Need for personal touch

The idea behind relationship marketing is to make strong alliance and focus attention at the important customers and stakeholders, says Ajit Kumar Singh

‘‘Marketing is nothing but orchestration of common sense,’’ defined a newspaper. As compared to different technical definitions mentioned in marketing text books, the above definition was quite simple but its implication became more clear when I practically worked in the field of sales and marketing and witnessed the changing scenario. Gone are the days when companies used to simply launch a product. The competition was not so fierce at the time. The pace at which the market is changing now, is incredible. Compet-ition can be well understood by the fact that, in the last couple of years nearly 4000 new products have been launched in the Indian pharma market (as per ORG-IMS).

In response to the competition, companies have increased their investment in marketing activities. It is not surprising that pharma industry as a whole spends almost Rs 500 crore annually for gifts. Apart from that, expenses like sponsorship (for scientific conference, pleasure trips, books and journals), seminar and CME programme are huge. And that’s not all.

Distributors/stockists are also given added benefits like cash discounts, additional discount on fixed quota and gifts as special schemes. Apart from this, companies also provide incentives to the sales force based on different parameters such as product-wise achievement, business-wise achievement, quarterly and annual target achievement.

This shows that companies are emphasising on building strong relationships with all its important stakeholders which includes customers, stockist/distributor, retailer and its employeesas well. In the present scenario, making the sale by hook or by crook is not all that important, building customer loyalty is critical too. If the customer is lost, the investment made to capture him or her is lost too.

According to the marketing guru, Philip Kotler, cost of preparing a new customer is estimated up to five times the cost of retaining the customer. As per an article published in Harvard Business Review, companies can improve their profit from 25 per cent to 85 per cent by reducing the existing customer switchover merely by five per cent. This shows the power of customer retention and maintaining long-term relationship, which is the basic foundation of relationship marketing.

Market networking

Results of relationship marketing manifest in the form of a strong marketing network. This is vital because, today the competition is multidirectional. It exists not only among customers but the entire marketing network. It is quite obvious that, if a company wants to appoint a new distributor/stockist, the first step would be to prepare a list of competitors. Even if a company wishes to fill up the vacancy of field force, the preference would be a person working for a competitor.

It has become very important for companies to maintain strong relationships with all its important stakeholders. Let us look at the important points to build strong a relationship to extract maximum business:

Customers: Numerous activities are carried out in order to attract the customers. Most of them, however, have become monotonous.

There is a need for personal touch to all these services, which provides ample opportunities to build a rapport with important customers. It is seen that, in large scale national conferences, where the number of participants (doctors) are very high; some of them do not get proper care as per their expectation due to some reason or other. Here again, the competitor can grab the opportunity. This shows that the companies efforts/responsibilities go beyond making the sponsorship of any conference or meeting.

The concept of a Therapy Manager or Scientific Business Manager is an effort of companies like Cipla and Dr Reddy’s Lab to develop a strong relationship by providing exclusive scientific services to the doctors. These managers who have a command on medical knowledge, latest developments in the field, help prepare scientific presentations or any other such activities. This sort of services make the doctors feel that they are being given personalised attention.

Stockist/retailers: The distribution channel is the backbone of the marketing network and stockists play a major role in it. Whether the matter of availability of new product or maintaining sufficient stock, the stockists are the most essential people. Extensive analysis is required to chalk out some customised services for stockists and retailers. Likewise, important customers be identified and be provided with customised services, apart from the regular advantages given to all their counterparts. Cipla is a good example. In some territories, it has selected a retail counter in which some space is provided to display its entire inhalation device.

In lieu of that, field forces spend time to demonstrate the device to new users at the point of retail. We can understand the relationship being developed by the company and the retailer here. Now, the trend of small meetings for selected chemist is also being developed.

Employee: They are the internal customers of the company. So, the employee needs to be handled carefully. If a company does not meet the expectations of its employee, the attrition rate soars. It is a matter of policy that some companies record very high employee turn over where as some enjoy loyalty.

The matter of employee turnover should not be under estimated. To fill up vacancies, companies have to start from scratch like recruitment, training, and induction followed by field work. The newly recruited field force would take time to associate himself in the doctor’s mind as the most favoured representative. Here again, the competitor will grab some more marketshare.

Also, if an unsatisfied or demotivated employee switches over to some other company, his word of mouth creates negative impact on the employer’s reputation in the market. So, maintaining a strong relationship with employees is as important as relationship with external entities. Human resource policies of various companies may differ, but there is no thumb rule to deal with an employee of a particular company. Services of a psychoanalyst can be utilised to find out the motivating catalyst for the employee and treat them accordingly.

However, relationship marketing has an edge over just sale attitude. It is not necessary that relationship marketing is always profitable. If the cost of relationship building is more than that of predictable relationship value of the customer (both external and internal), the marketer should opt for some other way to get the business with that set of customers. Last but not the least, judicious selection of the customer and other important stakeholder is essential to relationship marketing.

The writer is Head - Achiever’s Point Training and Placement Consultants.

E-mail: ajit15a@rediffmail.com