Briefly, describe the key characteristics of the target market for each of your services.
Identify the key service attributes that you believe consumers of each of your two chosen services would need to evaluate as part of their multi-attribute consumer choice set for each service. What are the Search, Experience and Credence attributes that consumers will need to consider in their evaluation of the choices?
Identify and describe the key types of perceived risks that consumers may experience in purchasing and using the services. (Consider displaying in a table).
Consider the extended marketing mix elements of people, process and physical environment that are inherent components of service delivery. How would you potentially offset (in the case of the ‘nasty services’) or capitalise on (for the ‘nice services’) the key Search, Experience and Credence Attributes in relation to people, process and service environment management and design?
The following report is prepared as a comparative analysis between nasty services and nice services. Education is chosen from nice services, while dentist is chosen from nasty services. A concise study is made on the target market of the service sectors, while search, experience and credence attributes are studied of both the service sector. A comparative study of the perceived risks of both the service sector is studied and recommendations are made on handling and improving the risk involved in the service sectors.
Key Characteristics of target market of the services:
Nice Services
Education
Demographics
The target market of the education sector is primarily children and youth that range from the age of 4- 30. The target market of education sectors are children who undertaking primary education and higher level education.. The demographic pattern in the education sector ranges equally with male and female candidates pursuing the education dreams. The education sector includes people belonging different income earning groups.
Psychographics
The target market of education sector has a multicultural environment. The users of the service have different lifestyles, culture and diversity can be noticed in the respective field.
Geographic location
The education sector in Australia attracts students from different countries and as such the target market of this service is diverse and wide.
Benefits
The target market of the education sector has a common need, which is to pursue their educational goals and dreams, which it can utilize in achieving their dreams and in the pursuit of attractive jobs.
Nasty Service
Dentist
Demographics
The users of this service are people belonging to different age groups and are equally distributed among male and females. The target market includes people belonging to different income earning groups.
Psychographics
The psychographics of the target market of this service are also multicultural. It can be seen that people having different lifestyle are the target market of this service area and diversity can be noticed in the psychographic aspect of the service sector.
Geographic location
The target market of the dentist service is majorly local people belonging to the specific country and in general the target market of the dentist service is the local people.
Benefits
One can notice that the common need of this service is medical attention. The target market of this service seeks medical attention for adverse condition regarding tooth and gums.
Nice Services
Education
Search
The customers before applying to education service would preferably first evaluate their requirements and compare it with the facilities provided by an educational institute. The customers have to first evaluate if their requirements matches with the education facilities provided by the educational institute. The price and the educational fee of a respective institute are evaluated by a customer by a student before applying to an institute (Chaston, 2014).
Experience
The customers of the education sector will apply to the education services based on the past experiences of the customers of a respective institute and will use their past experience in applying to the consumption of such services (Kristensson, 2013)
Credence
Customers during the evaluation of their evaluation of their choice regarding education services will depend on the image and reputation of the institute. It will see the years of goodwill that the respective institute holds. The campus image and the expertise and qualification level of the educators of the institute also plays an important role.
Nasty Service
Dentist
Search
In the initial search process of the dentist service, the consumer of such services will have to evaluate the different alternatives that exist in the dentist service. They will have to evaluate the price of such service and compare it with their income. This forms the attribute in the pre consumption stage of the service.
Experience
The consumers of such services will have to depend on the past experience of different users and evaluate their own past experiences regarding the past consumption of such services. This has to be evaluated in the light of the specific doctor or medical institute, where the consumers intend to go to consumer such services (Gummesson & Grönroos, 2012).
Credence
A reputed doctor or an institute enjoys good reputation in the market, which the consumers evaluate in the process of choice of the service. The testimonials and word of mouth of other users of such services are factors that have deep impact on the choice of services. One can notice that there are ratings given to medical institutes that provide dentist services.
|
Perceived Risks |
Nasty Service- Dentist |
|
|
Functionality Risk |
The consumer of nasty service may face the risk of functionality risk and the risk of quality of risk during the purchase and usage of the service. The quality of the service as perceived might not be up to the standard of the user and the user. As such, the consumers might not be able to derive the utility of the service. If the dentist service does not provide the appropriate treatment and relief to the patient, then the user of such services can run the risk of functionality risk (Gummesson & Grönroos, 2012). |
The consumer of nice service may face the risk of functionality risk. The students might not feel satisfied or might feel that the education standard is not up to the mark as per their perception. The quality of education service can only be evaluated from experience and therefore the students might suffer from such functionality test during the purchase and the usage of such services. The quality of the education service is one of the major risks that the users of such risk might face (Gummesson & Grönroos, 2012). |
|
Financial Risk |
The user of the dentist service might suffer from the financial risk in the usage and purchase of dentist service. The medical cost in dentist service is reasonably high. Therefore, patients have to spend a considerable amount of money during the usage of the dentist service. If the dentist service does not provide the necessary benefit and utility to the patient, then the user of this service might consider his monetary resources to be wasted. Such situations pose the risk of financial risk to the users of such service. |
The students of the education service can suffer from financial risk. The cost of education in Australia is high and therefore students enrolling in education institutes have to spend significant amount of money during the admission process. The students have to pay fee during various stages of the education. If the education standard and quality is not up to the mark, then the student might consider their money to be wasted and exhausted. This is the financial risk existing in education service. |
|
Social risk |
Sometimes the users of dentist service might suffer from social risk if the doctor or the medical institution does not have high goodwill. In such circumstances, there are chances of social risk (Ndubisi, 2013). |
In education service, the social risk has some paramount influence. The brand image of the institution and the goodwill of the institute might have social status and also has a significant bearing on the value of the education qualification. A student from a reputed institute might have a better chance and scope of job opportunities compared to a student from a non reputed institute. Thus, the users of education users suffer from social risk (Ndubisi, 2013). |
|
Time Risk |
The users of dentist service might also face time risk. The users of dentist service to have to invest their resources and time. As such, if the quality of medical service is not sufficient, then the consumer might consider his time wasted in the process of such substandard service consumption (Kindström & Kowalkowski, 2014). |
The users of education service might also face risk regarding time risk. If the student does not the sufficient and quality education, then the duration of the course of the education might not hold much importance and the student might lose out precious year involved in the course duration. As such, the student might be dissatisfied that he wasted the time studying in the institute, if does not matches the requirements and qualities (Kindström & Kowalkowski, 2014). |
Service environment management and design
Nice Service
People
The people involved in the education service are the teachers, professors, lecturers and the administrators. The teachers need to be recruited and selected based on their high qualification, efficiency and skill. Further training and use of latest technology must be encouraged among the employees and faculties. This lend a lot of benefit in terms of search attributes as different subjects and specialization can be covered in the institute and makes an institute a comprehensive place for the service, which could meet the different requirements of students. Better faculties also lend much benefit to experience attribute as better faculties and employees in an education service will tend to provide maximum benefit and satisfaction of students and this will assist students to provide positive feedback to customers seeking service in a particular institution (Ndubisi, 2013). It will also benefit in the credence attribute as the skill and qualifications of the faculties and employees are the major source of goodwill and brand image of an institution, which influence customers.
Process
The process of how an institute functions also have a significant impact on the service of an institute. The process of education institute can be improvised by improving the information system, amending the policies and the rules of the institution. The fee structure can be restructured also to suit the requirements of different users belonging to different income groups. This will have significant impact on the search attributes of the institute as the fee structure will allow many more students to enroll to the institute. The policies and rules of the institute will also gather more students. The improvement in the process and workings of the organizations will create a positive response from the past students of the institute, which will be useful in the reference process and it affects the experience attributes (Chaston, 2014). The credence attribute as the improvement in the process reflects on the efficiency of the institute and it will lend more credibility to the institute.
Physical environment
The physical environment of an institute needs to be remodeled, restructured and should be made to look attractive. The possibility of grounds of danger zones in the physical environment of the institute should be eliminated. This will attract the student during the search process as an attractive setting is pleasing to the students and it attracts. The presence of a safe, attractive and convenient physical environment will cause satisfaction among employees, which again benefits in the experience attributes. The presence of an outstanding physical environment will lend more credibility and brand value to the educational institute. This will lend more utility in the discharge of service (Kristensson, 2013). For example, the presence of library with access to different variety of books benefits an educational institute.
Nasty Service
People
The employees lacking efficiency should be eliminated and the doctors with higher skill and expertise should be inducted in the hospitals and private clinics to discharge better dentist service. The scope of potential red flags regarding the skills and efficiency needs to be evaluated, so that people get more satisfaction and this will lead to more benefit in the experience attributes with positive feedback and also elimination of loopholes in terms of skill and negligence on the part of employees and doctors also lend more credibility to the institute. Doctors with more skill and expertise also benefit in the search attribute (Kindström & Kowalkowski, 2014).
Process
The institute can amend the policies and the operational structure of the service. Better systems can be induced to improve the process. The testing and analysis process can be upgraded with latest technology and this will benefit the service with search attributes, create more satisfaction among employees and it will benefit the institute with experience attributes as users will be referred and the user with a past experience with the service can avail to it again. It also creates goodwill and positive image and it will contribute t credence attributes (Gummesson & Grönroos, 2012).
Physical environment
The physical environment can be restructured and improved by making better waiting rooms and proper interiors and safe environment for discharge of services. It supplies benefit to the search, experience and credence attributes. Such appropriate physical environment will lend goodwill and positive image of the institute and also create positive feedbacks leading to experience attribute (Ndubisi, 2013).
Experience
Nasty Service- Dentist
Nice Service- Education
Conclusion
On concluding the report, it can be observed that the nasty and nice service differ on the perception of customers. The target markets of both the service sections have distinct features and have different specification in the search, experience and credence areas. The presence of perceived risks in the form of functionality, financial, social risk and time risk exist in the service sector. The marketing mix of the service sectors in the form of people, process and physical environment are analyzed and recommendations provided to capitalize and offset the attributes show that the amendments are needed in the skill and expertise of the professionals and the improvement of the procedures of discharge of the system.
Reference list
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