JEDDAH, 10 May 2005 — Customer satisfaction and loyalty measurement are no longer strange to the corporate sector in this part of the world. A change is taking place among companies to adopt a customer-driven approach that will benefit businesses and ultimately consumers.
In spite of their best intentions, it is not easy for organizations to change. “You’ve to engage them to introduce a change for, after all, the consumer is the king,” says Lawrence A. Crosby, chief executive officer of the Symmetrics practice at Synovate, who has evolved a cutting-edge customer loyalty measurement and management service. “Symmetrics is meant to clarity your customer landscape,” he told Arab news on the sidelines of a series of individual meetings with corporate entities he and his team had at Jeddah Hilton yesterday.
Synovate, he said, is the first market research company to establish a presence in the Middle East. Accompanied by Synovate’s Managing Director for Gulf Andreas Gregoriou, and New Business Development Director John Lockhart, both Jeddah-based, and Riyadh-based Client Service Director Charles Glover, Crosby gave individual presentations to top executives of three major organizations.
Synovate, the market research arm of Aegis Group PLC which generates consumer insights that drive competitive marketing solutions, also announced the launch of its cutting-edge Symmetrics customer loyalty measurement and management practices for companies in the increasingly competitive market of the Kingdom and the rest of the Middle East.
Symmetrics helps companies build profitable, lasting customer-relationships by delivering strategic research solutions that clearly and accurately identify the entire set of national and emotional forces that drive customer loyalty behavior.
“These insights are essential elements in a company’s efforts to improve or create new customer experiences, said Crosby whose visit to the city marked the launch of Symmetrics.
“By explaining customer behavior toward client products, services and brands, we provide our clients with the knowledge and technology necessary to create more effective customer relationship management strategies, he said, adding that tools such as these are increasingly important for companies in the Middle East, where markets are liberalizing and countries preparing for accession to the World Trade Center,” he said.
Symmetrics helps assure sustainable differentiation by working to align a company’s entire organization around customer loyalty through data-drive strategy clarification, new resource allocation processes, and employee engagement, said Crosby who has been a key player in evolving the measurement and management science of customer loyalty for the past 30 years.
Crosby, who has a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Michigan and was a former tenured professor of marketing at several universities, has worked with major global companies and authored dozens of academic papers as a thought leader in redefining and improving the use of customer research as a strategic and actionable management tool.
Through its 92 offices in 44 countries on four continents, Synovate puts its decades of experience pushing the boundaries of strategic market research, applied business management, and behavioral science to the service of its clients.
Gregoriou said the interaction with local companies and their response had been positive.
“The market is demanding and its potential large. So Synovate is planning to host a workshop here in September, with a training program for Saudis. We’ve also been sending corporate executives for training in the methodology from here,” he added.
