How Mergers and Acquisitions are Affecting Customer Experience?

--By Tripti Sharma--

“It is said that two heads are better than one when it comes to enhancing customer experience by companies because two heads who think in the same way are the same as one”

A merger is when two companies come together to join their hands to pool their interests and form a single corporation by sharing resources either to increase market share, survive among competition, or create a more efficient business model to bring efficiency in the business processes.

Some are Successful, and Some Fall Flat.

As per the report published by “PwC”, companies’ opportunities strengthen through M&A as consumers are more open to the potential benefits. Their experience has been more positive than negative for customers. The only major concern for companies after mergers is- as they become larger, the tendency to lose customers increases to thrive for customer excellence and to deal with the harsh reality of employees lay off increasing the wait times. Left with remaining employees the organizations sound stressed ultimately impacting and affecting the customer experience. One of the biggest examples is the merger of Microsoft and Nokia. Their first joint product, the Lumia phone did not grab much attention from the customers hence dwindling huge profits which ultimately led to restructuring and significant lay-offs. Another case was that of Yahoo and Tumblr, where Yahoo believed that this merger with a fast-growing social media platform will increase its audience by 50%. But after Tumblr failed to hit the mentioned sales target, the merger was called off with a huge loss.

 But this is not the case always, where there are cons there are pros too because then where would be Disney without Pixar and JP Morgan without Chase? Looking at the latest acquisitions like that of Walmart over Flipkart has set up a positive example which states that successful integration of two companies should be a two-way shared journey to stand a successful organization once a merger takes place.

Behind a Successful Merger

M&A can bring better and new ways to serve their customers by sticking to the ground roots on which companies were established but not necessarily changing the business models, it’s the need of the everchanging environment in light of which such models can be reviewed to mold as per customer expectations. The appealing factor that motivates the customers to stay with them should not be changed.

Adding more can be both useful and useless at the same time but the integration to bring more efficiency to leave room for improvement and serve customers in the most effective and efficient ways is the key to success for organizations today. Effectively and consistently communicating and explaining the benefits and impact of bringing new change via automation, and acquisitions in essential processes help in enhancing the customer experience. Customers don’t need to know every detail of the integration process followed, they just need to be ensured of consistent quality and receive the same or better services as before. If companies go through the M&A one thing to be kept in mind is not losing the momentum established. Organizations can maintain that by creating a dedicated deal team that is focused on the issues and impacts of M&A and by not neglecting companies own core culture and brand values. To understand the in-depth feelings of customers, to understand and measure the impact and severity of change on customer experience after the merger companies can use artificial intelligence-powered tools such as opinion mining (Sentiment Analysis) which include customer reviews of companies and their offerings to get an insight into “What do customers think about the acquisition happened”.

In the End…

The effect of M&A usually depends on the industry and competition, it impacts the customer in 4 ways i.e. prices, variety, service, and quality. So, regardless of the motivation behind the M&A, companies should first focus on keeping the customer experience at the forefront. The post-merger fears and confusions should be kept aside as this can doom the merger unless it is dealt with quickly and effectively.