Assessment Information – What you need to do

This is an individual assignment.

This assignment requires you to assess the customer management competence of a chosen company, and will identify its strengths and weaknesses in managing its customers from acquisition, to retention and development.

Criteria for Assessment - How you will be marked

This assignment is designed to assess the following learning outcomes:

LO1. Assess organisational competence in customer management

LO2. Identify weaknesses in customer management performance

Assessment Details

In this section, you will find detailed information on Coursework 1 highlighting:

· Required structure

· Marking breakdown (i.e. marking criteria)

· Student checklist

You should take your time to go through the brief and familiarize yourself with the coursework requirements.

Word Count: The word count is 1,500 words (+/- 10 percent)

There will be a penalty of a deduction of 10% of the mark for work exceeding the word limit by 10% or more.

The word limit includes quotations and citations, but excludes tables, figures, the references list and appendices.

Required Structure:

Title Page (title of the report, student number, module name & code, tutor name, submission date, word count) (Title page is not weighted.)

Organisational Summary (one page; 5 marks)

Organisational Summary will provide a background to your company – must use the Template on page 6.

1) Customer acquisition, retention and development strategies (550 words; 30 marks)

Considering the key customer segment of the company, assess the chosen company’s customer acquisition, retention and development strategies. These strategies need to be current ones which can be online, offline or both.  You should NOT propose or recommend new strategies (as this will be the focus of Coursework 2).

This section must be structured around three key sub-sections:

1. Customer acquisition

2. Customer retention

3.    Customer development

Your discussion should include references to the key relationship marketing constructs such as:

• trust

• customer commitment

• customer satisfaction

• customer loyalty

• customer value

• relationship benefits

•  share of wallet

When presenting the current strategies, we strongly encourage you to discuss these in relation to customer segmentation, such as:

• converting prospects

• activating newly acquired customers

• turning loyal customers into advocates

• turning low purchase customers into high purchase customers

• re-engaging dormant customers

Your discussion should be supported with credible academic and practitioner literature.

2) Comparative Analysis (400 words; 25 marks)

In this section, you should compare the customer acquisition, retention and development strategies of your chosen company with one of its key competitors operating in the same industry.

First you must present the competitor’s current strategies in a table as below:

(Tables are excluded from word count)

Next, compare and contrast your chosen company’s strategies with this competitor, highlighting the similarities and differences between the two companies.

3) Customer Value Creation (400 words; 25 marks)

Apply EITHER IDIC OR KANO to the chosen company.

This section must be developed around IDIC or KANO that you have selected. Having identified your theoretical framework, you will apply this to your chosen company. In the discussion the focus should be on how the company can create value to its customers.

• This section should be structured around the chosen theoretical framework. For

example, if you have selected IDIC you should have four paragraphs, each around one

of the four strategies of IDIC.

• You must present a diagram of the theoretical framework APPLIED to your company

(diagrams are excluded from word count).

• Your discussion should NOT be on a mere description of the framework. Instead, you

will need to APPLY the framework to the chosen company, with particular emphasis

on customer value creation.

• You will need to cite academic / practitioner sources throughout the section.

4) Conclusion (150 words; 7.5 marks)

In this section, you will need to identify strengths and weaknesses of your chosen company in relation to their customer management strategies. This discussion must be informed by:

• the company’s current customer acquisition, retention and development strategies

(Section 1)

• its key competitors’ customer management strategies (Section 2)

• how the company offers value to its customers (Section 3)

Despite being a brief section, Conclusion is an important section as it will lay the foundation for Coursework 2.

The Structure and Professionalism of Your Report (7.5 marks)

Structure, Referencing and Professionalism of Your Report (including language and grammar)

Your understanding of the module content should be reflected well in the report. This means you will need to refer to learning materials, concepts and theories learnt in the module, in the context of the chosen company.

• Please use 1.15 line spacing and 11-point Calibri.

• On Submission Title on Turnitin, please type this "your student number-MARK3014-CW1".

• Report needs to be structured well, professional looking, clearly expressed points in

English, adopt careful punctuation and appropriate use of paragraphs (including the

choice of terminology, spelling and grammar).

• The appendices you include in the report should be relevant. Materials that appear in

the appendices must be referred to and commented upon in the main text, otherwise

they will not be counted towards your grade. Appendices should not be treated as an

extension of the main report.

• Tables, graphs, diagrams are EXCLUDED from word count.

• Your reference list should demonstrate your close engagement with module textbook

and the sources on “online research list”. A full list of references of all sources

(whether academic or industry-based) must appear at the end of your assignment,

written in Harvard (Cite Them Right). Further information can be found here:

https://library.dmu.ac.uk/refguide.  Sources must also be indicated clearly in the main

text, as they arise. You must not copy materials directly from any source word-for-

word without acknowledgement, and neither must you paraphrase material from any

source (academic or business) without acknowledgment. To do so is ‘plagiarism’, which

is a serious academic offence.

• Very important: this report must be entirely your own work and no-one else’s.