ATHE Diploma: Customer Focus and Strategic Advantage at Crabtrees Ltd

This report examines the crucial role of customer focus for strategic advantage within the context of Crabtrees Ltd, a UK real estate organization. It begins by establishing the relationship between the company's mission, vision, and objectives, emphasizing the importance of customer-centric values. The report then explores the connection between customer service strategy and market positioning, highlighting the significance of understanding customer expectations and needs. It delves into the concept of listening within an organization, underscoring the importance of employee and customer feedback. Furthermore, the report discusses financial performance, business growth, and the importance of people development, including strategies like job enrichment and mentoring to improve customer service. Finally, it emphasizes the value of customer retention and the role of a strong customer service strategy for stakeholder satisfaction and overall business success.

CUSTOMER FOCUS FOR STRATEGIC
ADVANTAGE

INTRODUCTION
Customer focus is very imperative in this competitive environment. Organization
develops different strategies to get customer’s attention. This report is about Crabtress Ltd. that
is a real estate organization of United Kingdom. Reports help in identifying relation between
mission, vision and objectives of organisation.
Further, it covers explanation of connections between customer service strategy and an
organisation’s market positioning. After this, the report will explain the concept of listening in an
organization. Lastly, it consist about the importance of customers services to stakeholder.
TASK 1
1.1
Consumer is the king of market and every organization produces products according to
customers’ needs and desires. An organization focus on needs of customers and draft plan
according to their requirement. They adopt various strategy to implement plans. (Bailey and
et.al., 2018). The SMT (Senior Management Team) of Crabtrees Ltd frames organizational
values such as vision, mission and objectives to keep their customers in mind. Link between
customer focus and organizational rules-
Values- SMT of Crabtrees Ltd has its own core values like excellence, customer’s respect,
integrity, community etc. Those values are decided according to customer’s taste and demand.
Main purpose of value is to provide customers’ satisfaction.
Vision- In order to satisfy customers requirement they provide them with comfortable
accommodation with well developed society area. They render quality services to fulfil
customers requirement. SMT of Crabtrees Ltd provides comfortable and valuable services at
low cost.
Mission- they provide excellence services to become leading real estate organisation. SMT of
Crabtrees Ltd provides their best services to customers with their prefixed mission.
Objectives- Designing, developing and leasing properties to the customers are the objectives of
Crabtrees Ltd that provides properties to customers according to their investment. Further, it
always focuses on customers’ requirements and provides services that satisfy them.
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1.2
Users are becoming increasingly demanding in today's era. They not only want high
choice commodities but they also expect high quality customer services. The SMT of Crabtrees
Ltd evaluates market demands and customer’s expectations. They also decided to implement
new products and services to their consumers and gain its former share.
Identify gap - SMT determine gaps between customer beliefs and actual employment provided
at contrasting stages of service transfer (Bryson, 2017).
Evaluate consumer expectation- Situational expectations are helpful to evaluate consumers’
expectations. SMT identify customer demand which reflect human relationship between the
customer and supplier of product or service.
Needs and Values- SMT To meet customers expectation the provide quality services. Company
satisfy demand of customers by utilising there resources.
Human Resource Policy- Human resources policies are adopted by company to fill gap between
expectation and reality. They design products according to desire of customers. Their main
motive is customers satisfaction.
1.3.
Consumer service scheme – Impressive customer services strategy play major role in growth of
enterprise. Customer care services help in creating satisfaction among customers, helping to hold
loyal customers and to gain levels of enterprises globally.
Organization market positioning - It plays vital part for organizational and business strategy.
Positioning is the key to effective marketing strategic planning. Organization’s market
positioning increases the sales, stakeholders’ interest and also helps in maintaining the goodwill.
Market aligning help in creating brand image of company.
 Customer service strategy creates customer service vision and understands their
responsibility (Cooper, 2017). Positioning refers to business identity of a brand.
Positioning and customer services strategy assesses customers’ needs.
 Market positioning and consumer service strategy helps to set goals according to
consumers’ needs and wants. It helps to reach their organizational goals.
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 Having a strong vision and effective strategies for market positioning is a critical
component for occurrence of any organization. Client service strategy is necessary for the
growth of organization and business.
1.4.
Financial Execution- It includes analysis and representation of business statement of the
organization or business. A Financial Report is a summary of Business Performance. reports
identify the financial wellness of a business. Financial performance includes analysis -
 On the job Analysis
 Financial construction Analysis
 Action Analysis
 Profitability Investigation
Business Growth- Business growth is a stage, which reaches the point for sales expansion,
market expansion, business value and growth. Business growth requires organizational system
and procedures that will manage growth in effective manner. Maintain the owner and
management role helps in business growth.
Build Infrastructure – Financial performance and business growth helps customers to build
infrastructure that supports their strategies.
Resolve customer issue- customer care strategies helps to resolve issues faced by customer.
Continuous Improvement- It improves organizational system and helps in business expansion.
It improves team performance and achieves performance targets (Ginter, Duncan. and Swayne,
2018). Continuous improvement helps in identifying improvements that any business can adopt
in order to attain success.
Build a reputation – Business growth help to build reputation in the market and it helps in
market expansion. Financial performance develops customer care strategies.
1.5
Client retention- It mentions actions and activities of company. It measures the customers’
loyalty and capacity of existing business in market. Consumers’ retention shows that consumers
are satisfied with both services and products. Understanding future needs of customers help in
customer retention.
s why employee and customers’ feedback is important-
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Customer Retention- Satisfied customers will stay with Customer Spirit- It evaluates
customers’ concern of goods or services supply by company. Consumer satisfaction is a
reflection of business, which gives positive and negative outcomes for business (Kumar and
Reinartz, 2018). Customers’ satisfaction is important because it helps to solve problems.
Business ethics helps customer satisfaction that creates goodwill for existing business.
1.Information that is not available to competitors, guiding organizational and market position in
Market Research is crucial in developing that is sustainable competitive advantage because it
discovers.
2. A sustainable competing benefit is the key to business success in international market.
Understand the strength and core areas of the business to gain attention in the competitive
market.
3. A sustaining competitive advantage is an in providing value to the customers. Understand the
global market and its segments.
TASK 2
2.1.
Listening skills is effective in an organisation. Listening skills give the other person full attention
and helps to build the relations within the organisation. Listening helps to develop trust and
maximizes each other’s strengths in an organisation. It includes maintaining reputation,
motivates employees, reduce conflict, developing trust, etc.
Maintaining your reputation- Listening skills help to maintain reputation of an organisation,
which helps you to interact in the corporate world. Organisational listening refers to effectively
capturing opportunities. Listening can tarnish the company's reputation.
Motivating Employees- A good listener is able to improve the morale of employees. Attentive
listener motivates their members and employees (Luo and Bu, 2018). Further, it also helps
workers to find characteristics of tasks and they find the most profitable and difficult.
Reduce Conflict- Listening can reduce conflicts. Organizational listening refers to a process of
deploying listening tools and effectively capturing appropriate employee sentiments at points and
frequencies to enable effective organizational decision making.
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Developing Trust – Listening is essential for building trust. It helps in collaborating and
maximizing each other strengths. It enables to adopt facts to make judgements that goodness of
our business concern.
2.2
Customer response is information supply by consumers and clients just about whether
they are satisfied or discontent with a commodity or work they had with an organisation or
company. Customers’ feedback helps to improve products and services. Employee and customer
feedback helps to ensure that end production will actually meet their supply solve problems and
execute their demand. Listening to clients and employees help to communicate that their opinion
is important for the company.
Below given are the reasons why employee and customers’ feedback is important-
Customer Retention- Satisfied customers will stay with longer in the organization. Employee
and customer feedback helps to determine that consumers are satisfied with divine services and
detect region where should modify.
Taking business decisions- Employee response is one of the most reliable points for real data
that can be used in taking any business judgement. Clients’ insights will help to read consumers
and their necessarily profoundly.
Helps to create best customer experiences- The most impressive way to give surprising
experience is to request clients and employees what they look-alike about their divine service
and what should be developed.
2.3
Effective listening skills make employees more responsible. The power to listen
cautiously allows worker to better realise assignments and task which are given. Listening
reduces risks of misunderstanding (Van Androniceanu, 2017. It gives a person to inspire and
motivate employees.
Below given are the profits of an organisation of hearing to customers-
Spread out capability and knowledge- Effective hearing skills make an employer more
efficient and confident of their position. It improves knowledge and helps to fulfil job
requirements through innovative learning.
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Saves time and money- Effective listening to customers and clients cut down risks of
misinterpretation and mistakes that could be very negative for business; it saves time and wealth
for business.
Figure out difficulty quickly - A businessperson should be attentive to what employer has to
express and understand client’s needs. Listening helps in to make cleared decisions and to
discover more about all feature of the organization.
2.4.
All employees and customer are valuable to business and company. Costumer views and
feedback helps an organization to evaluate their products and services. The more we know about
customer and their opinions and experiences helps in to evaluate the global market. Sorting
feedback will immediately help to show a wider picture of how customer views any services
(Haines, 2016). Evaluation can help in discover most loyal influencers. Analyse information is a
great tool to drive regular communication between your customers. Information collected from
customer experiences manages and identify key drivers which helps in to track the future
business.
Understand the value of customer- Clients and consumers are valuable for any business
enterprise. It is essential to understand worth of costumers.
Look for trends- Analysing customer opinions help in growth of a business. Identifying trends
is also one of the most important trends that could show right and wrong things for business.
Look at root causes- We need to understand what driving consumer loyalty is if we want to
survive in global market customer feedback will help. It is useful to make the analysis of root
cause.
TASK 3
3.1
People development is an organization’s job or looking to take responsibilities of career
growth.
Stretch assignments and projects- Organization think about special assignments in the next
coming months and who can take this responsibility to improve skills. SMT gives assignments to
employees to find out the best customer service strategy to develop their marketing skills.
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Job enrichment- These employees' development opportunities beneficial for employee’s current
job role. For example, presentation at meetings, volunteering etc. gives SMT opportunities to
increase their job skills.
Mentoring- Organization provides demonstration benefits of quality work, excellent
communication skills and also provides solutions to problems (Homburg, Jozić. and Kuehnl,
2017). SMT conducts training for employees’ developments.
Job Shadowing- Job shadowing is a great path for employees to learn different elements apart
from their job, while future developing in their job. SMT provides this way to its employees to
explore their career.
Job Rotation- For employees’ development, SMT provide a chance to their employees to move
and rotate through one or other working positions. Rotation of job can for days, months and for
years.
Lateral move- Lateral move is important for employees to prepare them for new challenges and
develop new skills.
Promotions- SMT promote those employees who are more talented and skilful. Give new
position, new job responsibilities and hike in salaries.
People development of an organization increases the market value. SMT develop their develop
people and these develop people build a relation with customers and provide the best customer
services to them.
3.2
Leader is the head of section, is in charge of a group of people and supportive. Leader
takes actions to do their job as follows-
Trust building- Trust cannot be acquired; it must be earned. Without trust, a leader cannot work.
SMT leader should be trustworthy towards their employees and job. If employees feel that their
leader is not trustable then they will do half-quartered performance.
Demonstrating courage- An opportunity comes when a leader takes a team. SMT leader must
be courageous to handle team and accomplish goals (Cooper, 2017). A leader always inspires
employees to do their job efficiently.
Challenging- Part of a leader's Customer Focus for Strategic Advantageous is to create a
teamwork culture; a leader ready to accept challenges and complete team goals. Leaders have an
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ability to motivate their employees to do their job with zeal. SMT leader motivate employees to
accept challenges and complete job responsibilities.
Communicating effectively- Leader should be an effective communicator at all team levels. He
must deliver clear and informative message to employees. SMT leader has two communications
to accomplish goals.
An effective leader motivates employees, creates relationship with customers and provides
quality services according to their needs.
3.3
People are the main branch of organization. Their development increases the organization
value. For employees' development, SMT conduct training and development program to provide
assignments for improving employees’ skills, give opportunities to employees through
presentations in team meetings for improvement in their spoken skills, job rotation for days,
months and years to understand other job responsibilities.
Motivate employees by promote them and increase their salary. These all-developmental
efforts polish the employees’ skills and make them more skilled and qualitative. Skilled
empowerment increases organization’s productivity and creates a clear image of organization.
Qualified and skilled employees easily come to know customers’ requirements and
helpful to produce qualitative production (Bryson, 2017). Customer services are an important
part of an organization’s responsibility. The Best customer service attracts more customers and
Increase Company’s revenue. Customer expects that organization give good customer service
like their products and this customer expectation will be complete by skilled develop employees.
Therefore, people development, empowerment and customer service depends on each other.
Develop people, well empowerment provide best and qualitative customers services.
3.4
Developed and skilled empowerment is an important part of an organization to produce
qualitative products. Empowerment employees provide guidance to organization what and how
they produce their product and actual customer’s needs.
To provide the best customer services, an organization empowers employee’s research on
customers’ desires and study the market environment to collect data; collected data give an idea
to production and service department and provide services according to data collection. In
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today's scenario customer wants a qualitative customer service with good product quality (Bailey
and et.al., 2018).
SMT focus not only on products but also on customer services too. Development in
empowerment will increase company customer service. Let's take an example- if unskilled
employees of an organization try to make a healthy relation with customers and want to know
their requirements and opinion about their products and services, they can't get success. While
skilled employees doing the same job at other side they can easily build a relation with customers
and provide good customer services according to their needs. Therefore, employee's
empowerment is important to provide the best customer services.
TASK 3
5.1.
Manager of Crabtrees Ltd is using some strategies to support customer service by
recognition and reward to staff. Company can only increase or maintain its share if their staffs
are good as because if staff is not good that company's customer is not satisfied.
In order to satisfy customers, Human Resources Manager uses some techniques that are as
follows-
Involvement of all employees’ in development, implementation and revision of
reward programs- This is the best way to motivate employees as if they are motivated or
encouraged, customer services will be outstanding. There is direct connection in between
employee’s motivation as well as customer services (Saeidi and et.al., 2015). Addition to this,
this strategy will also encourage effective communication between employees’s and top
management.
Ensure that employee’s view the reward as worth the effort- In the program of reward
development procedure, it is very critical to ensure that they value rewards and see them as
worth the efforts. It is essential that manager of company must measure inputs of employees and
then select rewards accordingly. By doing this work, this will surely increase satisfaction of
customers by giving valuable and effective services to them.
5.2.
There are many theories or models of motivation and models of performance that
contributed in achieving objectives of customer services.
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