August - 2016 - Special issue > CXO Insights
The Key to Lasting Success for a Brand is Strong Customer Relationship
Gaurav Khurana, CMO, PAYBACK
The Indian Retail Industry has undergone a paradigm shift from a product-oriented industry to a more marketing focused industry with the 'customer' taking center stage. The customer today is spoilt for choice owing to diverse factors like multiple brand choices, extremely attractive value propositions and availability of content 24x7 due to various social platforms and technological access.
Also, there are radical changes and explosion in the retail landscape with the emergence of new age e-commerce players giving the larger organized players a run for their money. All this explosion is resulting in mad rush for new customer acquisition. However, the same is fuelled largely by deep discounting, which in the longer run is unlikely to be un-sustainable. As discounting is very transactional in nature and does not build any engagement with the customer over time, competition can better the discount the next day and acquire the same customer. So, the real challenge is to build strong customer relationships which eventually drive sales, sustainability and growth, post the initial acquisition run.
Retention and customer stickiness can potentially be achieved through the following means:
a) Strong product differentiation: This is largely limited to manufacturers and has a limited role in retail/ service industry
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