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Unit 11: Retail Pricing and Communication Mix

communicating with customers. In particular, try to anticipate the objections your customers Notes
will have to your message and address those objections.

Example: Suppose you’re sending out a directive regarding the downloading and
application of Windows updates. Suppose further that you have customers who know enough to
be dangerous. Such a customer might think, “Well, I’m current in my virus definitions, so this
update is unnecessary for me.” Your communications with such a customer will be more effective
if you anticipate and address that issue. Consider, therefore, a sentence such as, “This Windows
update is necessary even if your virus definitions are current.”

10. Keep the customer informed: The area where I live, southeastern Pennsylvania, has a large
agricultural presence, in particular involving the production of mushrooms. While they
are growing, mushrooms are kept in a dark building and are covered with fertilizer.
Your customers will become upset if you treat them the same way. Keep them informed
of developments involving them, particularly with regard to technical problems and
outages. In particular, keep them apprised even if nothing is going on. For example, let
them know you’ve contacted the vendor but still haven’t heard anything back. No news is
still news.
If a customer leaves you a request via voicemail or e-mail, let the customer know you
received it, even if you are still in the process of handling it. Doing so gives the customer
one less matter to worry about.
When a problem is resolved, let the customer know that, too. Nothing is more frustrating to
customers than finding out that they could have been working sooner if they had only known.

Note Large retailers may adapt different communication plans for particular geographic
markets to take advantage of geographic differences

11.6 Planning the Retail Communication Program

A communication program can be designed to achieve a variety of objectives for the retailer,
such as building a brand image of the retailer in the customer’s mind, increasing sales and store
traffic, providing information about the retailer’s location and offering, and announcing special
activities.

Retailers communicate with customers both online and offline and interactively and passively.
Direct marketing has received the greatest increase in attention by retailers and can occur using
telemarketing (offline/interactive), mobile marketing (online/interactive), direct mail and
catalogs (offline/passive), and e-mail (online/passive). These elements in the communication
mix must be coordinated so that customers have a clear, distinct image of the retailer and are not
confused by conflicting information.
Communication is an integral part of the retailer’s marketing strategy. Primarily, communication
is used to inform the customers about the retailer, the merchandise and the services. It also
serves as a tool for building the store image. Retail communication has moved on from the time
when the retailer alone communicated with the consumers. Today, consumers can communicate
or reach the organizations. Examples of this include toll free numbers, which retailers provide
for customer complaints and queries. Another example is the section called contact us on the
websites of many companies.

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