MRKT 310 Principles of Marketing

Week 2 Writing Assignment

Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty, Management and Empowerment

Learning Outcomes

1. Customer empowerment.  Student can identify how their chosen product or service offering uses social networks to communicate and empower customers to be part of the marketing process.
2. Customer satisfaction.  Student can identify how customers communicate their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the chosen product or service offering.  
3. Customer Relationship Management.  Student can explain customer lifetime value and how a customer relationship management program can have a role in attracting and retaining most valuable customers.
4. Customer privacy.  Student can identify the product or service offerings privacy policy and analyze its effectiveness in protecting their customer’s information.

Directions

• Refer to the product or service you selected last week. This week you want to take a closer look at the company’s website to identify how that company interacts with its customers.  If they have Facebook pages or other social media, check them out as well and add that information to your research data.
• You may want to find a Most Valuable Customer of the product or service if you are not one yourself, or alternatively think like an MVC.  What is the evidence of an MVC of your product or service.  It isn’t just that the customer regularly buys the product or service.  It means that the customer is treated differently — better — than other customers.  It means that the MVC represents about 20% of the company’s revenues.   These are the customers with whom the company regularly communicates, offers special deals,  and other ways as outlined in the text and as you can find with just a little bit of googling on the internet. 
• You may want to calculate the lifetime value of a most valuable customer.  See the discussion of the lifetime value calculation in the week’s reading, and calculate the LTV using this simple equation:  LTV = (Price – cost to produce the product) * number of annual purchases * number of years expected to purchase – initial acquisition costs.  For simplicity sake, you can assume your customer will have a relationship with you for ten years and you can make an educated guess as to how much the initial acquisition costs were to get him as a customer in terms of advertising or other types of promotion efforts.   If you are not an MVC yourself, make and share your assumptions about your calculation. If you are not an MVC, you might want to find someone who is and ask them why they are loyal to the product or service and what they feel the company does for them that is special that they don’t do for other customers.  
• You may need call or visit a store to take a look at your product or service if the website does not provide you everything you need to evaluate the company’s product or service privacy policy.  Usually the privacy policy is available on the website.
• Prepare your assignment beginning with a title page with your name and product or service.  Then answer the following four questions in order and number the beginning of your response to each question. 

1. Customer Empowerment.    How does your product or service offering empower its customers as discussed in the course readings this week?  In other word, how are customers part of the marketing for the company? Identify the feedback vehicles they may use, especially social media. Do the social media efforts seem to be creating buzz marketing? If not, what could they do to generate more ‘buzz’? 
2. Customer satisfaction.  How does your product or service offering communicate ways for customers to express their dissatisfaction and if possible, outline what remedies the product or service may be taking to ensure satisfaction.  
3. Customer Relationship Management.  Does it appear that your product has a customer relationship management strategy?  In other words, do they treat the top tier of customers differently than other customers? If so, what is your evidence?  If not, should they have a CRM strategy?  Or, are there compelling reasons why your product or service should treat all customers the same?  Refer to course content concepts in your response.  
4. Customer privacy.  Review your product or service offering’s privacy policy (usually published on its website). Analyze whether you think they do enough to protect the customer’s privacy or what steps you might suggest they take to protect customer’s privacy.  Refer to the privacy policies or the information on warranties and guarantees.  The company’s customer support page might also be useful. Do they pubish a remedy should the customer’s privacy be breached?  Should they?

Be sure to follow all of the submission requirements outlined in the syllabus and provided below again for your easy reference:

• Prepare as a word processed document (such as Microsoft Word). 

• Your assignment should be the equivalent of two pages of double-spaced text, approximately 1/2 page for each of the four questions.

• Be sure your name, writing assignment number, and the name of your product or service are on the first page of your writing assignment.

• Use a simple 12-point font such as Times New Roman.  Use black ink for majority of your work and only use colors if it enhances your ability to communicate your thoughts.  

• If the writing assignment requires external research, be sure to use footnotes and include a bibliography.  You may use MLA or APA style, or any other college-level style guide. More information about using a style guide can be found in the UMUC’s virtual library accessible from your LEO classroom or at umuc.edu/library.   

• Upload your word processed document in your LEO assignments by the due date isn the LEO calendar.  

Refer to the grading rubric associated with the assignments.  Be sure to note that 20% of your grade on this assignment will be based on your grammar, composition, adherence to the submission requirements, and use of an appropriate college-level style guide for writing and referencing.  

Any questions?  Please post in the general discussion forum for Week 2.

Hide Rubrics

Rubric Name: Weekly Writing Assignments Rubric

Criteria

Level 4
4 points

Level 3
3 points

Level 2
2 points

Level 1
1 point

Level 0
0 points

Marketing Concept #1

Student exhibits a high level of understanding of the first marketing concept in this writing assignment and can precisely apply the concept to a real product.

Student exhibits a good level of understanding of the first marketing concept in this writing assignment and can generally apply the concept to a real product.

Student exhibits an average level of understanding of the first marketing concept in this writing assignment, but may not have been able to apply the concept to a real product effectively.

Student exhibits a poor understanding of the concept and cannot  demonstrate the concept’s applicability to a real product.

Student did not attempt or effort was off track.  

Marketing Concept #2

Student exhibits a high level of understanding of the first marketing concept in this writing assignment and can precisely apply the concept to a real product.

Student exhibits a good level of understanding of the first marketing concept in this writing assignment and can generally apply the concept to a real product.

Student exhibits an average level of understanding of the first marketing concept in this writing assignment, but may not have been able to apply the concept to a real product effectively.

Student exhibits a poor understanding of the concept and cannot  demonstrate the concept’s applicability to a real product.

Student did not attempt or effort was off track.  

Marketing Concept #3

Student exhibits a high level of understanding of the first marketing concept in this writing assignment and can precisely apply the concept to a real product.

Student exhibits a good level of understanding of the first marketing concept in this writing assignment and can generally apply the concept to a real product.

Student exhibits an average level of understanding of the first marketing concept in this writing assignment, but may not have been able to apply the concept to a real product effectively.

Student exhibits a poor understanding of the concept and cannot  demonstrate the concept’s applicability to a real product.

Student did not attempt or effort was off track.  

Marketing concept #4

Student exhibits a high level of understanding of the first marketing concept in this writing assignment and can precisely apply the concept to a real product.

Student exhibits a good level of understanding of the first marketing concept in this writing assignment and can generally apply the concept to a real product.

Student exhibits an average level of understanding of the first marketing concept in this writing assignment, but may not have been able to apply the concept to a real product effectively.

Student exhibits a poor understanding of the concept and cannot  demonstrate the concept’s applicability to a real product.

Student did not attempt or effort was off track.  

Grammar, composition, adherence to submission requirements, effective use of references

Student submitted a professional document with no typos or grammatical errors.  Assignment adheres all all submission requirements outlined in the syllabus. Student demonstrated superior research and referencing skills and uses a college-level style guide.

Student submitted a  good document, may have a few typos or grammatical errors.  Assignment adheres to all submission requirements outlined in the syllabus.  Student demonstrated adequate research and referencing skills, but may have some issues with attribution of statements of facts or others’ opinions, uses a college-level style guide.

Student submitted an acceptable document, may have an unacceptable number of distracting typos or grammatical errors.  Assignment does not adhere to all submission requirements outlined in the syllabus.  Student demonstrated poor research and referencing skills leaving most statements of facts and others’ opinions unattributed, and attributions may not be in the form of a college-level style guide.

Student submitted a poor document, typos and grammatical errors very distracting to the reader.  Assignment does not comply with most submission requirements as outlined in the syllabus. Students does not demonstrate any research and referencing skills.  Writing style needs significant help.  Suggest student seek the services of UMUC’s Effective Writing Program before submitting further assignments.

Student does not submit a writing assignment on time or in an acceptable format.  

Overall Score

Level 5
14 or more

Level 4
11 or more

Level 3
8 or more

Level 2
5 or more

Level 1
0 or more