Reflection on Week 3: Harmonizing Producers’ Priorities and Customer Awareness

Harmonization of the interests of producers and customer awareness are things that are highly desired by each party, where there is a mutualistic symbiosis between producers and consumers. In reality, these things are not easy to achieve, because in practice there are too many variables to satisfy both parties. In general there are 4 things that are covered in this chapter, which are pursuing consumer satisfaction, accommodating diverse values, ensuring effective governance compliance, and prospering with the community.

The need for symbiotic mutualism between companies and consumers is because of the relationship between companies and consumers at the first place. For example, consumers provide resources in the form of land, labor and capital, then the company provides income in the form of wages to consumers. In addition, companies provide goods and services to consumers and in return, consumers provide consumption spending to companies.

Several variables that are of interest to the company are return of resources, profit from consumption spending, return on investment from the financial sector, and others. Some of the customer awareness variables are consumer protection, income in the form of wages derived from the production process, good products and services and useful from the company to consumers, and others.

However, no matter how important the company's interests are to the company's profits and investors, companies must have an obligation to pursue customer satisfaction. There are 3 things that can be the pursuit of consumer satisfaction. The first is consumption, namely by protecting consumer rights and educating consumers. As mentioned in the previous chapter, consumer rights and providing product education are important things for companies, such as Coca-Cola simply stating its nutritional content of the product and a customer care number that customers can contact if something happens to them.

The second is market assurance, by implementing fair trade practices and provision of a support system. For example, if a company conducts a marketing campaign by giving gifts to those who buy a lot of their products, consumers who want to participate must send proof of purchasing these products to the related company, then at the end of the campaign day, the company must promise to give gifts to the company. The winner or the most buyers of the product. If later the company breaks its promise by not giving prizes to those who should be the winners, then the company has violated the existing agreement. The support system is a company support service to consumers, such as providing convenient customer care services for consumers so that consumers feel satisfied if there are problems or questions about their products.

Talking about the importance of the honesty of the seller to the buyer. There is a Hadith of the Prophet sallalahu alaihi wa sallam which is very important for us to know and learn. From Abi Sa'id, from the Prophet Muhammad SAW said: "Honest and trusted traders with the Prophets, honest people and martyrs," (HR Tirmidhi). This hadith illustrates how important it is for a trader to be an honest trader because trading is not only for the benefit of the trader but for the benefit of the buyer as well.

The last is social responsibility, by promoting consumer awareness and ratifying consumer organizations in the community. This is very important because later consumers will trust and be more open to the company and it will be easier for companies to get input from the public. The easiest thing to do is create a feedback form, with a feedback form, companies can assess their company and make changes if there are things that are not in accordance with community satisfaction.

The next thing that can help companies to pursue consumer satisfaction is to accommodate diverse values to consumers. Broadly speaking, there are two rating scales, namely assertiveness and cooperativeness. Within these 2 large scales, there are 5 values that can be learned, namely competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, and accommodating. These 5 things have different assertiveness and cooperative rating scales, with the worst value being avoiding which means that it does not have the lowest point in assertiveness as well as cooperativeness. While the best value is in collaborating, where it has the highest level of assertiveness as well as cooperative.

The things above will not be achieved if a company does not have corporate governance that adheres to ethical values. Corporate governance itself is the system by which companies are directed and controlled. Those who have the right to determine the system of corporate governance are high-ranking company officials such as owners, board of directors, and CEOs. Examples of ethical values are commitment to excellence, integrity, fairness, and others. These things are important to emphasize to every power holder in the company and must be implemented in their corporate governance because with ethical values, the community and external parties who work together with the company will place high trust and value high credibility to the company.

Last but not least, it is very important for companies to improve the welfare of society in general, namely by preparing and maximizing existing corporate social responsibility funds. For example, for companies in the manufacturing industry, it is very important for them to take care of factory waste which has a tendency to damage the surrounding environment and pollute residents' water. Another example is if at one time there is a disaster in a village, it is highly recommended for the company to provide assistance in the form of money, goods, or services to those who are affected by the disaster. By maximizing CSR funds, not only the community will get the impact, but the company can also get engagement from the name or logo placed on the aid items and the company can also take a documentation session which they can publish later on social media or their website.

With the things that are chasing factors for consumer satisfaction, it is hoped that in the future the company and the community can create harmonization between the interests of the company and also customer awareness.