The human element is not always considered when setting up business negotiations. Customers are often neglected in favor of bettering the bottom line and decreasing cost of operations. Customer service is notoriously a costly, but necessary, part of doing business. Without humans, it would be impossible to maintain operations of any kind, so it may be an investment that it is worth spending extra time and funding on, rather than simply just enough attention. Many companies do this indirectly by increasing the value of their product or service, stepping above and beyond what is required to please their clientele and delivering extra benefits and better quality of customer care. For example, Mediscreen provides onsite drug and alcohol testing services for your workplace, which is convenient and cost effective for you and less invasive for your employees.
Kjell Gruner and Christian Homburg did some research about how positive and sufficient interaction with customers helped new products to be developed. New product development is not simply based upon cool new ideas. New products have to satisfy a need or a partial need, while being convenient, cost effective, and pleasing to the eye. They also have to be properly marketed or no one will ever know about them. The study by Gruner and Homburg found that certain parts of the new product development process were positively impacted by consumer interaction and communication. Steps such as idea instigation and development, poll taking, and merging with existing successful products were positively impacted by customer influence. Steps such as production management and how each product should be made were best left in the hands of the professionals, who know which materials and colors test as the most pleasing and are the safest and most resilient. So, in essence, it is a good idea to have your customers on board with your new product ideas and to help flesh out features which would be valued by the consumer market, but it is also a good idea to step back and maintain a certain level of objectivity so that you know when it is appropriate to listen to experts and when it is appropriate to tune in to consumer needs.
Call Mediscreen today to find out more about onsite drug and alcohol testing for your business. Whether you deal directly with customers or only supply businesses, employee safety and the security of your operations are paramount. Call us today: (+61) 1300 79 70 40.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296399000132
