Best Buy Co., Inc. and Customer Centricity Essay

trounce get Co. , Inc. is a specialty audio retail come with that, by its unique merchandising methods and willingness to risk and experiment, has expanded unto m each subsidiaries across and among continents for providing consumer electronic productions and function. It adopts the concept of guest centricity, in which a companys efforts are designed to align their target and potential clients needs, wants, feelings, and behavioral patterns. Though they crap incurred considerable ch every(prenominal)enges and losses along the way, stovepipe profane Co. , Inc.s journey to the contrast accomplishment has been one that has garnered them extensive consume and strong commercial enterprise disposition that has truly worked not only for their article of faith and processes moreover more importantly on their development. Marketing Case study Best pervert Co. , Inc. and customer Centricity Best Buys emergeperform Concern Understanding of Consumer Behavior Best Buy Inc. , Co. has made it of vast importance to center their business and marketing trade operations on offend recognizing and identifying the hows, whys, and whats behind their consumers approach dynamics to electronic retail bargain forrs.Philip Kotler defines consumer behavior as the study of how individuals, groups, and organizations select, buy, use, and dispose of good, gains, ideas, or experiences to volley their needs and wants (Kotler, Keller, Ang, Leong, Tan, 2006, p. 179), which Best Buy has made their top priority with and through. With a humble beginning as The Sound of Music during the mid-nineteen sixties, Best Buy initially suffered a disaster blow which they quickly translated to structure a sense of customer relations and, in every extent, better brand recall.As Store Service Manager Joe Brandt emphasized, When the tornado hit, we resolved to market to the community as a whole, and get electronics out at that place to everybody. We geared our selves up to win by understanding what consumers want in technology,Best Buy has not only managed to turn the most abject of circumstances into positive output, but they also exuded their willingness to identify who their consumers were, why they purchase from them, and what would make them happy (Authors Last Name, Year, p.139). During the steady growth through the mid-nineteen eighties, Best Buy wanted to keep the customer connection they have started. Thus, they broke away from handed-down business sales by eliminating outfit sales representatives (Authors Last Name, Year, p. 139). Despite having experienced momentary financial woes, the company pushed through advertiseing circumstances. Amidst many adjustments, significant acquisitions of Geek Squad and Magnolia sound and Video were made possible.Today, Best Buy is more equipped to initiate from individual selling and is capable of providing better, wider, and more customer-focused services, from in-store, home, and office computer services needs. Focusing on the end-users, the development in understanding the various attributes the customers and clients take to the companys five constituent priority. This meant that discovering more about who their clients in reality are and how their clients shop for their electronics meant that in-store service processes could be further developed to vitrine their target consumers and those others in between who do get their electronics needs at Best Buy.The five segment priority not only gave them the opportunity for bettering customer service and know conductge, but also with customers and their respective segments as the focal point of all operations, individualizedization even in a the setting of business relations were made possible and sustainable. The process which Best Buy Inc. , Co. started and go around centrally on different aspects for their customers, of which they were able to maintain through out and has been key their growth and success which translated to 1,1 72 stores, 140,000 employees, and $35.9 billion in revenue and world-wide business achievement and recognition (Authors Last Name, Year, p. 139). Best Buys Journey through Customer Centricity With the employment of customer centricity as the companys foremost business principle, Best Buy has wise to(p) many business lessons which they had to accept, adjust, balance, and realize as either forms in take or drawback. The most obviously beneficial characteristic of customer centricity which provided Best Buy with a strong sustainable business advantage is its elevated customer relations.Creating an atmosphere wherein customers are not only comfortable but also confident that all their electronic needs and concerns shall be run fored and answered in any Best Buy store. Through building individual customer rapport, Best Buy creates a business situation where brand retention, customer service, quality product, and service offering are all and more associated with their tell and reput ation. However, in considering the whole process of adaptation, the company underwent some difficulties.In the early-on stages that led to the principle acclimatization, Best Buy experienced an increase of expenses and a exasperate of profits when they decided to deviate slowly from doing business via sales representatives. Additionally, this scat was critically queried by analysts, but more importantly, it was greatly identified and appreciated by the customers. As the market for consumer electronics slowed down, Best Buy continued to recognise their carriage of business from the competition. Hence, risk was its key catalyst that brought success, though attended by some hardships.In creating the five-customer segment priorityBarry, the affluent professional, Jill, the soccer mom, Carrie and Buzz, early adopters, Ray, practical adopter, and Small businessBest Buy financially endeavored through the companys vision of centering on the customer and were prepared to incur loses to b etter understand the inner-workings of their consumer. Within each segment, all had specific needs and features to which Best Buy fittingly offered solutions both product and service-wise.In the process of appreciating and grasping the purchasing techniques of their customers, Best Buy recognise the need for financial pre-requisite that the adaptation entails to substantiate the processes and services to better fit the client, via the trialing of lab stores. These lab stores stood as an evidential gauge on who customers would receive, react, and do to product offerings, store designs and service offering targeted at each segment (Authors Last Name, Year, p. 140). In the transition of adopting, Best Buy computed cost up to $600,000 to qualify a specific store outlet as customer centric.However, it all paid off since it was positively acknowledged and standard by its customers (relatively performing better, compared to the average chain counterpart). Thus, it spearheaded the formal integration of Customer Centricity throughout all its stores. With this, the identification of customer qualities had to be more specific, as they had fleetingly overlooked the differences between men and women as consumer electronics shoppers. Yet, with extensive research and tuning, consumer markets further distinguished their full potential was explored and utilized. Best Buys seeking to Accommodate Male and Female Market Shopping QualitiesThe constricting soccer mom segment seemed to limit the egg-producing(prenominal) person market. Research showed that women spend $68 billion on consumer electronics each year and influence 89 portion of all purchases. This suggests that there is much potential for profits and improving distaff customer relations for Best Buy (Author Last Name, Year, p. 140). In admittance to this, in terms of their shopping style, men tend to be independent, whereas women tend to seek assistance while shopping for electronics (McGraw-Hill Irwin, n. d. ) . With these facts in hand, Best Buy opted to gear their processes even more to better answer the needs of their female market.Incorporating the customer assistant program was also premeditated and established for any and every query the customer has to bring personal shopping to the near level (McGraw-Hill Irwin, n. d. ). The personal shopping assistant not only facilitates the password of the clients electronic needs, but they also thoroughly explain key benefits on how and why certain electronic products would impact the lives of the customers, relating them on a personal level at each transaction, which favors the more dependent shopping style of women.Also, after broadening the Jill segment, Best Buy modified their in-store design for women, from discolour theme, lay-out, and displays of kitchen vignettes to packages, to house more appropriately their needs and thus, be more female friendly (McGraw-Hill Irwin, n. d. ). Best Buy Co. , Inc. truly adapted a remains in which cu stomer comes first, in every possible business and marketing scenario and circumstance. Through centricity, Best Buy elevated their brand and brand of service which put them in a class of their own, above from competition, beyond traditional marketing, and in the minds of their customers.References Kotler, P. , Keller, K. L. , Ang, S. H. , Leong, S. M. , Tan, C. T. (2006). Marketing Management An Asian Perspective (Fourth Edition). Singapore scholar Hall. McGraw-Hill Irwin. (Producer). (n. d. ). Best Buy Using Customer Centricity to Connect with Customers Case Study Video. Retrieved February 20, 2009 from http//www. mhhe. com/business/marketing/kerin9e/video/Ch05_BestBuy. swf. Last Name, First Initial (Author). (Year). Book Title. (Edition). fresh York McGraw Hill Irvin.