Services Marketing

M S Balaji

Themes Of My Presentation
Irritations about service personnel Managing employees and customers Boundary spanning roles and conflicts for service contact personnel

Irritations about Service Personnel

Personnel failing to show up (40%). Poorly informed providers (37%). Contact personnel on personal phone calls while consumer waits (25%). Talking down to consumer (21%). Provider unable to explain how product works (16%).

Irritations about Service Personnel

Apathy: Do I give a darn? Brush-Off: I want you to go away syndrome. Coldness: Indifferent about what consumers want. Condescension: You are client, so you must be stupid.

Irritations about Service Personnel

Robotism: Customers are treated like inputs into a system that must be processed. Rulebook: Providers who live by the rules even if they dont make sense. Runaround: Passing customers on to other providers who then pass them on.

Managing Employees and Customers

Service personnel perform complex and difficult jobs. Service personnel are often lowest paid and least respected. Service jobs have high turnover rates.

Managing Employees and Customers

42% of Indian workforce are employed in food service, retailing, cleaning, clerical work and other personal service. These jobs account for most job growth in 2000s. These jobs are often poorly compensated, lead nowhere, and provide little benefits.

Importance of Contact Personnel

Boundary-Spanning Roles: Roles played by contact personnel who interact with firms internal and external environment. Difficult for service organizations to differentiate among themselves. Airlines offer similar benefits and fly same types of aircraft from same airports. Only competitive advantage is way things are done.

Boundary-Spanning Role
Two main purposes: information transfer and representation. Boundary spanners collect information from environment and give feedback to firm. Boundary-spanning personnel are organizations personal representatives.

Subordinate Vs. Professional

People in boundary-spanning roles can be classified along a continuum from subordinate service roles to professional service roles. Subordinate service roles: played by personnel in firms where customers purchase is entirely discretionary. Subordinate to organization and the customer. Examples are waiters, bellhops, and taxi drivers. Professional service roles: played by personnel with status independent of rank in firm due to professional qualifications.

Sources of Conflict in BoundarySpanning Roles

For services to operate, both consumers and contact personnel must conform to a script or role.

Person/Role Conflict
Person/role conflict: role may be inconsistent with individuals self-perception. Boundary-spanning personnel subordinate personal feelings to role; to smile when feeling miserable. Professionals operate within their own selfimage; less obligated to maintain a bedside manner.

Firm/Client
Organization/client conflicts: Disagreements that arise when customer requests services that violate rules of organization. Violations can be simple, like a request for a second bread roll in a restaurant. Subordinate service personnel are unable to change rules and explain why rules exist.

Interclient Conflicts
Interclient conflicts: conflict between clients arise because customers influence one anothers experience. Clients are likely to have different scripts. When conflicts occur, boundary-spanning personnel are asked to resolve confrontation.

Examples of Interclient Conflict

Waiter is asked to tell person smoking in nonsmoking section not to smoke. Customers request speedy service and get it causing complaints from others. Clients may disregard responses made by subordinate service providers.

Role Stress for BoundarySpanning Personnel

Consequences of conflict and stress produce dissatisfaction, frustration, and turnover. Employees move into a people-processing mode. Customers are treated as inanimate objects to be processed rather than as individuals.

Role Stress for BoundarySpanning Personnel

Employees may overact role and force customer into subservient role. Employees may reduce organization/client conflict by siding completely with client. Employee reduces stress by seeking sympathy from customer.

Reducing Role Stress with Marketing

Unhappy, disagreeing contact personnel are visible to customer and will ultimately affect customer perception of quality. Physical symbols and furniture are often used to boost employees status.

Reducing Person/Role Conflicts

Marketing can reduce conflict between individual and assigned role by simply being sensitive and actively seeking input. It is important to ensure service providers are well trained.

Reducing Organizational/Client Conflict

It is crucial that customer expectations be consistent with capabilities of service system. Customers should not ask for services the system cannot provide. Tell customers what to expect early in service process.

Reducing Interclient Conflict

Conflicts between clients can be avoided if clients are relatively homogeneous in their expectations. Due to inseparability of services, customers often share their service experiences with other customers.

Trust the Customer

Customers usually complain because an expectation has not been met. Some customers may complain for reasons external to your firm:
They may have just had a fight with a boss or spouse. They have been stalled in traffic. They may not feel well.

The customer will think their complaint is legitimate, even if you do not.

Calm Yourself and the Customer

Let the customer vent. Do not interrupt. Stay calm. Do not get emotional and get into an argument. Acknowledge that you know they are upset and use their formal title when you address them. Use active listening to clarify the problem and take notes if the problem is complex. Summarize the problem and use positive words.

Empathize with the customer

Show you are concerned by using phrases such as:
I understand how frustrating this is to you. Im sorry we let you down. Lets see what we can do to fix the problem. I appreciate how you feel. I dont blame you for being upset. I understand that you have been inconvenienced.

Soothe Upset Customers

Apologize and dont blame others or make excuses. Thank the customer for bringing the problem to your attention. Fix the problem on the spot and ask the customer how they want it resolved or suggest several options and let the customer select. When appropriate, follow up with a telephone call.