The Relationship between United Parcel Service and Business Customers

United Parcel Service (UPS) is the leading provider of supply chain management solutions and parcel delivery firm. The company started its private messenger and delivery services in 1907. It has branches in more than two hundred and twenty countries. Globalization has led to significant changes in its service delivery through increased business customers. This study focuses on these changes through discussing the following: what the business customers expect from UPS, how different the company’s marketing and sales are from when it was serving residential clients, and the relationship of the company’s story to Kotler & Armstrong’s ideas on business buyer behavior.

Expectations of the Business Customers as they commit to Work with UPS?

The business customers expect to build lasting business relationships with UPS. They are looking forward stabilizing their businesses, growing and gaining new ideas to survive in their respective industries. UPS should therefore have a more business and succinct mind whenever they are dealing with their business customers. UPS employees should therefore pay more attention on effective customer service and collect feedback when working with the customers.

UPS’ business customers are committing to work with the company for the purposes of simplifying their complicated organizational operations. Organizations are likely looking forward to UPS offering services that can be tailored to their specific business needs. The customers must be focused on finding out whether UPS can meet their needs at their level depending on their size. They have a horde of values and goals that guide their operations, hence looking forward to dependability and flexibility as they partner with UPS. According to UPS, the company is no longer a carrier anymore but ready to help organizations scale their operations and offer them reliable tracking and shipping. The business customers are looking for a partner who will have not only offer shipping services but will also be an influencer of order specifications, a gatekeeper and also an initiator through determining whenever a need exists.

Marketing and Sales Differences when Working with Business Customers Rather than Residential Customers

UPS’ sales and marketing team has to look at their B2B differently from how they treat their residential customers for a marketing strategy to be effectively implemented. The business partnerships are much bigger than the residential customers since they are worth millions of dollars. The team must therefore be ready to serve a global network and provide highly customizable services and visible supply chains. Marketing to business customers involves more back and forth communications since the purchases and other issues involved are more complex. The sales and the number of business customers are fewer but larger, hence each interaction with partners will have more revenue implications than before. If business customer support incident goes wrong, the company will lose tens of thousands of dollars unlike in the case when a residential customer returns a good leading to the loss of a few hundred dollars. Marketing and sales activities will therefore require strategies that are not only aimed at getting new customers but building long lasting relationships.

The marketing team will require to know the company’s customers. In B2C marketing, the sales team rarely get to know the customers but there is need for a personal relationship in B2B business. The very first contact the customer businesses ever have with UPS should be backed up with knowledge about the customer. This is normally not the case with residential customers who are better served by customer care agents. Finally, the serving business customers influences the technology purchase process. There is greater need for better technology in shipping business products which are likely to be of greater value compared to residential customers’ shipments.

The Relationship between the Companies’s Story and the Major Concepts of Kotler and Armstrong Chapter 6 on Business Buyer Relationship?

The company’s story directly aligns with most of the relevant stimuli that Kotler and Armstrong listed for business buying operations. The stimuli include: the 4Ps, political, technological, competitive, cultural, and economic. Concerning the 4Ps, Kotler and Armstrong explained how organizations prefer purchasing a whole solution to their needs from one organization rather than making multiple purchases. UPS offers numerous services which can be put together to form a solution. The company also satisfies the economic interests of its business customers through ensuring that they do not have to purchase parts from different supplies and put them together for a solution.

UPS satisfies the competitive stimuli of business buying through providing an effective avenue for organizations to explore the nature of business markets, purchasing participants, purchasing situations, and influences on the business purchasing process. According to the UPS website, the company is ready to offer extra services to its business buyer, other than the shipment and delivery services, (Global home, 2018). For instance, its sales team embarks on research which guides business buyers in their new task purchase situation.

Conclusion

UPS is a leading provider of supply chain management solutions which has started serving business customers. The business customers are looking forward to forming long-term partnerships which will be characterized by flexibility and offer customized services that will meet their unique needs. Serving business customers require new marketing strategies since losing one of them would result to loss of tens of thousands of dollars, unlike the case of losing residential customers. The story of UPS aligns with Kotler and Armstrong’s proposed business buyer stimuli such as the 4Ps and economic goals.

References

Global Home: UPS - United States. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.ups.com/us/en/global.page