The article emphasizes the importance of customers in today's business world, and says that companies should strive to retain them.

Businesses today feel the necessity to constantly serve their customers for long-run sustainability. Customers are known to drive even the so called "immortals" out of the market in no time. Before the companies can even sense what is happening around them, they are bundled out. Therefore, companies are monitoring and directing all the functional departments towards one goal-customer retention. An effective Public Relations (PR) system is essential for achieving this goal, since PR officers act as a bridge between the company and the general public. It reflects on the PR lags in some of the giants, which led to their downfall.

One such case is of a well-known international soft drink brand, with huge regular spending on promos. The company was known for its killer strategies in the market. One fine morning, it saw itself cornered, when the media flashed the news that there were insects and lizards inside the sealed bottles. While the company's management kept opposing the charges, the market scene went topsy-turvy, right in front of its eyes. In the next 24 hours, mothers stopped their children from buying the product; some of them even took them to doctors, for taking the product the day before. College canteens and hotels stopped stocking the product; retailers stopped buying from the distributors (some of them escaped from paying back their dues); and distributors stopped placing orders.

Within a week's time, the government formed an enquiry committee to submit a report on the incident, and finally the company ended up losing its market share by nearly 75%. Looking at the nature of the incident, that it had happened in a few remote areas and no casualties were registered, and to cap it all, it was not new to the food product market, it is important to analyze what went really wrong in the background.

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