Consumer Digital Journey - Samsung Galaxy S4 - Case Study Example

Title: Consumer Digital Journey Name Institution Name of the Tutor Introduction Samsung Galaxy S4 is a phone brand from Samsung phone manufacturing company in South Korea. Samsung Company is one of the leading smartphone manufacturing companies. Apple, Nokia, Techno and Sony are close competitors to Samsung in the market. Apart from serving customers in most part of Asia, Samsung has expanded its market share to Europe and United States. This has given Apple family phone manufactures particularly in United States hard time for their brands in the US market ('Annual Report Samsung' 2014). A major competitor in the industry to Samsung is Apple. To counter the positive pressure from apple Samsung Galaxy S4 was produced to meet the needs of sophisticated social media and online participants at a cheaper cost. The increasing usage of social media and online users in the world has led to Samsung Company creating a ‘visual line’ for its brands (Samsung Galaxy S4 included). Tactically and creatively, Samsung Galaxy S4 manufacture has given customers tangible and real world by offering a phone with high resolution camera and fast online browsing. These are two essential needs for the ‘millennials’ for them to feature conspicuously in the digital society. The changing needs of customers have led to fast growth in smartphone industry. Introducing Samsung Galaxy S4 therefore explores what exactly matters in the digital society. Samsung Company main objective with its brands will still remain simply as producing brands that will help customers achieve life in a simple and complete way. This has been confirmed with the positive reviews of post-purchase customers of Samsung Galaxy S4 from various market segments. Purchase process of Samsung Galaxy S4 Step 1: Awareness: First, the customer recognizes the need of having the phone. Most social media and online users would consider having a smartphone to counter their needs. Step 2: Discover: After identifying the specific need/s of having the product, a customer searches for information about Samsung Galaxy S4. The customer in this case should have to contact phone stores and Samsung manufacture with a hypothetical situation. Also, the customer can access the information through Samsung website and call centre. These are specific touch points where a customer can get comprehensive information about the product. Step 3: Plan of acquiring: The customer should decide on a plan of how to acquire the phone. This may be through direct purchase from the stores or placing an online order for delivery. Step 4: Purchase: The customer acquires the product through channel of his/her choice. Stet 5: Post-purchase sensation: The customer shares the experience of purchasing the phone particularly by giving the positive evaluations of the phone. Touch points Samsung Galaxy S4 has expanded touch points where a consumer can interact with the brand owners. These include digital marketing channels like Facebook, email, Twitter and Blogs. Most of the Samsung brands are communicated through social media and online platforms where consumers are given chance to state their reviews about the product. The company (Samsung in this case) interact with the customer directly through these digital platforms. Also, customers of Samsung Galaxy S4 can get in touch with the manufacture through customer forums and customers services offered in different retail outlets of Samsung Company. These outlets are found in most part of the world where customers can easily access. Mapping the digital journey Flowchart showing purchase journey of Samsung Galaxy S4 and touch points Analysis of customer experience The presentation of Samsung Galaxy S4 phone on online and social media has attracted the attention of many customers around the world. Most of the consumers have shifted to use Samsung Galaxy S4 due to its spectacular features. The online presence of brand has positively affected company’s growth in terms of market share and sales ('Annual Report Samsung' 2014). For instance, customers in the developing worlds are increasingly using Samsung phones. For this reason, online presence has opened up new markets as well as developing a strong brand image of the company which is a good impression. The critical analysis of customer experiences through examining of post-purchase reviews has referred many new customers to Samsung stores and retail outlets. Quantitative survey conducted in India by marketing team showed that 80% of new customers that obtained online information about Samsung S4 and other Samsung products went on and purchased the product. The results also reflected up to 70% usability of Samsung website. The website tracking results showed that before the introduction of Samsung Galaxy S5, majority of customers were more attached to the features of Samsung Galaxy S4. More clicks were found to be for S4 implying that online presence of S4 attracted attention of many customers in the market giving a worthy impression. Customer experience of customers implies that the introduction of Samsung Galaxy S4 has positively influenced customers to a greater capacity. This has reflected a significant increase in company’s revenue due to expansion of market share. Digital platform has played an important role in building Samsung Company’s brand image particularly with the presence of Samsung Galaxy S4 in the market through online access. Customers take time to locate Samsung Company’s website. More would move away upon struggling in searching the brand. Also, after locating the product, online catalogue may not have full information of the product. Sometimes it will call for customer to visit other sources to obtain full access to specification of the phone. It is worthy for the company to use online presence strategy of Samsung Galaxy S4 to reach new target customers at a cheaper cost and using limited time. However, less consideration has been given to offline customers. It is of equal importance if the company had developed a good offline strategy that would keep the potential customers attached to the company. Offline customers are very important also since they may act as referral thus ensuring the awareness of the brand in an offline setting. Offline strategies for reaching the customer need consideration. Form the internet research, 95% of customers in the current society uses internet to research on the local products. This includes touch points and channels of reaching age acquiring the product (King 2008). The company through online access do not bear the responsibility of any challenge and risk a customer experience. In other words, customers have to incur additional cost to the products presented online and this may not provide the full functionality of the product. Exhibitions would be much likely to be appreciated by customers especially in the new markets. Recommendations It is clear that Samsung Company has established itself in the market very well. However, it is important for the company to extent the online marketing advantage fully embracing affiliate article marketing. Online customers currently are more concern on the narratives related to the products from the companies. Dispersing many articles will form large traffics and customers will easily locate and find the product information. The content of the articles should very interesting to capture full attention of the customer to what is described in the context. The company should also embrace messaging texting campaigns. Texting messaging will increase website visits as well as making customers feel applauded. Messages such as (‘a place of quality and sparkling of ideas’) entice the customer towards purchasing the product. Text messaging also gives specific information that the customer needs to know of the product and with the right response, the customer feels satisfied and fulfilled. Basically, the aim of the company is to make profits and sustain its good reputation in the market. Therefore, having this strategy will increase the level of customer loyalty to the company. Samsung is a big company having many employees. The number of customers is increasing as well especially with the establishment of new markets. Therefore, to maintain balanced performance of employees, the company should incorporate business intelligence software in to their all systems. The system will empower employees and reduce work load especially during data entry. When it comes to online and digital marketing, the system ensures that all the information from the touch points are safeguarded without loss. This will help the company in identifying customers’ current needs in the market at low cost. One of the touch points of Samsung Galaxy S4 was email. A marketer needs to consider various population characteristics before coming up with a message to be passed to the audience. Therefore, training on how to come up with content messages as well as creating a captivating appearance of the mail is highly recommended in this case. This may not serve many customers but it is essential because sustain the loyalty of the potential customers to the company. Appealing emails often attract the customers to the product being promoted or advertised (Greenberg and Kates 2013). References 'Annual Report Samsung'. 2014. http://www.samsung.com/us/aboutsamsung/sustainability/sustainabilityreports/sustainabilityreports2014.pdf. Greenberg, Eric, and Alexander Kates. 2013. Strategic Digital Marketing. 1st ed. King, David Lee. 2008. Designing The Digital Experience. 1st ed. Medford, N.J.: CyberAge Books/Information Today. Read More