Services Marketing

Management (MBA) questions, assignments on Services Marketing.

Q. A woman entrepreneur is planning to set up an e-shop for a range of costume jewelry made of silver and semi precious stones. Saira’s is the jewelry brand which is being targeted at girls and women aged 13-50 years. Since she doesn’t have lavish budgets to promote Saira’s, she is evaluating the following routes:

• Home shopping networks offered by cable operators and digital TV operators.
• Word-of-web through social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, consumer blogs etc.
• Online stores such as Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Myntra and also setting up company’s website
• Home-parties or kitty parties of women; an option based on word-of-mouth and consumer referrals
• Exclusive outlets in prime locations of the city
• What are the various strategic, tactical and locational considerations / factors that she should keep in mind for deciding the most appropriate channel (s)?

Q. V4kids.com is a recently launched online / e-tailing store which sells a wide variety of kids products for the age-group 2-12 years, ranging from stationery and school supplies, clothes, shoes, toys, board games, gaming apps, sports equipment, books, magazines, e-book readers, tablets, notebooks / mini-laptops, ipods, etc. Currently, V4kids.com faces competition from online stores such as Amazon, Snapdeal, Flipkart, Babyoye, Firstcry etc. besides the traditional retail brands such as ShopperStop, Hamleys, The Toy Store, Child Junction etc. and also the retail counterparts of online stores such as FirstCry store – which offer a wide range of children’s products.
To reach out to the market, V4kids.com is planning to create awareness about its online store, the range of products, membership programs and its weekly hot deals – all in one go. For this purpose, V4kids.com is planning a slew of advertising campaigns across different media. Discuss the 5W’s of the Integrated Service Communication Model for V4kids.

Q. One classic advertising and service recovery strategy used by companies involves turning a disadvantage into an advantage. For example, a small car rental company who did not meet customer expectations, ran a campaign “we are trying harder”. Recently, the Domino’s pizza chain took such an approach to the extreme. Marketers developed an advertising program to address the problem of slowing sales in a declining economy. The first wave of television commercials featured clips of consumers in focus groups, discussing Domino’s, providing statements such as “Worst pizza I ever had; totally devoid of flavor”, “Domino’s pizza crust is to me like cardboard” and “The sauce tastes like ketchup”. Domino’s had been able to maintain its market share during the economic downturn. At the same time, employees and company managers were concerned about the quality of the products being offered. The advertising program was created to apologize for poor quality pizza with the promise to do better by creating pies with improved ingredients and better recipes, which lead to a complete menu overhaul during a 4-year period beginning in 2008. “We think that going out there and being this honest really breaks through to people in a way that most advertising does not” explained the CEO Patrcik Doyle. Some marketing experts expressed concern that consumers would not listen carefully to the message. They would hear the part about poor quality but not the part about
improving. Doyle believed that the risk was worth taking.

When the roll-out of new and improved pizzas at bargain prices commenced, a new advertising campaign was launched, featuring the comment, “We are only as good as our last pizza. So tell us how yours was” followed. Domino’s had already introduced the pizza tracker feature to its website, which allows customers placing an online order at the Domino’s website to follow the progress of the order from the shop to the front door. Users receive an email directing them to the order tracking page within seconds of placing an order and without having to refresh the page, are told precisely when their pie is placed in the oven, checked for quality assurance and dispatched to their home. The pizza tracker informs the customer who was responsible for an individual pizza during
preparations and delivery. Following the completion of the transaction, the customer can provide feedback directly to the store where the pizza was made, which opens lines of communication with individual stores and managers rather than the larger corporation. The pizza tracker program insists that individual store owners will listen when customers are dissatisfied. By naming the actual individual responsible for any service failure, the store manager can improve operations on an employee- by- employee basis. Over the course of the next apology campaign and new emphasis on customer feedback, sales increased dramatically during the next two quarters. The company once again was willing to risk customer backlash, even mildly taunting the pubic with the “Oh yes, we did” tag line. Time will tell if these two maneuvers will generate long-lasting, positive effects for the company.

PLEASE CHECK BELOW

a. Evaluate the Service Recovery System of Domino’s and suggest few other
innovative methods to recover the customers (5 Marks)
b. Create a Service Blueprint for Domino’s home delivery operations covering all the
various methods of placing an order

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