relationship market results in having a professional business relationship. The principle that one has a professional relationships and profit will follow.
This relationship marketing is to benefit customers and operations that surround the company. Overall adding value to the product or service. Google lacking customer service illustrates a gap in the holistic marketing concept, causing them to lose revenue and losing valuable customers. Identify the central strategic marketing issues: Google has a lack of customer relationship, they use automate customer interactions, which does not give customers personal contact. Customers feel negative toward their lack of customer service. This causes a problem with public relations.
How a company is perceived is vitally important this is publicity, and in large could affect the company. Since, Google is successful with their search engine and their brilliant way to advertise, they don’t feel the need to invest in good customer service. Quality customer service is a critical in a company’s ability to sustain profit and prolong success in business. Customer service creates loyalty for company, it assures customer to return and overall increase profit. Google should use “A strategic window of opportunity which is a traditional way of doing business that is successful in the industry” (Hartley, 2009).
In this case a strategic window of opportunity is satisfying Google’s customers. This is a great opportunity to gain customer retention. Investing in customer relations will help in three important ways: one is to gain loyalty from the customers, and two gains a positive reputation for Google, and the three is to increase revenues. Identify viable alternatives to strategic decision making and discuss their consequences defend one: Outsource customer service: Google may find that outsourcing customer service delivers inexpensive work costs for the identical job.
Overall work rates are less overseas. This can help with price containment. Training of new call center employees can be very expensive. The costs and materials for training are now the duty of the agency handling the customer service center overseas. This will also help free the company management to emphasis on more serious parts of the company. Customer service that functions 24 hours per day is very expensive if done in the US. When the job is outsourced globally, workers are available around the clock. Using oversees call centers can help bilingual consumers in the U.
S. Many call center jobs are outsourced to Mexico. This provides Spanish-speaking consumers of the US with customer service personnel who speak in their native language. However, if Google outsources there are negative problems from this outcome. There is a decrease in control over a key area of business. Customer service is often the first connection between a company and a customer with a problem. If the call center’s employees are not skilled to ideal levels, customers may be displeased and not return with their company.
Verbal difficulties and inadequate connections are also a problem and may push the customers away. Due to outsourcing American workers are losing their jobs, even though they are better educated, available, and have language skills. Another problem, it is harder to secure customer information for example financial information, because it is handled overseas. Create a customer service department: Google can also create customer service department, for their customers to access when needed. Customer service is an organization’s ability to supply their customers’ wants and needs.
A company’s customer service department is often the first person that contacts a customer. This point of contact establishes your business image in the mind of your consumer. “The first benefit of customer service is obtaining customer retention. Happy customers become repeat customers. This means competent, well-trained customer service representatives are needed to handle questions and issues; if the company doesn’t have this it often looks for a CRM (customer relations management) solution that will reassure customers that their needs will be met.
Representatives who excel at listening to the customer go a long way with the customer’s resolution of an issue. Support desk representatives that strive to help the customer can ultimately lead to better customer satisfaction” (Martin, 2013). Therefore, a great customer service department can give Google a positive image with consumers. It creates customer loyalty, and by having loyal customers this mean less marketing costs to attract new customers. It also gives Google an edge on competitors with good CRM, and promotes customer service employee retention.
Customer service for Google has a negative outcome also. While customer service is significant to improving a business’s image and holding business, if customer service and the systems implemented are not accurate and efficient, it may give a negative effect to the customer. The cost of creating a customer service department is expensive. Customer service standards can be expensive to put into effect. “Time spent creating lists of standards and training staff equates to time away from those job functions that contribute to profit.
The alternative of hiring an external consulting company to assess and implement a customer service program is an added expense. If the use of customer service does not increase customers or does not increase the number of repeat customers, it might well be perceived as an unjustifiable expense. Another problem is getting an action for problems with customer service personnel. While customer service personnel are trained to respond to customer questions, most are able to make billing adjustments or issue refunds without approval from a supervisor.
This can result in a customer having to wait for any kind of action to resolve a single problem. While the customer service employees are hired to provide efficient service to the customer, their lack of authority to complete certain actions can result in delays, leading to a frustrating experience for the consumer” (lacey, 2013) Improve the automatic response: Google can improve what they have right now which is the automatic response, by making it user friendly. Google customers contact them by the web site only, by making it easy and quick, the customer will be less frustrated.
Making the customers contact link easy to use and hassle free is vitally important. The faster Google response via email the better the situation will be. They should have staff answering the emails 24 hour a day and 7 days a week. This way the customer will not be upset that they don’t have a live person to have a conversation with. By improving on their automatic response, it will be easier for the customer to use and the customer does not have to wait countless hours on the phone for an answer. Customers do not have to waste their time.
It not personal, not time consuming, it just answers to your questions. The down side of having a new and improve automatic responses that customers are still not satisfied. Many customers rather have a person to complain to. Also, the response that they receive may not answer their question or the question may have been misunderstood, therefore the customer will becomes upset. The customer may long for a customer service person to talk to directly to make them understand and get instant results. The best solution to the problem for Google is to create a customer service department.
Customer service is the service or the upkeep of the consumer before, during and after a purchase. Having customer service adds value to your product or service. Customer service is a portion of that purchase experience. The best service will create devoted, loyal and returning customer, which is the goal of the having a customer service department. This is what Google requires to continue the increase of profit. Excellent customer service is critical to businesses today. It is what Google is missing. Adding a reliable and efficient customer service department will complete Google.
They are a successful company and by adding customer service this will simply add value to their company and overall improve revenue Discuss implementation, evaluation and control issues: . Implementation on how to create a customer service department: “1 Assess your current customer service ability. Before you start a department, you need to know what you already have to work with. Once you understand your strengths and weaknesses, you can move forward. 2 Determine the needs of your customers. Identify the most common needs of your customer, and build the new customer service department around that. Create customer service policies. This sets a clear model of how you expect your employees to treat the customer. It also creates a vision for your new customer service department. These policies should be written down and posted so everyone is familiar with them. 4 Deal effectively with your customers. Handling their issues in a timely manner is good for your business and for the customer. Your new customer service department should be trained to be polite and efficient. 5 Imagine that you’re a customer for your company. Go through your procedures and policies and take the stance that a customer would have.
When you role play this situation, you’ll notice additional areas where you need to focus your attention. It’s almost like maintenance on your customer service department, and a test like this should be performed regularly. ” (Contributor, 2013) Evaluate and control issues: The Google customer is essential in telling Google how their customer service department is doing. By doing an easy survey after the customer receives customer service would give Google feedback. Customers will let Google management know how they are doing overall.
This will be a great way to evaluate the overall customer service department. Also management in the customer service department can tape and listen in on how customer service personnel are doing. Management can evaluate the customer service personnel and grade them according to standards. By doing both of these methods to ensure good customer service, Google can get feedback and uncover problems or issues that arise. Once the issues are uncovered then Google can deal with creating solutions to the issues and gain better control of the issues at hand. Bibliography Contributor, e. (2013, januaray 21).
How to Create a Customer Service Department From Scratch. Retrieved from eHow money: http://www. ehow. com/how_2123677_create-customer-service-department. html Hartley, R. F. (2009). Marketing Mistakes & Successes. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons Inc. lacey, h. (2013, january 21). Customer Service Disadvantages. Retrieved from ehow money: http://www. ehow. co. uk/list_6728896_customer-service-disadvantages. html Martin, M. (2013, Januarary 21). What Are the Benefits of Good Customer Service? Retrieved from ehow money: http://www. ehow. com/about_5082152_benefits-good-customer-service. html
