Analyzing Amazon's Marketing Strategies: A Customer-Centric Approach

This report provides a critical analysis of Amazon's strategic marketing activities, focusing on the core principle that "the best marketing strategies aren’t top down, they’re outside in, starting with the customer needs and wants." The report examines how Amazon prioritizes customer voice in its decision-making processes, referencing relevant academic literature to support its arguments. It explores the company's customer-centric approach, including its understanding of customer value, customer empowerment, and the implementation of customer-oriented organizational structures. The analysis covers Amazon's methods of data collection, customer segmentation, and the use of innovation to retain customers. The report also details key strategies such as enhancing customer engagement opportunities, tracking ideas for innovation, assessing organizational competencies, and measuring employee performance based on customer-centric behavior. Furthermore, it highlights Amazon's ten-step process for delighting customers, emphasizing the importance of setting a service vision and measuring customer satisfaction. The study concludes with an overview of how Amazon uses customer feedback and data to tailor its products and services, ultimately demonstrating how customer needs drive strategic marketing decisions within the organization.

An Essay on Strategic Marketing Activity – A Case on Amazon
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Introduction
“The best marketing strategies aren’t top down, they’re outside in, starting with the customer
needs and wants.” Today, technology has improved the way of living standards to a different
levels. The customers do not rely on instincts and judgments of others, they rely on venturing out
on their own and finding out for solutions. The needs and wants have changed with modern time
and satisfying constant changes of needs is the grand way to sustain within households. Amazon
has applied wonderfully the following in their own unique way and today the company is
successful in maintaining their aura and brand-name as a positive impact within customers.
Discussion
Organizations serve the needs and wants of customers. Therefore, organizations should think
according to the plethora of customers. Each have an individual demand and meeting that
demand is the need for the organization. According to Kalimullina the aim is simple – in order to
sustain the highest position in the market the target market should be satisfied. The organizations
who understand the fact that customers are the ultimatum succeed in the business (Korableva and
Kalimullina, 2016). Though fact is that it is not that simple as it sounds. Understanding demands
and needs of customers are not a mere easy action. It is a step-by-step process through which the
organizations must travel to meet their goals. Communal co-ordination is the foremost step in
this process. The aim of this stage is to extract all the data from the customers through various
processes. The data should be shared and distributed within the organization in order to maintain
a flow. The next step is known as “serial co-ordination”. Schwepker opined this step is again a
crucial process in the organization. In this step data is analyzed and that analysis is shared
amongst all the employees within the organization. This gives rise to a framework of
understanding the needs of the customers (Schwepker, 2018). The third step is “symbiotic
coordination” where the organization tries to understand the future behavior of the customers and
makes out the measures of the future orientation. The last step is “integral coordination” where
the employees are taught the whole process and injected process in order to make it a daily deed
within the organization.
Customer Oriented-Organization: A framework for innovation
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As stated by David the data that provides the target market present and future needs, distribution
of the knowledge cross-functionally, reconfirming the competitive intelligence and a whole
hearted study about the market and environment while implementing market orientation
construct is crucial for the managers (David et al, 2016). For becoming customer oriented
company, customer centered innovation is the utmost need. And to conceptualize innovation
centering the customers, constant interaction with the customers is a ceaseless requirement. But
there are issues for the orientation (Lii and Kuo, 2016). They are as follows:
Customer concept: To acquire the concept of ‘concentration on individual customer’ and
moving away from the segmented approach is a difficult job.
Interaction response capacity: This indicated the system of how often the customers should be
contacted, by what means and what the frequency of response is. This is decided by the firm and
maintains to be a crucial need.
Customer empowerment: The firm should understand that the customers are crucial partners
when they interact with the firm as well as other customers.
Customer value management: Detecting the individual value of the customer the firm should
treat them while interacting.
The organization must acquire to three main initiatives in order to become more customer
centric. They are “Understanding the customers true value”, “delivering the customer his or her
desired value and continuously track customer satisfaction”, “rewarding and retaining loyal and
profitable customers”.
As stated by Nart understanding customers true value is tricky of course but if maintained a
particular system this can gain an array of benefits for the organization. The employees are given
the power to interact with the customers through various modes of interaction (Nart et al., 2018).
According to Celuch the organization should adopt and understand the mode the customer wants
to be interacted through according to the trends of the (Celuch et al.,2015). Amazon is a
company which initially dealt books only but today it has gained a much bigger market share
through understanding the value of the customers, their needs and their wants. The data which is
collected from every account is utilized by the company to understand the value of the
individual. The data obtained is personalized and shoppers are helped real-time relating to the
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products of their focus. The customer, in this process, understands that the company is giving
enough attention in order to understand the value and meeting the needs of his or her. According
to Zameer for a company to understand societal needs and trend ongoing is truly necessary as the
company can excel only after collating the transactions of the customer and developing their
profile according to their purchase behavior which amazon does excellently (Zameer et al.,
2015). The amazon customers are segmented according to their product preference, price
sensitivity and lifestyle maintenance. However, Smolenskaya stated that cross selling or up
selling is an art with the employment of these above mentioned factors along with understanding
the value of the customers and amazon does that wisely to maintain the current position (Gulei et
al., 2015).
Ensuring desired customer value and tracking the customer satisfaction due to the proper
delivery is also utmost necessary. A customer centric organization creates policies, structures,
systems to track the customer value (Jaworski, 2018). The culture is to track the delivery and
customer satisfaction. Amazon employs the same inside the organization. They understand the
value of delivery and customer satisfaction. The company has built the customer centric ‘prime’
products which reach the customers as accustomed by the customers. The customer can also
choose the date, time and point of delivery of the bought products and they have a ‘tracking of
product’ system through which the customers can track the particular package. Each call from
the customer is highly valuable for the company and hey treat the customers accordingly. The
requests from the customers are approved normally and the customers are given a prior
importance. These factors ensure the satisfaction from the customers. Again the customer
satisfaction is also considered valuable and therefore is tracked. The customers are requested to
rate the service. Other than that the customers are also tracked to see whether they are using the
service or not, what is the frequency of the use and what are the products that are surfed by the
customer.
As stated by Brown loyalty is always rewarded. Likewise the company also should reward the
loyal customers who prove to be profitable for the company. It is highly possible for the
customers to deviate as there are number of options available in the market for the customers
(Jung et al., 2017). Preferences change and to understand the value they are seeking the company
should adapt to the contemporary needs of the customers and deliver the same. According to Lee
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the company should upgrade and see to the likings of customers and then decide for a reward.
Rewards which are not worthy are of no use for the organization and therefore does not uplift the
value of the organization in marketplace (Park et al., 2018). The preference of the customer
should be tracked and this data should be employed to understand the best reward for the
particular customer. Amazon employs the data for the crucial thinking and the customers are
rewards accordingly (Shaikh, 2018). Thus the company is has an array of products and services
suiting the different product references and to reward them they apply the behavioral history of
the particular customer. It applies an extensive research in every aspect regarding customer and
finding out the best is profitable for future (Karatepe and Aga, 2016). Innovation is also a key
toward retaining the customers. Innovating the products and services by Amazon has increased
the number of loyal customers today. The combination of products (according to the customer’s
preference) with a cheaper price, payment options, freebies are all part of innovations by
Amazon (Varghese et al., 2017). These attract a lot of customers who can be retained with
continuous innovation.
The organization should take following steps to meet the goal of being customer oriented.
 Enhancing customer engagement opportunities: To reckon the needs of the customer the
companies should enhance more systems and structures to connect with the customer.
Seamless connection would give rise to the data that the customer would value and the
company should also provide. Social media is a great way to attain this goal. Companies
connect with the customers through various means such as the telephone, e mails, texts,
referral and many more. But the ideal are those which give an insight about what the
customer thinks and prefers. It should be a two way interaction where the customer
should specify their wants and the company should ask appropriate questions and options
to the customer.
 Creating systems for tracking ideas for innovations: This is as crucial as the previous
step. The preferable systems and processes employed to fetch data is one crucial step.
The mentality of the customer needs to be understood and the mode through which the
customer prefers to be contacted should be given importance.
 Assessing the organizational competencies, differentiators and performance: The
companies should ensure that they are able to understand the changing preferences of the
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customers and apply those inside the organization to achieve a better customer
experience. Extensive training relating to the differentiator is given to every employee to
ensure the best results.
 Collaborative approaches internally: Problem solving is one crucial part of the company
and this can only happen if the collaboration is high within the departments. All the
employees understand the importance and drive to fulfill the single goal.
 Measuring the employee performance. The employee performance on the basis of
customer centric behavior is another need for the organization as they are the point of
interaction. The structures of incentives should be focusing on the customer-oriented
behavior and the amount of satisfaction factor the personnel has earned from the
customer.
Amazon employs all measures to see basic customer-orientation is maintained. It is present in
social media and has made it a platform for answering questions and signup queries and
complains which aids them to know the wants and needs of the customer. They prefer to go by
the modern mode such as chats and blogs to connect. They even reward those customers who
answer questions and help to enhance the data. The employees are trained and their
conversations are tracked by the delegates in order to understand the internal factors such as the
‘behavior of the official with the customer’ or the ‘knowledge of the product’ which helps them
to bargain the incentive system for particular employees.
As stated by Hao delighting the customers is one approach which can make things possible for
the company. Thus, making things possible has a particular structure (Hao and Song, 2016). It is
called the ten-step process. To meet the goal the four primary mission for every company is
structured. These are “Getting started”, “measuring what is important to customers”, “delighting
customers” and lastly “Quo vadis?”. These are again sub-segmented in 10 different steps.
The first part “getting started” comprises of three steps. They are as follows:
 Setting the service vision: Understanding some facts would help to calculate the service
vision. What business plane does business aspire to? Why is this service unique? How
can the service vision may communicated with the employees, customers and the
business partners? Answering these questions can develop a proper service vision for the
company. Clarifying the values of the company in simple language, place of competition
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or the target market (its demographic segmentation), and the differentiating factors make
things simple for the company and the customers (Lin, 2018). Amazon connects with the
customers through its simple statements.
 Gaining commitment: What are the shortfalls in the set vision and the practiced? What
are the projects that the company needs to outset? Who will sponsor, manage, and
facilitate the programs? What are the skills and experiences present? Are those enough?
 The go or no-go decision: What is the success probability? What are the risks and returns
behind each project? Can the company invest money, key resources? Does the
organization has enough ability and intension to succeed?
The following steps comprise “measuring what is important to customers”.
 Segmenting the customer base: what are the specific customers’ needs? What is the
nature and quality of business relationships relating to key customers? For the success of
the customers what is the role of the company?
 Defining the success criteria: what is the benchmark for delight to customers? How will
the company measure the reward for the teams?
 Customer feedback: How the data from the customer is captured effectively? How
important is confidentiality?
The following steps together comprise “delighting customers”.
 Analyzing results: How the results help in interpretation in order to aid customer-
orientation? Who will analyze the data and who will be responsible for service
improvement?
 Making change happen: How will the organization response to customer feedback? How
will service improvement continue through quick and long term changes?
 Communicating changes: How will the company communicate with the customers about
the researches and the response in the business? How the company will decide the perfect
time for communication?
The following comprise “choosing next to compete”.
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 Choosing where next to compete: What is the decoration of products that needs to be
made in order to climb the next level of service? What are skills and initiatives required
for the next? Where should be the efforts be focused?
Amazon has taken all the important steps in order to sustain and increase the business
throughout. The company is a US origin. Though the company is present in almost every
developed and developing countries. Before venturing on to the business the steps and their
suitable actions are calculated by the delegates of the company (Tang et al., 2017). Getting
started is a crucial part of the whole process and they evaluate the same taking into consideration
all the steps mentioned. Before venturing onto any new project the company understands the
vision and the level of expectation the particular target market have. They calculate the resources
are enough to get the step in or not. Risks are always a fact to consider (Zhang et al., 2017).
Though the company sees through the risks for potential returns and if there are enough positives
to consider the firm proceeds. The next step is also calculated by the company to achieve the
utmost results. As opined by Leal, segmenting the customers and creating a value for customers
is an important step considered by the company (Mendes et al., 2016). The delegate segment the
customers according to the demography and technology available in the particular area and
consider the trend. Customer feedback is also important for Amazon therefore it builds certain
systems to communicate to the customers according to the trend and technology of the area. The
next phase calculation is also crucial for Amazon. It analyzes the data very wisely and finds out
numerous options available for the customer (Nilsson and Alanko, 2018). The same is collated
within the departments of the company with effective communication. Amazon even performs a
quality check on whether the said criteria are met or not (Vollmar and Horn, 2016). The last
stage is done intelligently by the company. Understanding trends of the customer base Amazon
employs skills and investigate to suffice future needs of customers by predicting their current
activities.
Developing market-driven product strategies
Business design counts the following measures taken by every organization (Haque, 2018). They
are – market vision, value match, strategic relationships, brand building, brand leveraging,
proactive cannibalization and growth mandate. As stated by Geng, change is nature and to
counter the changes the companies need to innovate almost daily. Meeting the current trends and
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complying with the modern technology is frantic today (Geng, 2017). Developing market vision
with the help of opportunities and threat selection is necessary for the company to maintain the
market position. The delegates should structure a proper action plan keeping in mind the
findings, development and commercializing the new products, integration of products and
technology into the business design and lastly understanding the business design process for
identifying the change pressure (Ji et al., 2019). An organizational capabilities arrive when
inputs are enough for a better output which determines organizational effectiveness (Hill and
Alexander, 2017). Innovation is a growth driver and it should hold hands with risk factors as
with higher risks arrive better returns. As opined by Bendixen, there are also examples where the
management did not perform a better calculation for the vision and the efforts failed. Therefore
sensing the market and diagnosing information are highly important (Du Preez and Bendixen,
2015). The managers need to evaluate the company processes, threats, opportunities and ensure a
proper market vision.
Amazon calculates current trends, opportunities, threats to enter any market. It analyses
technology available in the market and continuously tracks the wants of the customers.
According to Amazon the business can grow when the goals comply with the customers’ need
and in order to make that helpful the company has to plan the action (Bailey et al., 2016).
Amazon has wonderful relation making strategies which boost the company’s operations
employing the modern technology. This needs to be continued by the company as this can build-
in strong partnerships (To et al., 2015). Collaborating internally and externally by the company
has made information easy to fetch and analyze. The products thus are customer centric
employing proper modern technology meeting the needs of the customers. Building brand equity
is also important as a strategy and this brings the brand in the good-books of the customers (Hill
and Brierley, 2017). The customers prefer to buy products from a brand which is reliable and
deals with quality assured products and this is a win-win situation for Amazon. Brand
management is a requirement in business and Amazon does that beautifully. With
advertisements, social media interactions and promotions the company is the foremost choice of
many households. Market driven product strategy also include proactive cannibalization.
Introducing new brands that may hamper the present value is a threat often to the managers.
Cannibalization happens to those companies that are developed in effective market sensing, it
also occurs in companies where there is internal competition. The fear of losing current value
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position may restrict mangers to take proper steps in introducing better products (Santouridis and
Veraki, 2017). Amazon has to think over this and see to the results once applied. Assessment of
product strategies for Amazon is important as the management has to recognize the different
issues and benefits for the organization. Amazon should review the product strategies and
identify whether they are appropriate for the want and needs of the customer or not. There are
several key issues regarding the strategies and obtaining assessments from managers of each
department would help the company understand correct path to follow. Every strategy taken up
should be considered with an evaluation of threats, opportunities, strengths and weaknesses
(Grace and Lo Iacono, 2015). Amazon should take up initiatives in understanding service
products contributed towards the mass are fruitful for long run or may collapse within a limited
time frame.
Customer satisfaction and internal market
Principles have changed for the organizations and they have concentrated on satisfying
customers with exceptional quality of products and services. As stated by Wu, every company
which deals with products have also a deep connection with the service as there are ample of
options available for the customer to choose from (Chen and Wu, 2016). Therefore, the customer
will chose that dealer which provides the best quality products at the same time a marvelous
service. An internal customer is also a crucial part of the total customer satisfaction process. The
analyzing the issues regarding the internal marketplace is tough though correct measurement
through ideal measurement tools can enhance the customer satisfaction factor for the company
(Boukis et al., 2015). The management of the company should have a focus on the customers to
get a sustained high performance. Quality and service, market driven strategy, market led
strategic change, relationship marketing and marketing control are the basic procedures in
enduring the customer satisfaction factor index (Fortenberry Jr and McGoldrick, 2016).
Measuring, evaluating and managing customer satisfaction is easy by dealers though these
comprise one firm step towards the growth of the company (Kaur and Sharma, 2015). The
dominant factor is that every firm measures the customer satisfaction factor through only surveys
and calculative measurements but the truth is customer satisfaction is much more than that. For
example, a customer who is not interested in answering questions is not counted under the factor
list though there is an extreme possibility of being a dissatisfied customer who is least bothered
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to interact with the company. As stated by Gimpel this limits the company is understanding the
demands of the customer and therefore cannot satisfy the particular. Thus the customer grows a
wrong concept about the company which harms the company through word of mouth. There are
issues regarding measurement as well as reporting (Gimpel et al., 2018). The primary problem is
developing suitable solutions to suitable issues of the customers. There are numerous types of
customer issues faced daily which are impossible for the computer or software to register at once
due to which there are not enough solutions available (Ali. and Qazi, 2018). Again as opined by
Sacramento if the data collection system is faulty and the data analysis and reporting is not
effective then the company will surely face serious issues. It is highly prone for the company to
face issues if the employees are not given enough attention (Martinaityte, 2016). It is obvious
fact that high customer satisfaction happens with high employee satisfaction. Once the
employees are satisfied they will suggest the customers for using product as well as listen to
queries to produce a proper solution (Ali et al., 2018)
To build better strategies understanding the internal and external market is highly essential for
the organization. Whether the customers are happy with what they are getting is all that is needed
or more needs to be implemented. Internal market affects the external and external affects the
internal market as well. The dissatisfied customers when calls the company with their complaints
it is obvious that the employee will thrash any employee with his bad mouth (Dick and Killick,
2016). This again can influence the employees as this will build a perception about the product
and service inside the mind of the employee which will resist him to convey good about the
product for future customers. Employees need to understand that every customer is different and
their needs are unique towards the company. Amazon has a segment for customer satisfaction or
query where the customers call to question the products or service or with their complaints. The
employees are trained with the fact that every customer is unique with various needs. The
complaints needs to be given a priority and therefore, solution should be developed. The same
problem regarding the customer should be registered in the software to understand and fight
same problem in the future with a probable solution. It may not be an adequate solution for
another customer again. In that cases the solutions are asked from the customer and the same is
applied with optimum resources possible. This leads to a better customer satisfaction factor for
the company as well the internal market is not disrupted (Shaheen et al., 2018).
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It is said that the internal and external quality and service are mirror images. Reliability,
tangibility of the service, responsiveness of the supplier in handling the customer feedback,
assurance regarding product or service and empathy with the supplier are the factors which
create the quality and service perceptions. It is very important to understand the employees
perspective on some factors such as whether the employees know that what they speak or
suggest to the customer directly influence the customer satisfaction factor, do they think it is
ideal way to provide solution, do they trust customer satisfaction measures, is customer
satisfaction measures for diagnosis or support. Amazon does a wonderful job on this. The
company delegates arrange meetings within a limited time period with the key employees who
are interacting with customers to provide solutions. In the session the delegates finds answers to
these questions for a better performance of the company in the future. Questions are asked
regarding what can be employed in the system to provide a better customer service, what are
primary customer requirements, what else or extra can be provided to the employees or the
customers to serve them better. In this session the employees who have been doing great with
their performances are also awarded which brings motivation for the personnel and positive
thought for the company in the minds of the personnel. The internal market issue and the
external market issues are connected. It is proved by Amazon that the company faces high
satisfactory results when satisfaction is at its best inside the company. The company trains
officials in such a way that their happiness and satisfaction is perceived by the external market
environment which attracts the customers.
Measurement is really a problem in order to understand the ideal customer satisfaction index.
Some companies measure through sales, some through resolving issue some through argument
resolving. But the fact is it is not that simple. Internal barriers are factors which affect the service
or quality, competition, high profit and low cost and managers thrive daily to train their officials
to improve these facts only. As stated by Killick the barrier are internal politics market and
customer fear, corporate culture, market complacency, resource, logistics, cost barriers
credibility and perceived market drivers. Amazon finely monitors these above mentioned factors
to maximize the customer satisfaction factors for the company. Almost daily delegates research
ways to minimize barriers and they work on adequate solutions available.
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