Increasingly,
the people who work for a company are what make it what it is. Great
entrepreneurs will often say that their success is due to the fact
that they have surrounded themselves with good people. Even small
home businesses run by one person can use the people argument, in
that it is their unique skill that has made the business.
The People category
of the marketing mix is becoming increasingly relevant as society
becomes larger and ever more complex. Many companies have recognized
that customers don’t like dealing with some faceless business;
instead they want to feel that they are buying from someone they
know. That is why you now see automobile advertising that features
some dealer going above and beyond the call of duty for a customer
- it puts a human, recognizable, face on what is essentially a mass
large-scale transaction.
People are also
becoming increasingly significant as business moves more to supplying
services instead of products. Customers of service businesses, whether
that is the local pizza delivery shop or some large company employing
an IT consulting firm, want to know something about with whom they
are doing business. Especially in many service businesses, people
are indeed the company’s best (and often only) asset. Therefore
the competency of those people becomes a strong marketing issue.
Example:
You
need a carpenter to repair your backyard deck. You could just
look in the telephone book and pick the first carpentry firm
you see. Or you could do what many other people do: Ask people
you know if they know a good carpenter. It is an instinctual
way of searching for service quality. |
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