Company Image
A company image is the combination of the thoughts, feelings, beliefs, opinions and visions people have about you, your products and services, of your company. (1) What visions, feelings and thought come to the customers mind when they think of a Taiwan/Chinese company? Does Taiwan/Chinese companies have created distinguishable company images which to be a world wide brand name or are they convicted to be only manufacturers?
The answers are confusing about the reputation of Taiwan/Chinese companies with the company image. Yes, they have a good reputation for always delivering quality products but is that enough for their target audiences to create a successful company image for their own branded products. Taiwan/Chinese must negotiate what others, especially the end users think and feel about you, not what you think or what your sales literature and sales staff says!
I wonder what makes Taiwan/Chinese thrive. Company culture is no doubt an energy center, history; traditions core values, unspoken expectations and unwritten rules about how employee behaves to the customers. (2) But Taiwan/Chinese marketplaces identities are changing. Its impossible to discuss the concept of a company image only with company culture and without including its relationship with customers, products and market positioning.
Customer Relationships
The quality of relationships is reflected in productivity, profitability, employee morale, customer satisfaction and shareholder pleasure.(1) With Taiwan/Chinese companies this centers energy can easily be depleted with unresolved conflicts, resentments, unspoken communications, lack of respect and lack of teamwork.
Taiwan/Chinese staffs are not even answering all the customer messages! Sometimes they answer but they dont hear or read the issues which are bothering them. Taiwan/Chinese staff doesnt know that customers who have never had a problem are not as loyal as customers who have had a problem that was successfully resolved. (3)
If you always deliver on your service promise, how will the customer know that you are not just consistent? How would the customer discover that more than consistent, you are insistent that the customers needs be fully and fairly met? (4)
Taiwan/Chinese people are not open-minded; they only state the marketing literature they have been summarized by the management! Sometimes they dont even listen to you or they dont state that they didnt understand. They hide the marketing information, figures, market shares and competition status. Taiwan/Chinese sales staff thinks that they can motivate the customers to sell more with others exaggerated figures, but the world is very small to find out these mistakes besides the same staff can easily state some other unsuitable figures afterwards.
Taiwan/Chinese employee mustnt think that their job is to protect the company from the customer. Plus, they mustnt believe that complaints are a sign of failure rather than an opportunity to grow to be a world wide brand name. And none of this will change unless it is both communicated and demonstrated by the top management.
Loyalty and Feature Marketing
The loyalty must be an expression of Taiwan/Chinese Companys culture. Of being close to your customers in a personal and caring way; it must bring the hospitality of your business into the customers office, though: Marry! Customersto forge intimate, mutually beneficial partnership based on exchange of knowledge about each others desires, needs, abilities, and character. To create a branded customer culture for your company the customer service, responsiveness to complaints and the behavior of staff rank right after quality and price. (5)
Taiwan/Chinese company staff focused on only sales and orders. The advice is if you want to make them listen or negotiate the issues, stop the orders they will come back to you. This is the most important contradict of companies brands promise that the customers encounter. Taiwan/Chinese company staff must express or reiterate the promise of their company brand in product and at every point of contact between company and the customers.
Especially for future products the customers must believe in the host company, their products, their services… and the people who serve them. During 1996-1997s while Taiwan/Chinese companies are only involved primitive electronic and/or PC product business the trust to the host company was better, the personalized relationships with the customers was a part of company; the organization, products and services… and most importantly, company people. We were feeling satisfaction after a meeting with management, feel satiety of technology knowledge and marketing information. To achieve this; company people must be open (share any information), must give the right figures, right prices, dont lie, do not attempt to protect not only the company benefits but the customers besides.
With the challenge of neuter competition with huge capacity manufacturer competitors, Note Book world wide brand names; big guys and others…loyalty, this concept had became a here today gone tomorrow concept. How come? To improve customer retention – – to discourage defection to the competition – – by offering an incentive for loyalty first of all Taiwan/Chinese companies must accept the cost of acquiring new customer is expensive, usually much higher than getting more new business from existing customers.
Company managers must spend more efforts to evaluate the markets for new products, maybe establish some education programs for these products to the loyalty customers and target specific and appropriate goals not only for sales but either for services (internet sites, toll free support and RMA policies) and product promotions. Not all your customers are created equal…some are worth to invest more to have improvements but some of them not. Then Taiwan/Chinese companies can find new customers for these new products after evaluating these realistic achievement goals. For example Sony had such programs for new product lines. They invest more and more to the loyalty customers and if the results of established measurable objectives are not successful with the new products they change the customers point of business rather that directly dive to the new customers from the beginning.
Who cares this point in Taiwan/Chinese companies? Who had set the customers some realistic achievement goals for new products?
What can a customer feel after a push of order and afterwards a drop down on price? Is this serve customer or cheat? Taiwan/Chinese companys people must feel that to view their organization from the perspective of customers and prospects (not from company side) is very important. To establish a world wide company image can be reached through planned consistent marketing strategies, not protecting the vendors short term benefits.
Operations and Obstacles in front of the Brand Name
If we look ahead to and plan for the new years we have to consider to what extend our business is prospering and reaching our goals to be a world wide brand name.
The first step is to trust your loyalty customers; dont neglect the feedback of market, competitors and products; quality, reliability and/or segmentation. The effort of gathering information from others impairs not only your loyalty customer relations but also your company image. Taiwan/Chinese companies never care about this disparagingly behavior. While information gathering you are at the same time a source of your company information. Trust the customer is to trust your power; hesitancy means you are weak or at least not strong as you say.
Sometimes the biggest marketing advantage we can give our businesses isn’t expensive ads or commercials. It’s a simple boost in the attitude we project to customers and prospects. Often a simple smile and cheerful word will soften even the hardest customer. Projecting a positive and cheerful attitude may seem a bit corny and old fashioned, but customers will frequently perceive you as going further with your service than you have to. That’s what builds loyalty and positive word-of-mouth.
Our world is getting busier and busier. The demands of work and home are daily stretching us to the limits. Businesses who make it their business to smile will earn our loyalty time and time again simply because they make us feel good, even if just a little bit.
How can you project a smile when your business operates over the phone or on the Internet? Smile when you talk! And carefully avoid using unintentionally confrontational language when you write. You need to make sure everybody in your organization knows he or she is an important part of it. Each department depends and dovetails into the other to produce quality in service or product. Everyone makes a difference: the sales force, the service technicians, the clerical staff, the PR department all work together toward the same goal — keeping the customers satisfied.
Taiwan/Chinese Companies dont love the customers. The managers are so much overloaded that they can answer you OK when you say Hi! They never had convenances of salutation. If they had foreign language problems this must be declared for the feature of loyalty relations. When memorized marketing monologs are the only fluent conversations between you and your customer absolutely collapse will the next step after some cunning questions.
Evaluating the country and the market trends
Taiwan/Chinese Companies must understand the global marketing. Information is open and limitless. A contingency, some marketing leverage…Etc is learned instantly. Territorial distinction hurts confidence to vendors equitableness. Taiwan/Chinese Companies must be thing regional, evaluate the country and the market trends and operate globally.
Taiwan/Chinese Companys sales people do not really understand the market; and always push you to position the products with blind eyes to the country market trends. Smart positioning depends on understanding the target market and image that market expects to see when purchasing your products and//or services. For example they push Turkey distributors for the products they easily selling in Middle East Countries but Turkeys face is looking to Europe not to Middle East.
Both product and market positions influence the company image, but by positioning the products with short term sales objectives how can we create an overall world wide company image. There are not many but if you are working with a clever sales people they know to negotiate with you the trends of the market. This is the energy of executive and management authority and influential, natural leaders.
Mis-communication and non-responsiveness can cause big problems in the feature. For example long term warranty issue; Taiwan/Chinese Companys people dont negotiate with customers the concept before declaring it. Indeed there are some restrictions regarding the local governmental rules which can not be solved with the ordinary Taiwan/Chinese Company RMA standards
A company image with such long term promises can only be created by organizing with different type of discreet elements like product, distribution channel and the customer needs by negotiation.
Goal
Since all vendors manufacturing capabilities are well qualified, since all are competitive and innovation is not limitless; contestation with over productivity Taiwan/Chinese companies needs better company images, better customer relationships and focalization to long term business. They have to build long term and also profitable relationships with chosen loyalty customers, get closer to those customers at every point of contact with them. Differentiate them, by value and needs, interact with them more cost-efficiently and effectively, customize some aspect of the enterprises behavior to be a world wide brand name.