The marketing and service management testifies the marketing strategies be followed to gain the hike by maintaining the growth of the organisation along with building up the customer loyalty. Quality is an essential attribute in today’s world as people are no more money mourners but are quality seekers. If the superior quality is rendered to the customers they become habitual of certain service or product. A happy customer is a way better promoter than any other promotional activity as after gaining the required satisfaction the consumer performs word of mouth publicity influencing other customers as well which proves the loyalty of the customer.
The essay narrates SERVQUAL model to teach how the qualities are maintained using RATER scale. The likely to pop up gaps are discussed so that the similar situations would be handled using the 4 gap solutions. Thereafter the relationship marketing model is described to retain the customer loyalty and encourage customer satisfaction. At last the link between the service quality and consumer loyalty is depicted by the way of building block model using the illustration of Godiva gems.
Overall the essay attests the role of quality service in enhancing customer loyalty and building relations with internal and external environment to obtain the most crucial customer satisfaction and the models used to maintain and encourage such satisfaction at another level.
To meet the expectations of the consumer by providing appropriate quality of services to gain customer satisfaction is said to be service quality (Servqual, 2017). In today’s world where consumers are highly active and aware, needs the quality in the services they opted for. Consumers are ready to pay the amount if the real quality is rendered to them. Companies have the pressure to manage and maintain the quality to stand firmly in the market. This service quality has encouraged the competition to the higher level. For acquiring the position in the competitive market various emerging technologies need to be adopted and by keeping an eye on dynamic environment, changing trend, prices and demands the next move of competitors can be analysed and future planning would be constructed to gain customer faith and satisfaction (Seth, Deshmukh & Vrat, 2005 ). Service quality can be measured by identifying the difference between what are the actual expectations of the consumer were before availing the services and what an organisation is really serving or perception of the consumer after fulfilling the expectations. If the aperture between the expectation and perception is narrow than it is a close win-win situation as almost expectations gets fulfilled. In case the gap between the standard and expectation are high than the organisation need to work upon its services as customers’ wishes are not been fulfilled to the required level. SERVQUAL is the measure used to calculate service quality. It consists of 5 dimensions: Reliability, Assurance, Tangibility, Empathy and Responsiveness; it is commonly quoted as RATER (Shahin, 2004). The brief discussion of RATER scale is as follows:
Reliability: It depicts the reality and grounded thing that prevails. The service provided by the organisation must be rooted and authentic. It should be such on which one would trust on.
Assurance: This is a promise made by the service provider to the customer that the rendered assistance to them are true and correct to their knowledge. It creates confidence among service seeker regarding the quality they are giving.
Tangibility: It is a measurement that calculates the level of tangibility involved in the services. This keeps a watch over the tangible activities that are carrying on while implementing the services.
Empathy: This dimension understands the customer’s perspective and act accordingly. The organisation renders the service by keeping customer’s mind set in view so that level of dissatisfaction decreases and gap between expectation and perspective narrows down.
Responsiveness: Provision of services within the time and solving out the queries if any with the immediate aspect. The commitment made by the provider should be kept.
Gaps as indicated above are the difference between what the expectations are and what the actual result is. These gaps depict the dissatisfaction among the customers and the difference need to be narrow down. Commonly there are 5 gaps that are likely to arise:
Gap between expectation of client and perception of management: This gap emerges due to misinterpretation between the consumer’s expectation and what actually the provider has perceived, more the gap more will be the unsatisfactory situation. To reduce such gaps proper understanding of requirements and adequate knowledge regarding the service is needed (Boundless, n.d.).
Gap between perception of management and service quality specification: When the service provider had learned about the situation correctly than too there are chances of discrepancies to occur because of fluctuating planning of consumers which are either not in the management’s knowledge or management is unable to understand those requirements (Verint, 2009).
Gap between specification of quality and the delivery of service: This gap arise due to delivery of low quality service or not reaching to the expected quality. The reason behind such failures could be insufficient workforce, less competent workers and adverse working condition.
The gap between the delivery of service and external communications: Certain situations may occur where even the employees rendering the services are adequate and competent, service provided is as per consumer’s requirement yet the consumer becomes unhappy and dissatisfied just because of some changing environment and outer factors that causes a reason of unknowing dissatisfaction.
Gap between perceived and expected service: This is the final and most random gap that usually stem up due to the difference between expectation of consumers and perception of the service provider (Dudovskiy, 2012).
Due to these gaps the sense of dissatisfaction and disloyalty arises which is a bad sign for the organisation’s growth. The actual potential of the employees get lowered down and they gets demotivated as well. These gaps need to be fulfilled in order to gain the complete consumer satisfaction and thereafter the consumer loyalty. There are methods to avoid the upcoming differences. Certain points should be kept in mind so the dilemma in consumer satisfaction is prevented: –
Knowledge gap: When there is lack of knowledge regarding consumer’s expectation and management perception the knowledge gap is likely to arise. Employees are not well acquainted to understand the mind-set of the consumers (Oxford dictionary, 2017). Thus to resolve such queries and dilemma appropriate knowledge is need to be acquired. For this purpose consumer’s accent should be collected by the way of face to face discussion, survey, questionnaire through which the idea regarding customer’s choice could be cultivated so as to avoid the future disturbances. Along with this consumer feedback need to be collected after they are done with the purchases or enjoyed the services. Example: – the customer review form given at the restaurants at the time of billing to gain the suggestions and advice of the consumer regarding the services.
Standard gap: When the survey of entire industry is not possible to construct than the management should undertake the standardisation to overcome the differences between expectation and perception. Under this strategy the utmost standards of services are assembled using the general satisfaction level of the customers. Based on these standards employees of the service provider are guided to maintain such quality and charge accordingly. For example:- in cinema halls, concerts or auditorium the seats are named as platinum, gold and silver which setup the standard by the name itself and provide the comfort accordingly matching the consumers requirement.
Delivery gap: Delivery gap arises when there are the discrepancies between the service standard set and actual service delivered. Constructing standards are not enough the proper deliveries of such standards are also counted for providing the valuable services. If the standards are set and not maintained than this also causes to create gap. The standards need to be timely revised and upgraded so as to provide the consumer with new scheme and technology and updated standards are appropriately delivered to the customers. To resolve the delivery disturbances the management should keep a constant watch on the external environment, proper training to the staff be provided, the necessary skills be taught to them, appreciation on initiating creativity be made to motivate the employees for further betterment, co-ordination and co-operation to be built among the staff, adequate explanation regarding the job role, standard quality to be delivered (Brain mates, 2017).
Communication gap: As the name suggests it occurs due to miscommunication taking place between the service provider and customer. Many a times it happens that organisation makes false promises just to attract the consumers and at last those promises are not meant which results in disappointment. There are various reasons that causes barrier in the communication between the consumer’s expectation and management’s perception. Some of these causes are fake promises made through the way of advertisement, misunderstanding prevailing between the staff mutually, and differences in services of distinct outlets mixed by the consumers. These barriers could be avoided by clarifying the communication line between the organisation and consumers. Also the reasons causing such misunderstanding should be figured out so as to avoid the repetition in the near future (Agarwal, 2016).
Relationship marketing is constructed to maintain the relationship of the organisation in the market. The main motive to establish relationship model is to study the dynamic market trend and to understand about internal and external environment of the prevailing market. The relationship marketing model is introduced by Payne and Holt in 2001 assisting the managers of organisation to undertake market strategies and grab the upcoming opportunities to gain and maintain the position in the market (Payne, 2001). The brief discussions of these models are quoted below:
Customer market: The market is based on various elements containing the buyer and the seller, mediator, goods and services, pricing, bargaining and many other factors are there which affects the market to a great extent. The most critical and important element that highly influence the market is customer. They are the one who can raise and fall the market therefore it is essential to retain the customer base at any cost by building customer loyalty through the provision of quality service. Along with retaining the old customer it is the duty of the manager to attract new customer and satisfying them so that they visit the place and make purchases again to gain loyalty (Wajjad, 2009).
Influence market: When the customer and third party influence other customer to make purchases are considered as influence market. The customer if satisfied will influence their near and dear ones to purchase from the relevant store. Third party involves the supplier, intermediaries, relatives who encourage other person to undergo purchases to the referred place. Many a times it is the competitor who actually turns out to be the influencer. Through their advertisements and lacking services consumers get attracted towards the substitute product and services (Agrawal, 2016).
Referral market: Referrals purchases are those which are made after getting influenced by the old customers could be anybody from the neighbour, family and friends. This is commonly known as word of mouth publicity which is considered to be one of the most effective methods of promotion of the organisation. Both positive and negative word of mouth are of great importance and plays vital role in strengthening and depriving any organisation (Amplifinity, 2017). Example: – the engineer service for house construction, the food at restaurant referred by some friends and much more.
Supplier market: There is a need to build the relationship with the supplier as well. They are the one who supplies the better quality goods and tangibility in case of services to the concerned organisation. The quality of material of supplier also matters a lot in delivering a productive service and quality product. The supplier also acts as the influencer for the organisation referring customers towards the on with whom they share a positive and better relations (SIG, 2017).
Recruitment market: The business will flourish only when it contains adequate human resource. Manpower is of high importance in every field. They are the one who delivers the services and products by implementing their skills and competency. Recruitment and selection is therefore an essential process and organisation should pay emphasis over it. Recruitment of qualified, skilled, experienced person should be there which contributes in the growth of organisation as the fresh talent brings creativity and new ideas contributing in the old standards as well (Kazemi, 2016).
Internal market: Along with maintaining the external relations the focus should be paid over the internal relations as well. The employer- employee relationship must be strengthen to carry free flow of information, relationship between customer and employees to be maintained as the employee acts as the company’s representative in front of the customer to whom they are dealing with. In order to achieve the long-term goal and sustain in the race for longer, relations with all the connected people and intermediaries be maintained to avoid conflicts (Singh, 2013).
Customer loyalty is gained when the customer is highly satisfied with the services they received and continue to avail it in near future. It is the aim of the organisation to retain the customer by providing promised high quality goods and services. Loyalty can be earned by maintaining the relations with customer and employees. There is a need to have healthy interaction with the customers in order to know what discrepancies are arriving and what all should be added to enhance the quality of service. Feedback should be collected from the buyers and necessary changes should be inculcated so as to maintain and extend the position in the market (Chakiso, 2015). Companies acquire a good position if they are successfully retaining its customers as only the trustworthy and satisfied consumer adhere to the particular organisation. In today’s world where cut throat competition prevails there maintaining the customer is tough task. The companies need to keep an eye over changing trend and act accordingly be the earliest to launch something new to attract customer and thereby introducing schemes to retain those customer and if the quality of service provided is up to the mark than loyalty gets created. When a customer became loyal to certain organisation not only they make purchases but also acts as an influencer and promote word of mouth publicity which results in the growth of the organisation (Rizan, Warokka, & Listyawati, 2014).
For satisfying customer there are multiple elements that are needed to be taken under consideration. One way to satisfy customer and build loyalty is encouraging brand equity. Brand equity says it all about the product or services. Any product or service with the brand equity motivates positive feeling with aspect to the product. The strong image of the organisation gets created in the mind of customers. They became even more loyal and encourage word of mouth publicity which is way more beneficial for the organisation (Caruana, 2002).Certain steps should be followed to design the brand equity:
Brand identity: Brand identity depicts the salient feature of the brand and produce awareness regarding the brand. The motive of the organisation is to constitute awareness among the people so that they can opt for the designed product. This brand identity could be set in customers mind through publicity, advertisement, personnel selling and alike. Example: Godiva gems are the luxurious chocolates available only on certain boutiques but through their magnificent advertisement it gains a space in consumer’s mind and they became bound to purchase it (Marketing Journal, 2016).
Brand meaning: There are two aspects of brand meaning which goes like this- performance and imagery. Performance argues about the conduct of the product or service with the customer. It provides reliability, durability, effectiveness and efficiency of the product. Imagery is the psychological and social image created in the mind of customer regarding the brand. It could be either the experience of others, word of mouth praise (Cohen, 2011). Example: the taste and glory of Godiva gems are the performance of it and the praise of its richness and auspiciousness is the imagery of the chocolate.
Brand response: As the name says the response of customers towards the brand. It is separated by two elements: judgements and feelings. Considering the judgement is bifurcated in four elements namely quality of the product, credibility, consideration of the product and its superiority. Along with judgement the thing matters is feeling regarding the particular product i.e. what a person perceives. The feeling has six attributes namely- security, warmth, excitement, fun, social approval and self-respect (Koeppel, 2015). Example: Godiva gems could be judged by the way of its quality, trustworthiness, consideration towards product and superiority of its luxury and rich taste which derives the warmth feeling and excitement in having that sought of chocolate.
Brand resonance: Brand resonance is the final stage of brand equity building and defines the relationship between the customer and brand. It is tough stage to attain where the consumer feels connected with the brand (Srivastava, 2015). It is further divided in 4 categories- behavioural loyalty, attitudinal attachment, sense of community and active engagement. Example: Godiva gems is the precious chocolate which is mostly used for gifting purpose to special ones , this is its brand loyalty that people perceive it as special product, attitude of customer gets changed when they purchase the chocolates, the people feel so related that all those things related with the company are treated to be privileged and lastly comes the active engagement in which the customer is not actually purchasing the chocolate but by the social way or through chats and conduct they promote and link themselves with the product (Mind tools, n.d. ).
Conclusion
The entire essay argues upon the quality of the product and models to maintain quality and building loyalty among the customers. It quoted the relationship between the quality and loyalty as to how the two attributes together creates consumer satisfaction. The gaps arising in quality are deeply discussed along with the methods to bridge up the various differences likely to arise using the gap resolution techniques- knowledge gaps, standard gaps, delivery gaps and communication gaps. To maintain the loyalty, relationship marketing models are considered which discusses every aspect to generate loyalty. Thereafter the link is been maintained between the quality service and loyalty building strategies to figure out the consumer satisfaction using the example of Godiva gems.
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