What is service?
Services are economic activities offered by one party to another, most commonly employing time based performance to bring about desired results in recipients themselves or in objects or other assets for which purchasers have responsibility
Service is considering a big player in the market these days especially in luxury business. Customers are looking for excellent, beyond-expectation service to serve their unfulfilled needs. There are different levels of service involved in different business categories.
There are four main characteristics of a service
1.) Lack of ownership: service cannot be owned or stored for later usage like products. It is used for only a specified period of time.
2.) Intangability: service is intangible and cannot be held or touched like a substance. However, the experience customers get from that service is measurable and do affect brand perception and feeling towards the brand
3.) Inseperability: service cannot be seperated from the brand itself or service providers. It is produced only at the point of purchase.
4.) Perishibility: service lasts for a specific time and cannot be stored for later use. It is produced and used almost simultaneously
With its unique characteristics and nature, services need the extended elements of the marketing mix (8 P's)
- Product elements
- Place and time
- Price and other outlays
- Promotion and education
- Physical environment
- Processes (systems used to assist the organization in delivering the service)
- People
- Productivity and quality
After the lecture, we all were assigned to think about any service and elaborate on its element of 8 P's. Our group chose to work on Movida which is one of the popular luxury clubs in london.
We believed that for luxury clubbing business, product elements are the most important thing to consider in the marketing mix. Due to its highly competitive market, each club needs to differentiate itself by what it is prominently offering to clients; quality alocohol products and great music, followed by place and time, physical environment, productivity and quality, price, people, process, and promotion respectively.
Lastly, because of the intangibility factor that mainly affecting the way customers form their evaluation towards the service, there are 10 recommendations for improving service quality (Keller, 2003)
1. Listening: understanding what customers are looking for and expecting from the service
2. Reliability: most important dimension of service quality
3. Basic service: deliver what you are supposed to do and keep your promises
4. Service design: develop a holistic view of the service
5. Recovery: encourage customers to complain and respond promptly
6. Surprising customers: offer beyond expectation services
7. Fair play: always be fair
8. Teamwork: maintain employees' motivation and capabilities for standardized services
9. Employee research: do research with employees to see what the problems are and solve them
10. Servant leadership: inspired leadership throughout the company and excellent corporate culture
Remember, customer is still always right!
Bibliography
1. Keller, K. (2003). Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity USA.: Pearson Education.
No comments:
Post a Comment