A Customer is right from every aspect, because it is the very customer who is spending his hard

earned money on a particular product in order to use it and hence a product should meet every
requirement of the customer.

It is understood that no company can totally meet the need of a customer, but if a company by
completely understanding the market genuinely tries to meet the demand of its customers, by
accomplishing even 60% of the demand can get its product accepted by the customer. For
example BMW, which sold 3,619 units in India during 2009 (as compared to only 3,247 units that
Mercedes-Benz sold in the country during the same period...), also plans to get into the used
cars business by the end of this year. Not just that, it also plans to start leasing cars to select
individuals, who prefer not to buy its cars outright. BMW Premium Selection – the company’s
used car business – is expected to kick off in India by end-2010. Once taken back, BMW cars
leased to companies and individuals will be refurbished and sold via the company’s used cars
division. These cars will come with a warranty and complete spares and service backup, which
BMW will provide via its dealers. Now the company is doing this only by understanding that the
consumers in India do have the desire to own a BMW but due to its cost is not able to purchase
the car, also since the company targets premium segment people it cannot launch a BMW at a
cost which would appeal to the slightly lower end of the consumers. Hence, by selling pre-
owned cars or by leasing cars it can at least fulfill the desire of the customers, even though it
cannot provide it to them at a cheaper cost.

A Company which believes that a customer is right and tries to make and sell products
according to a customer’s need will always succeed. Now as we know that Times of India which
has over 50% market share in print media industry it at a number one position only because it
keep on bringing in the news according to a customer’s need. As it is said that changing our
brand of newspaper is just as hard as changing our food habits and we also know that paper
such as Hindustan Times which was inaugurated by the Great Mahatma Gandhi is older then
Times of India. But what is it in the Times which make it the largest read newspaper in the
world today. At one point of time, Times of India was supposed to represent Mumbai,
Hindustan Times was the paper for Delhi, Hindu was for Chennai and Statesman was the
preferred daily broadsheet for Kolkata. But by initiatives like establishing a world class
circulation system and unleashing the invitation price campaign, they were able to expand their
readership and become world’s largest circulated daily broadsheet by 2003 with 2.1 million
copies. As stated above that Times of India had a world class circulation system which was one
of the prime reasons for it being number one. When one of our group members was working
for Hindustan times went in to certain banks for selling the subscription for the paper he found
out that it had a pathetic circulation systems with every one out of five managers in the Banks
complaining that they have not received their subscription coupons even after having given the
cheque three months back , in fact one of the bank member was directly claiming that its much
better to subscribe for Times of India rather than subscribing for Hindustan Times because most
of the time there is problem with the Vendors who do not supply paper to the customers who
come with subscription coupon. Now this man was certainly right because he was explaining his
inconvenience, also due to this inconvenience Hindustan Times lost one of its customers as
well, now there would be thousand others customers (ex-customers) of Hindustan Times who
would have experienced this problem and how drastically this would have affected the
readership of Hindustan Times.

It is to be understood that a customer cannot be wrong because whenever a customer is

complaining over something he is trying to say what does he need in this product and it should
be the prime responsibility of a company to take care of his need because it should be
understood how a particular customer is managing the money to purchase a product, and how
he feels when he does not get the product as desired.

Customer today does not care about the brand being number one, he only buys that product
which makes him feel happy and which he thinks is right and whatever is right for the customer
is bound to be right for the company, if it wants to grow, hence the company should keep on
innovating and come up with products according to the customer’s need. We can look at Nokia
that relatively innovated less has seen its market share drop down to 36%.

Coca-Cola is coming out with milk based beverage, Maaza Milky Delight and we know that it
has a prestigious third spot in the Forbes list of top 50 most valuable brands, would this strong
brand be able to overtake veteran players in the Desi Dairy segment like Amul and Vita. It does
not seem to be; because it may have a huge global marketing presence but in Indian Beverage
market it only occupies the fourth place .Hence, the brand name for this Milk- based beverage
is Maaza Milky Delite and not Coca-Cola Milky Delite or Coke Milky Delite now. This is because
Coca-Cola understands the Indian consumers; the per capita consumption of soft drinks in India
is among the lowest in the world – 5 bottles per annum compared to the 800 bottles per annum
in the USA. But Maaza is among the top Mango drinks of India hence launching the beverage
under the name Maaza seems more appropriate. Now, this shows that even brands like Coke
believe that a product should be named and designed as per the customer’s requirement and
as environment changes so does the customer’s decision and neither the customer in India or in
other part of the world were Coke stands as Number one beverage are wrong because if Coke
stands number one than like a true market leader it should meet the requirement of the
customer.