Service Encounters Project sample essay

Among the numerous services, which I come across in everyday life, I have decided to choose fast food restaurant and a visit to a bank to investigate in my project. These two services encounters will be observed in detail from the perspective of service marketing. This scrupulous analysis will help to understand what impact each component of the service does on the overall customer perception and satisfaction. The analysis of the information will show which aspects of services are of paramount importance for the consumers satisfaction, and which make no impression on them or even deter them from consumption or future cooperation. The fast food restaurant was selected for the observation for the following reason: I resort to this service almost every day, therefore, this sphere seems very familiar. Besides, in the conditions of tough competition, the managers of fast food restaurants are forced to imply more and more refined strategies to attract new customers and succeed in business. It is valuable to observe which strategies give the best results and which fail to provide the expected outcome. Thus, the fast food restaurant will be addressed to describe all relevant events in details. To begin with, I will describe the number and type of people engaged in serving every consumer at the referred fast food restaurant. Having decided to visit a fast food restaurant, every consumer comes up to the counter and makes the order. The cashier, who takes the order, accepts the payment and transmits the order to the kitchen, and serves every client of fast food restaurant. To be more specific, the number of cashiers in the referred restaurant is eight people who work in shifts. It should be stressed that these people play the role of paramount importance in the creation of restaurants image, as they are actually the only ones who interact with the consumers. As the order proceeds to the kitchen, the cooks start cooking the meal. The restaurant has five to seven cooks at disposal, which also work in shifts. Their duties combine the preparation of half-finished products and arranging them in menus, or according to the order. Other people, who can be sometimes noticed in the restaurants rooms, are cleaners. They are responsible for the tidiness of the restaurants room and cleaning the remaining items from tables. The cleaners in the restaurant do their best to prevent customers complaints about untidy room. I cannot help mentioning the work of managers, who coordinate the workflow of the entire restaurant, but since an ordinary customer does not deal with them, I will briefly describe their activity. One director, who is in charge of the overall running of business, heads the restaurant. His tasks include planning the performance of the employees, directing their actions, organizing the normal flow of work, and controlling the performance of workers as well as estimating the results. His two assistants help him in running the business. They deal with everyday decisions, concerning short-term plans; for example, they are responsible for food supply, the condition of the equipment, the fulfillment of duties and obligations by employees, and more.

Describing the nature of the service, I received a meal swiftly (it did not take much time to prepare it, as it was made of semi-finished products) as any customer of fast food restaurant. It took less then a minute to complete my order. Basically, this is the primary service provided by the restaurant. The meals are organized in menus for the convenience of clients, so, a customer may select from a wide range of menus or compose his/her own. To be more specific about the process of service, I will describe it in several consecutive stages. As I approached the cash register, the cashier immediately responded to my request, receiving the order. Further, he transmitted the order to the kitchen, and while I was receiving the change, my order was completed. Thus, the quick response of the staff completely satisfied me and justified my expectations. The accurate and swift fulfillment of my order made me feel that I am a valuable customer. The staff of the referred fast food restaurant made a positive impression on me as a consumer. I was pleased with the quality of customer care and the level of the provided service. The staff of the restaurant applied maximum efforts to guarantee customers satisfaction and approval. Their well-organized and customer-oriented work made me feel that the satisfaction of every customer was of greeat importance for them. Well-organized and directed performance signified that they respect every consumer and do their best to please him/her. Applying maximum efforts to satisfy the customers, the staff of the fast food restaurant simultaneously prevents and tries to avoid any bad customer behavior that may occur. Well-structured performance, and thoroughly arranged process of food delivery is intended to avoid customers dissatisfaction that may happen. Fast preparation of a meal and a swift completion of an order can guarantee that a consumer wont be disappointed. It takes a very short period of time to complete the order, thus a consumer will not have to wait. A polite and qualified personnel also contributes to the overall positive impression about the restaurant, and is intended to omit any conflict situation that may arise with the consumers. As the managers of the restaurant clearly defined the roles played by individuals, this strategy helps to avoid numerous misunderstandings that might have taken place. It is obvious that the managers instructed the employees that customer satisfaction is the primary objective of every person working in the restaurant. Thus, the line of their conduct was elaborated to please every consumer. With the work of the cashier I noticed that he did everything dependent on him to make a good impression about the restaurant and make a positive impression on me. The managers of the fast food restaurant also motivate the customer-oriented behavior of employees by means of promotions. They encourage customer care of every employee, and reward those who reveal the best results and qualities with financial premiums and incentives. In order to survive in tough competitive environment, the managers of the fast food restaurant were forced to keep the core service at high level, as well as to introduce supplementary service. To keep the existing clients and attract new customers, they decided to provide the delivery of meals to homes and offices. Customers can make an order by phone, and couriers would deliver the food. This additional service helped to increase sales, and both the customers and the restaurant benefited from this innovation. As for the types of costs involved to customers, I should admit that every additional service in the

restaurant demands extra payment. For example, if a customer makes an order by phone, he/she will be charged both for the core service (namely, the food) plus the delivery of it. To be more specific about the types of costs for the consumer, it should be recognized that the cost of the primary service includes not only the cost of food, but all expenses connected with its preparation. Thus, every customer covers all expenses associated with the delivery of service. The costs involved to customers include the cost of foodstuffs, the cost to hire employees, the cost to maintain the equipment and many others that are necessary to run the restaurant successfully. On the example of the fast food restaurant, submitted for the observation, it can be concluded that the successful interaction of 7Ps contributed to the customer satisfaction. The main components of 7Ps were carefully thought of, and thus consumers stay satisfied. The quality of the provided product was high, the price was adequately measured, the restaurant was situated in the convenient place for customers, the people providing the service were qualified and polite, the process of rendering the service was well-organized and thoroughly elaborated. As for the physical evidence or the environment in which the service is delivered, it can be concluded that the restaurant was forced to develop and improve its services under tough competition. The second service encounter I would like to discuss is visiting a bank. The bank that I use as a model is situated quite far from where I live. I have visited this bank several times before, during last year, therefore I do not have a good vivid image of the customer service in it. The people I dealt with during my visit were mostly very polite and friendly. I write mostly because there were also many people, who are surely employees, but I have not communicated with them. The ones I did communicate with were only a good-looking girl at front desks, and the actual bank services representative, who answered my questions and helped me with my account. The first person, the girl, was a pretty lady, whose job was to guide the entrants. As people enter the bank, they immediately turn to these first assistants to ascertain where they need to go and who to meet (provided the client does not know the destination of the people already). The girl was very polite, and presented the very information I needed in clear and concise manner, always sincerely smiling. After I got the information I wanted, I went further into the building and approached the banking services representative. The man has already been informed about a client approaching, and as soon as he saw me, he immediately raised, greeted me with a wide smile, and shook my hand. Most of the time at the bank I spent communicating with this man, which means that the entire reputation and the image of the bank depend on this single man. What I received in the bank was the banking service. I wanted to know more about long-term loans, interest rates applied to them, various discount possibilities. I needed the bank representative to tell me what is the most beneficial way for me to borrow money from the bank. In other words, I needed him to tell me about the least beneficial ways to lend me the money. I was not going to exercise my intentions that day, I only needed some information to get acquainted with the settings the bank offers. The minor problem was that I was not familiar at all with what I should know about the lawns. Or to put is simpler, I did not know which details I needed to learn to get familiar with the lawns the bank offered. After the

conversation with the representative, I got to know which things I need to know about the lawns. The representative explained many things to me, and told about the various options I had. As a matter of fact, the only service that has been rendered by the bank is the consultation and no actual banking services at all. The responses of the people on my questions and inquiries were completely positive, friendly, and informative. Their responses made me feel a valuable customer. Somehow, I was sure that even the people with whom I had not communicated would also respond a very polite and informative manner. The first encounter with the girl made a really good impression on me, because she presented the information I needed even faster than I expected. And the second person I dealt with, the man consultant, also made a great impression. Not only he was very friendly and polite, he also showed very good knowledge of banking. The responses of the service personnel testify that their supervisors and/or managers have taken good care about their training and motivation. Supervisors must be good businesspeople because they understand that customer services are or vital importance to businesses, especially customer-oriented service providers. As a customer of the bank, I was very satisfied with the work of the personnel. Of course, I have not talked to all the people within the organization, however the impression that the two people I dealt with made on me was strictly positive and pleasant. Now I know that whenever I want to know something new about banking and the mathematics applied to compute interests, I know that I can go to the man I talked to that time, and ask any question regarding banking. Therefore, the only feeling that I as a customer felt were warm feeling of importance, value and unity with the customer service representatives of the bank. If any of the representatives turned out to be unfriendly, or indifferent, I would let it go, leave the representative, and go deal with someone other. However, if this attitude would remain, I would definitely leave the bank and stop using their services at all. In fact, if this were the case, I would be surprised how such a customer-oriented organization with unfriendly service representatives is still in the market. In reality, organizations with such untrained or unmotivated personnel soon become bankrupts. The roles played by individuals involved in my experience are very simple. Namely, they simply either provided answers my queries, or they explained something I did not know before. This way, the girl at front immediately answered my question, providing all the necessary information in detailed, concise form. While the banking consultant, with whom I spent most of the time, also answered my questions and explained the system of loans, and how they work, the pros and cons of this or that particular program, the interests and how they are incurred, and much other relevant information. What made a valuable addition to my impression about the bank is the quality of the supplementary services. Form the viewpoint of my goal, I went to the bank to get information about the loan, however, in the middle of my visit, I realized that I was actually drinking coffee while discussing some issues with the representative. This policy if very convenient from the standpoint of customer (because a cup of

coffee would really facilitate a long and exhausting talk), and very productive from the standpoint of bank (because a client, who has been taken care of, would probably come back and bring profits. Would you like a cup of coffee? the representative asked with a smile. ). This cup of coffee did influence my impression of the bank, because what I did need at that moment was a cup of coffee. Talking about the costs, I have not spent a cent on the service rendered. Even though it was not a complete service at all, it still was a service; the representative did provide information about the banking, which was what I needed from them. When the time comes to borrow the money, the costs would be huge due to the interest that would incur with the flow of time. But now, I was only investigating, which costs nothing. The extended marketing mix of the bank work great, at least from the experience that I have had. The product, banking services in this case, are demanded and offered respectively. The price for the service that I want to use satisfies me (however, the lower the interest the better in this case). As for promotion, I cannot remember whether I know anything about it. The only thing I do know for sure is that they have brochures that have been piled at nearly every desk in the bank. Place is not very convenient for me, but generally is quite good. The people involved in the service encounter are great, at least from a professional (not personal) point of view. The process of the service satisfies me completely, especially the coffee they offered. The physical evidence of the service are tables, brochures, and the representatives card, which I have with me now for reference. Generally, I was very pleased with the customer service that I encountered in the bank. Their friendly employees and knowledgeable professionals made great impression on me. Bibliography 1. Zeithaml, V. (2002). Services Marketing. McGraw-Hill Europe. 2. Lovelock, C. and Wirtz, J. (2003). Services Marketing: People, Technology, Strategy. Prentice Hall. 3. Leland, K. and Bailey, K. (1999). Customer Services for Dummies. For Dummies Publishing.