Process

How resourcefully services are delivered to the customer is an important aspect of service
blueprint and organisation needs to emphasize on setting up a process for doing so. Every
company needs to ask itself Do I want to have a process in place that is quick, reliable and
easy to monitor or one that is sluggish but necessarily passes through several layers of
hierarchy? In todays competitive world, corporations are always in the race to deliver
services speedily, efficiently and with the highest quality.
Zomato is no different in such behaviour and have well defined processes. Some facts
related to its process are:
Data collection team are given extensive training on its platform so that when they
go for data collection and are asked questions about Zomato they can answer them
which leads to fewer data collection errors
Zomato segregates reviews in two columns (Top and Other). This gives users an
option to read reviews by seasoned connoisseur of food.
Its team visits each restaurant in person to scan the menu. Team doesnt depend on
websites for geographical co-ordinates but do them manually for correct co-
ordinates
Zomato team manually reads reviews and deletes spam reviews if needed in addition
to automated filters and behaviour pattern matching.
Such processes differentiates Zomato from other similar sites.
Also well-defined processes help organisations to define standards for managing customer
expectations.

People
Business is not just built on goals, company vision and principles but also depends heavily on
employees. It is the people who work for a business who are responsible in creating happy
and returning customers. People in organization are the epicentre of the quality of services
and need to have the best of talents to gain customer loyalty and trust.

Though the evolving start-up environment attracts such entrepreneurial individuals, one of
the key challenges which start-ups experience is satiating the work related expectations of
such highly driven and self-motivated employees and retaining them.

Service Employees are the actual service, the firm in customers eyes and the marketers.
Their importance is evident in service profit chain (Figure 1) and service triangle (Figure 2).

Figure 1 The Links in the Service-Profit Chain (https://hbr.org/)

Figure 2 Service Triangle

Customer service is core strength such industry and requires best people manning the queries
of the customer. One of the way to motivate people is to empower them, It is useless to hire
the best people if you are not enabling them to rise to their potential. For staying motivated
within a start-up environment, professionals need to know that their thoughts, ideas and
opinions matter for the business. They should never feel like they are just cogs in a wheel
doing their job every day without being able to fix the things that are broken. Instead, they
should be oriented about their potential to make a difference to the business and that the
impact they create will be acknowledged and rewarded.

Another key people aspect is to understand the business intelligence behind customer service.
Be emotional with customers. They will only care for product if organisations employee do.
Employees, who stay true to your organisational values, can gauge the actual values that a
company follows by observing who is promoted and what activities get rewarded. This is a
basic testament to what your company endorses. Custom expects a personal touch to feel
special. Such organisations are using personal feedbacks mechanism rather than automated
mail culture. A real person/employee either from Zomato or hotel writes back to customer.

Last but a very important role played by employees is of Boundary Spanners. They work
like emotional labour and can be many sources of potential conflicts.

Physical Evidence and Servicescape

While offering your services, you can either do it without adding a personal touch or by
differentiating your offerings by adding an element of delight to the customer. For example,
would you prefer to visit a bookstore that only has a stack of books with a cashier nearby or
one that also has a place to sit, where you can browse through the book you are interested
in and enjoy the light music in the backdrop while you make a choice? The ambience of a
restaurant, the music, the friendly face of your travel host etc. are all part of the physical
evidence of a service and they are an important element of the service marketing mix.

Figure 3 Framework for understanding servicescape effects on behaviour

We can experience the physical environment in the digital world as well. It would be

inconsistent to experience a slow and unresponsive website for a company who are

promoting a dynamic and efficient response to customer enquiries. Poor use of language in
digital communications for an eCommerce brand could also be classed as inconsistent

physical evidence. Inadequate packaging of a product from what we perceive to be a high

quality online retailer might also be seen as an inconsistency in the physical evidence.

Digital techniques and tools now play a gradually significant role in providing physical

evidence that can either support or detract from the other elements of the marketing

mix. Websites, blogs, social media and other forms of digital activity are now an important

part of the physical evidence element of the extended marketing mix. For most of the people,

that is the only type of physical evidence that they will be exposed to. So marketers pay

utmost attention to its image in the Digital Space.

An Example from online space:

Zomato

Zomato seeks to distinguish itself with the following Physical Evidence practices that could

leave a lasting impact on customers mind.

The navigation of site is very simple and elegant and attracts users to browse different

restaurant based on location

The uniform pattern for displaying information works great and looks organised. A

user doesnt have to navigate through multiple pages for all information

Minimal use of unnecessary advertisement elevates the user experience on website.