Role and importance of customer care department and market research

A customer is defined as any person with whom the business or the organization has dealings, which can be expressed in monetary terms. These dealings can either be exchange of goods or rendering of services. Customers are the lifeblood of every successful business, and today's customers are more educated and more demanding. They expect individualized services and high-quality products.

According to a famous marketing expert “A Customer is anyone who is influenced by the product or the process. A customer is the recipient of a product (which is the result of an activity or a process) provided by the supplier. Consumers are the ultimate users of the products; they buy in small volumes for personal use. Consumers provide the purchasing power, which supports many industries like public utilities, government bodies, trading chains and many large consumer product industries.

[...] The customer will then seem to view life through a telephoto lens and every detail or every aspects of the interaction will come under scrutiny. Therefore, the attitude must be to look at a glass of water as half full, instead of half empty. On of the most important and outward expressions of attitude is the verbal and non-verbal behavior that people use a critical times. Simple expression such as can’t do that’ or ‘There is nothing I can do ‘that’s our company policy’ or only work here’ or you’ve have come through wrong extension’, only frustration the customer. [...]

[...] Marketing research is the systematic gathering, recording and analyzing of data about problems connected with the market place, i.e., problems relating to product, price, promotion and distribution of the 4 Ps of the marketing mix. Marketing research is said to be moving “away from simple surveys to action-oriented, decision-oriented, problem solving research.” Reflecting this change in orientation, marketing research may be defined as the scientific and controlled process of gathering of non-routine marketing information helping management to solve marketing problems. [...]

[...] It deals with research on customer demands, e.g., behavior and attitudes of consumers and dealers at the market place, analysis of sales data, analysis of market share of a firm, etc. Market research is primarily concerned with investigation, analysis and measurement of market demand. The following items of study and analysis are included in market research: Size of market. Geographic location of customers. Demographic descriptions of customers. Market segmentation on the basis of age, sex, income, education, nationality, standard of living, etc. [...]