For this particular paper, we will take into consideration, the instance of Menulog which is an online food delivery service based in Australia. It specializes in connecting the customer to a plethora of restaurants all over the country. It works constantly to provide food delivery, piping hot to the customer. It has been designed to save the customers, the hassle of cooking and enjoy a meal that is both stress-free and tasty. This online food delivery service connects the customer to at least 11000 restaurants and at least seventy different types of cuisine for them to gorge upon. Menulog can be accessed through the mobile-based app or their own website which allows the customer to quickly order food with minimal effort.
A part of the Just Eat Group, Menulog thrives on delivering the quickest and most flawless service that would leave the customers wanting for more. Menulog has a wonderful reach which connects at least ninety per cent of the Australian population to great eating joints, which includes street-side shacks and cafés to high-end diners which also accommodates seat and dine or dine in services. This attribute of Menolg’s service can be termed as simultaneity which enables Menulog to offer a service, in which both production and consumption take place at the same time. Active in the food delivery scenario for 12 years, starting in 2006, Menulog has added in its repertoire, three million customers, active on the platform. A part of its market expansion, Menulog added New Zealand to its market base in the year 2012. In the year 2015, Menulog was acquired by the JustEat group which made it all the more efficient and powerful. Thus, the place of service delivery remains within Australia that is the country of origin and foreign lands like New Zealand. It offers platforms for both iOS as well as Android devices. The nature of the service can be classified as a tangible service which includes transportation of food from the restaurant to the customer who had ordered for the food.
With the partnership of JustEat, Menulog achieved unbelievable growth that is definitely an amalgamation of greater reach to both customers and restaurants as well as grabbing opportunities to enrich itself by the leverage of global tech. Menulog encourages restaurants to digitize their business through Menulog’s digital platform and guides them through digital marketing so as to increase the reach of their business. Menulog also pioneered the genius idea of introducing a brand new marketing model which offers delivery service to restaurants which does not have a self-delivery system in order to bring to the customers, food from their favourite local joints that would otherwise not be a part of a home delivery network. Thus, it provides a standardized and continuous service which would provide every customer with the delivery of the food following a continuous cycle of regulation. In order to categorise the service process, it can be iterated that Menulog processes its service which involves people and thus, it can be classified as a service which is tangible and is directed towards people and not intangible objects such as assets or goods. It requires the end customer to be physically present to enjoy their service. Therefore, it can be called a people processing service.
Menulog can be confirmed to be a service factory since it involves staff that generates business and sales for the firms. Contrary to a traditional factory, a service factory involves people who would provide service for end customers. To define customer expectations it can be referred to as a connotation that describes a set of behaviour or actions that any individual may anticipate when they are associating with a service provider. The basics of customer expectations would be something like fair pricing or high-quality service, but with changing times customer satisfaction, the term in itself includes expectations like proactive services, connected experiences that are shared through different channels as well as personalized interaction (Goetsch & Davis 2014). This phenomenon can also be linked to the role theory which confirms, that there exists, a set of learned behavior patterns which are followed by both the customers and the employees of an organization while they interact. This has been further backed up by the Script Theory which is essentially a service script that helps to specify the behavioural sequence of the end customer and an employee during any kind of service encounter. The wants and needs of the buyer in the economic marketplace can also be referred to as customer expectations. Customers often come with preconceived ideas that they associate with goods or services. These preconceived notions let the customer decide which service they would pick and which one they would be avoiding due to a prior negative experience. Besides, customers can set new expectations with products that have received good reviews as well as boisterous advertisement and have gained successful media attention. There are certain strategies that can be employed by any business organization in order to meet customer expectations which are discussed in the following paragraphs.
Any business should have a dedicated number of employees or experts who have an in-depth knowledge of the business process as well as having a solution to every potential problem. The dedicated team should discuss the possible solution to the client as an answer to his or her woes or queries. If an organization can enlist possible solutions, it becomes easier for them to engage the client directly with the solution and also to set realistic expectations that do not leave the clients to be confused. For the example of Menulog, they must adapt to this strategy by engaging customers directly through their tele-calling customer service that answer millions of queries every day. To present to the customers a realistic picture of the situation will leave the company with a reputation of being honest with the resolutions.
Customers may have many queries or can come forward to the dedicated customer service team of Menulog with problems that need to be fixed as soon as possible. A query may include of a money back or reimbursement policy and if given an expedited timeline without proper commitment may leave the customer with frustration and mistrust towards the company (Segoro 2013). Providing clear timelines and being realistic about it will only leave the customers to be connected at a deeper level as well as showcase commitment to the issues.
To manage customers in the most effective way, it will be necessary for Menulog to influence the customer base to develop a deep level of trust towards the company. If any customer service executive does not have a definite answer to any problem that a customer is facing, then the company should avoid lying to the customer or showing them unreasonable hope. Also, the customer service executives must consult a database as well as consulting other team members to solve ongoing issues that are bothering the customers (Hennig-Thurau & Hansen 2013). Any organization should avoid misleading the customers by keeping secrets tucked away from them.
Being optimistic is fairly accepted but only when it is paired with authenticity. Being realistic about the solution to any problem will only let the company met realistic targets that are easy to achieve. For example, it is always better to tell a customer about the harsh truth regarding a trade policy than to mislead that same customer with futile optimistic consolations only in order for the company to fail its customer (Wang 2013). The company and its representatives should always be clear about the expectations of the company from the customers as well as letting them know about the different rules and regulations of the company.
As an expanding business, Menulog receives many tickets that are generated every day regarding queries from customers. It is always wise to assume that customers do appreciate the service provider to touch base with them while maintaining close contact. Menulog and its customer service representatives should always maintain contact even after a ticket is closed. To ask for feedback from time to time regarding the quality of the service provided by the company will let the customers feel valued. Besides, after every customer support experience, a reiteration of the entire case handling must be presented to the customer so that there is constant communication about the situation with the customer (Zhang & He 2014).
A potential customer’s awareness regarding the offerings of an organization can be termed as customer perception (Tripathi 2014). It also includes the consciousness and the impression of the client about the services or goods provided by the company. It can also be termed as customer defined service standards which must be met by the organization for the satisfaction of customers. However, sometimes unfavourable incidents happen which does not allow the customer to be left satisfied. In a high contact business environment like Menulog, where delivery staff comes in contact with the end customer, sometimes critical incidents might happen. An example of food being delivered late can be discussed here. The incident might turn the customer into a loyal one if the critical incident is handled by the customer service executive in a positive manner. A critical incident may leave a customer frustrated for the time being but, if the company can handle the situation, it reinforces the trust that the customer has put in the company. Being one of the fastest growing food delivery services, Menulog should be utmost careful while investing in media advertisement and print and paper advertisement. The way and perspective, engaging which the company will promote its product, will eventually influence the customers. Any connotations that the advertisement would perceive the company to be with, the customer will automatically be forced to pick up the same notions regarding the company or its services (Li 2015).
To ponder on customer satisfaction, it should also be mentioned that the connotation of customer satisfaction depends on the role theory and the script theory. The role theory suggests that there are certain roles of both the customer and the service employee in a service sector. Role theory has conceived certain preset actions which prepare the interaction which would be taking place in the service sector. For example, the customer service personnel are bound to deliver food while the customer pays. As long as both the sides are playing their role well, everything goes ahead smoothly. Followed by this is the script theory which suggests that there are sequences of actions that should both be performed by the service provider and the customer. For example, the service of food delivery provided by Menulog would first let a delivery personnel deliver the food, collect money in such a sequence, while the customer will have to first order food, then receive the food and then pay money. This sequence must be followed to have a successful service encounter. Any disruption from this sequence will lead to customer dissatisfaction and confusion. Besides, the ZOT or zone of tolerance acknowledges that the customers enter the service industry with different expectations. The ZOT defines the gap which exists between the expectations of the customer and the service they are receiving, which would definitely have some gap.
Apart from that, the company Menulog should have a keen eye to the reputation that it has been building with the existing customer base, who could act as influencers to bring in more customers for the company. Leaving happy customers will only encourage the existing customers to recommend the company and their services to new customers. The type of service encounter that Menulog goes through every day is the face to face encounter within which the delivery personnels of Menulog directly interact with the end customer. The customer contact level that Menulog involves itself with is high level of contact since the representative of the company, which is in this case, a delivery boy comes physically close to the end customer to interact and deliver the food.
Menulog also thrives on making the customers meet their expectations by tiering the services. This essentially means that the company offers the customers an array of personalized services that are available at an increasing price to suit their needs. For example, the expedited delivery services would cost some extra bucks but would leave the customers with an expedited food delivery. Moreover, there is another aspect to tap customer perception and that is by providing fine quality interaction and services which they could experience first-hand. The customers always come back to organizations or business if they would have left happily the previous time. Thus the past excellent service vouches for and becomes the biggest influencer on behalf of the company as it also helps to create a loyal customer base.
The actions and activities which any business undergoes to reduce the rate of customer defection can be referred to as customer retention policies (Lovelock & Patterson 2015). Customer retention helps any business to create a stable customer base who is a steady number of people purchasing the goods or services offered by any company. It should be remembered that the customer base can only be strong when the customers are getting high-quality service from the very first association with the company. To retain customers, Menulog should always ensure to deliver the commitments that they have promised. Apart from that, being the customers trusted advisory and gaining trust through regular interactions would be beneficial. Besides, taking precautionary steps or being proactive will also let the customers be extremely satisfied as they would be impressed with the risk advisory and the knowledge depth of the customer service team.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be inferred that the quality of service and the depth of faith that the company Menulog can offer to the customers will only predetermine their path to success. Keeping realistic commitments that they can meet easily would leave the customers impressed as well as helping them maintain a large customer base who would vouch for their superior service. In order to build faith and trust amongst the customer and the organisation, Menulog should keep the process of the business as clarified as possible, with the customer, above all, offering in-depth advisory and maintain a personalised relationship with the customer will let the customers feel valued and thus create a strong business- client relationship.
Reference
Goetsch, D.L. & Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Hennig-Thurau, T. & Hansen, U. eds., 2013. Relationship marketing: Gaining competitive advantage through customer satisfaction and customer retention. Springer Science & Business Media.
Li, C.Y., 2015. Switching barriers and customer retention: Why customers dissatisfied with online service recovery remain loyal. Journal of Service Theory and Practice, 25(4), pp.370-393.
Lovelock, C. & Patterson, P., 2015. Services marketing. Pearson Australia.
Segoro, W., 2013. The influence of perceived service quality, mooring factor, and relationship quality on customer satisfaction and loyalty. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 81, pp.306-310.
Tripathi, M.N., 2014. Customer Satisfaction and Engagement-Customer Retention strategies for brand manager. Vilakshan: The XIMB Journal of Management, 11(1).
Wang, C.H., 2013. Incorporating customer satisfaction into the decision-making process of product configuration: a fuzzy Kano perspective. International Journal of Production Research, 51(22), pp.6651-6662.
Zhang, J. & He, Y., 2014. Key dimensions of brand value co-creation and its impacts upon customer perception and brand performance: An empirical research in the context of industrial service. Nankai Business Review International, 5(1), pp.43-69.
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