The following report is based on Service Operations management of the business organizations. The researcher has taken the example of Virgin Atlantic Airlines Pvt. Ltd as an example of the service providing companies in United Kingdom (www.virginatlantic.com). Service Operations Management forms an integral part of the business organization as it determines some of the most important factors which have an impact on the success of the business organization. Service Operations Management is referred to as the term that is needed to cover the decisions, activities and the responsibilities of a n operations manager in the business organization. The operations manager is entitled with a number of tasks to run the organization smoothly. The operations manager of Virgin Atlantic group takes care of the different complex activities that are used to deliver proper service to the customers. The operations of the organization includes the listing of the equipments, resources, monitoring the performance of the employees and ensuring that the inputs of the industry are arranged in a proper way to deliver the finished services for the consumers (Hult et al. 2017).
Figure 1- Service Operation
Source- (Haksever Cook and Chaganti 2015)
Service in business context implies a lot of different things. Service to someone can be similar to customer complaints or answering to customer care. The customers’ perspective on services on the other hand refers service as the sum total of the customer experience and their feedback on the following experience (Hult et al. 2017). It can be said that visit to a restaurant is the experience whereas the quality of food can be the perception If any problem occurs the airlines company is there to eradicate the problem. This can be defined as the service concept. The management of Virgin Airlines provides a range of products and different services to satisfy their diverse range of customers. The Company offers air services across 400 destinations worldwide which makes them one of the top earners of revenue. Along with its Australian partner Virgin Austtralia it caters to a wide range of Airline services. Apart from Air services the company provides many other services. The mentioned Airlines Company has kept the product range straightforward so that they can focus on what is more important. The service provided is believed to be second to no other such existing service and it is possible only because of the reliability, validity and effective communication (cargo.virgin-atlantic.com). The Company provides super fast shipment facilities for the customers as well as specific transportation process to maintain the effectiveness of the customer services. The shipment service is segmented into three types of different services namely, Just Ride, Must Ride and Fast Ride. Just ride is the basic shipment delivery service handled by the efficient networking team of the mentioned Airlines. While Must Ride is the range of premium service that aims to deliver the product tto the end users within the specified time limit and even returns the money back if they fail to deliver their promise. Last but not the least in any sense fast ride is the emergency shipment service for the delivery of the sensitive cargo to the users within a very short notice. The company has also started its own range of Courier service titled VEX. VEX offers express courier product withsuper urgency on a very short notice. However the most important product of the Airlines Company comes with Pharma Passive which has been designed to help transport the sensitive pharmaceutical products in passive packaged boxes (cargo.virgin-atlantic.com).
A service provided by a business organization can be both good as well as bad. The quality of the service is determined by the customer feedback. The customer feedback is termed as the service experience of the company. The service experience of a customer is the direct experience of a customer on the goods and services that are provided to them by the business organization. The following may contain different elements like the process in which the customers are treated by the organizations and also how the customers have an experience of the facilities and services of the organization (Pérez and Rodriguez 2015).
Figure 2- Service Experience + Outcome
Source- (Haksever Cook and Chaganti 2015)
Some of the main service experiences include;
The different organizations in the market provide one service or the other to the service users to earn revenue and increase the brand reputation of the companies (Hu and Sheng 2014). The task of the operations manager is to carefully manage, integrate and implement all the related aspects through financial performance, customer satisfaction and a high level of competitive advantage (Prakash and Mohanty 2013).
Taking an example will help the readers to understand the following concept more easily. Name of the company- Virgin Atlantic Airlines
Tagline- Virgin Atlantic (Flying in the face of ordinary)
Service Provided- Air Transportation, Food, hotel stay, cab service and many others.
Service Received- Great Air Travel, Hotel stay at the cost of the company in case of flight delay or cancellation, cab service to and from the airport, Good behavior of staff, catering to individual needs of the customers
Outcomes- Greater Customer Satisfaction, Increased Brand value, Greater revenue and greater Profit.
Customers are considered to be the most crucial part of a business organization. The absence of customers in a business will spell doom for the business organization. The customers are the sole responsible party for the betterment of the business organizations (Sivakumar Li and Dong 2014). The customers are the ones that judge the different products and services and rate them according to their demands. The customers can be divided into a number of types according to their demands;
6.Intolerant- Intolerant customers are seldom passive and patient and thus they create problems to both themselves and the service providers. Though these customers do not show any signs of their character initially but neglecting them can lead to serious problems. The Management of Virgin Airlines has a specific set of guidelines in place to tackle such errant customers.
8.Terrorist- Terrorist are the customners who have the tendency to mount a suddenn attack when it is least expected. For example a customer who might have bought a particular product the earlier day comes to the packed up store the next day and suddenly vent out his anger about the product. This has a negative impact on the buying pattern of the customers.
The mentioned Airlines Company has to identify the type of customers that they deal with and accordingly arrange for the facilities that cater to the demand of the flyers. Identification of the customers is very important as it is an indirect consideration on the success of the business. If the Airlines Company succeeds in serving the different customers in a proper and efficient manner it makes sure that they will go a long way in the future.
Figure 3– Customer Service Gaps Model
Source- (Blut et al. 2014)
The Customer Service Gaps Model as shown in the above figure is one of the most trending part of business in the modern days. Globalization has changed the ways by which a customer perceives about a certain product or service in an organization (Heidenreich et al. 2015). The customers demand not only superior quality products and services but also expect high quality service from the employees of the organization. Superior quality services of different organizations are not only the only factors that help the organizations to gain a strategic advantage in the market. According to Lovelock and Patterson (2015) the other hand from a customer’s point of view the following service is considered to be an integral part of the product. The mood of the consumers depends on whether he will rate a service good or bad and thus a proper rapport must be established by the organization to make sure that the customer can have a transparent understanding of each and every products and services used by them.
The following gap is the difference between the customer expectations and the customer perceptions. The customer experience is determined by cultural background, family lifestyle, demography and some other important factors like advertising. On the other hand customer perception is based on the involvement of the customer on the products and services of the organization. Customer gap is experienced when the following two qualities are not met within a product or service (Lovelock and Patterson 2015). The customer gap is the most key element and in the real world the expectations and the perceptions of the customers would be the most identical. In the modern business environment delivering a quality service for a product is based on a transparent understanding of the market of the specific product. Therefore the best way to close the gap is to make a clear understanding of the needs of the customer and know the expectations of the customer.
Knowledge Gap is the contrast between the organizations provision of a particular service and the expectations of the consumers about the particular service. If the managers in charge of the operations of the company fail to understand the demands of the customers a gap in knowledge will be created which will lead to the downfall of the company in the market. As mentioned earlier if such a gap exists it must be ascertained that the organizations are heading towards a blank future and are failing to gain the trust of the customers (Heidenreich et al. 2015).
Policy Gap refers to the wrong translation of the management of an organization of the rules and policies that forms a part of the organizational structure (Hu and Sheng 2014). Poor designing of the products and the services, failure of the company to maintain the products and the services, absence of standardized services and goods are some of the main hiccups for the organizations to transform the expectations of the consumers on the goods and services into a reality.
Delivery gap clearly highlights the gaps in the performance of the employees. Generally such gap occurs in the companies having a very poor quality training program or the absence of a training program at all. The absence of a efficient training program makes the employees helpless and as a result they fail to meet the demands of the customers. Some of the main problems that the employees and the managers in charge of the operation faces are;
The management of Corinthian travel has put in place a proper and efficient training system to train its employees in the best possible way to make the business attractive and help the employees gather necessary skills that will make the company have a competitive advantage over their rivals. The company can easily eradicate the delivery gap if it can implement a proper training program.
Communication Gap is one of the most important drawbacks of the modern day business environment. Often the companies tend to engage in false and misleading advertisements to lure the customers and maintain a quality brand image in the market. An advertisement which promises a number of different facts generally fail to meet the demands of the customers and ultimately leads to loss of valuable customers from their fold.
Conclusion
The purpose of the report to identify the service management concept of a business organization has been effectively met. A thorough analysis of the report will help to identify the meaning of service management in business context, the types of customers involved in business and the famous Gaps model that has helped to find out the drawbacks of a business organization. The different types of Gaps in business render the business ineffective to making profit.
References
“Book Flights With Virgin Atlantic.” Virginatlantic.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 21 Nov. 2017. ()
“Virgin Atlantic | Our Products.” Cargo.virgin-atlantic.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 28 Nov. 2017.
Blut, M., Beatty, S.E., Evanschitzky, H. and Brock, C., 2014. The impact of service characteristics on the switching costs–customer loyalty link. Journal of Retailing, 90(2), pp.275-290.
Haksever, C., Cook, R.G. and Chaganti, R., 2015. Applicability of the gaps model to service quality in small firms. Journal of Small Business Strategy, 8(1), pp.49-66.
Heidenreich, S., Wittkowski, K., Handrich, M. and Falk, T., 2015. The dark side of customer co-creation: exploring the consequences of failed co-created services. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(3), pp.279-296.
Hu, Z.H. and Sheng, Z.H., 2014. A decision support system for public logistics information service management and optimization. Decision Support Systems, 59, pp.219-229.
Hult, G.T.M., Morgeson, F.V., Morgan, N.A., Mithas, S. and Fornell, C., 2017. Do managers know what their customers think and why?. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 45(1), pp.37-54.
Lovelock, C. and Patterson, P., 2015. Services marketing. Pearson Australia.
Mullins, R.R., Ahearne, M., Lam, S.K., Hall, Z.R. and Boichuk, J.P., 2014, October. Know your customer: How salesperson perceptions of customer relationship quality form and influence account profitability. American Marketing Association.
Orel, F.D. and Kara, A., 2014. Supermarket self-checkout service quality, customer satisfaction, and loyalty: Empirical evidence from an emerging market. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 21(2), pp.118-129.
Pérez, A. and Rodriguez del Bosque, I., 2015. Corporate social responsibility and customer loyalty: exploring the role of identification, satisfaction and type of company. Journal of Services Marketing, 29(1), pp.15-25.
Prakash, A. and Mohanty, R.P., 2013. Understanding service quality. Production Planning & Control, 24(12), pp.1050-1065.
Sivakumar, K., Li, M. and Dong, B., 2014, January. Service quality: The impact of frequency, timing, proximity, and sequence of failures and delights. American Marketing Association.
Torres, E.N., 2014. Deconstructing service quality and customer satisfaction: Challenges and directions for future research. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 23(6), pp.652-677.
Tseng, S.C. and Hung, S.W., 2013. A framework identifying the gaps between customers’ expectations and their perceptions in green products. Journal of Cleaner Production, 59, pp.174-184.
Wilder, K.M., Collier, J.E. and Barnes, D.C., 2014. Tailoring to customers’ needs: Understanding how to promote an adaptive service experience with frontline employees. Journal of Service Research, 17(4), pp.446-459.
Yarimoglu, E.K., 2014. A review on dimensions of service quality models. Journal of Marketing Management, 2(2), pp.79-93.
Zurich, L.B., 2017. Service Operations and Management.
Essay Writing Service Features
Our Experience
No matter how complex your assignment is, we can find the right professional for your specific task. Contact Essay is an essay writing company that hires only the smartest minds to help you with your projects. Our expertise allows us to provide students with high-quality academic writing, editing & proofreading services.
Free Features
Free revision policy
$10Free bibliography & reference
$8Free title page
$8Free formatting
$8How Our Essay Writing Service Works
First, you will need to complete an order form. It's not difficult but, in case there is anything you find not to be clear, you may always call us so that we can guide you through it. On the order form, you will need to include some basic information concerning your order: subject, topic, number of pages, etc. We also encourage our clients to upload any relevant information or sources that will help.
Complete the order form
Once we have all the information and instructions that we need, we select the most suitable writer for your assignment. While everything seems to be clear, the writer, who has complete knowledge of the subject, may need clarification from you. It is at that point that you would receive a call or email from us.
Writer’s assignment
As soon as the writer has finished, it will be delivered both to the website and to your email address so that you will not miss it. If your deadline is close at hand, we will place a call to you to make sure that you receive the paper on time.
Completing the order and download