Customer Service of Smithys Brewery - Coursework Example

Customer Service of Smithy’s Brewery The following answers relate to the case study about Smithy’s Beer, a traditional small time brewery in U.K. which is trying to reinvent itself in changing times. The company is hit by dwindling sales due to change in customers tastes, large breweries controlling majority of the pubs, internal staffing problems being among them. They are looking to revamp the entire operational issues and put newer and better mechanism in place to differentiate itself from the competition. 1. Why was Smithy’s Brewery considering improving its customer service? Smithy’s Brewery whose main business was to sell cask beer has seen certain changes in trend over the last ten years. It has been found that beer drinking was on decline and also the young generation preferred the newer version of smooth beers like the nitro beer and the keg beer. They have developed a taste for wines, and other non-alcoholic health drinks. A survey found out that in the last ten years’ consumption of beer has decreased 13% countrywide and consumption of wine has just doubled! Also in the nineties, the government wanted the pubs to open up, i.e. the tenant pub should be allowed to sell beer, which is not of the concerned brewery, so as to reduce the complex monopoly. However, this only proved to be worse as the breweries sold their pubs to the new pub companies, which were again set up with the money of the breweries. In this way they came out of the purview of the law and yet their business flourished, so much so that now four breweries were controlling eight-five of the market share. These pub companies became very powerful as they had heavy sales and this is the reason why they could bargain with other breweries for heavy discounts. Also these pubs provided mediocre services and the typical traditional manager was missing. As a result majority of the new fangled managers wanted easy to store keg beer rather than traditional cask beer, which was definitely not Smithy’s Brewery’s strong point. So they wanted to differentiate themselves. However they found out they really did not have any unique selling point nor do they enjoy any brand value. So they thought of positioning themselves differently. They wanted to serve traditional beer with good food coupled with homely atmosphere and friendly behavior. This is where the service quality became so important because it is service quality, alone which would help them to position themselves differently and hence boost up the dwindling sales. Earlier the beer itself was such that it was doing brisk business, now that tastes have altered each brewery must have a unique selling point, which was absent for Smithy’s Brewery. So, in order to have a strong unique selling point it was important to emphasize more in customer service, as customer service was very important for business. (Johnston, 2003, pp.1-2) 2. How good or bad was its service and how reliable is the evidence presented in the case? A survey found out that customers regard good service with utmost importance. From the case study it can be safely said that Smithy’s Brewery provided reasonably good service. They received only 10 complaints per month among the thousands of sales they made. However, they have a lot of scope for improvement. All the customers agreed that they expect a favorable environment, nice friendly staff, not the mechanical people who would push beers and take money. They had a workforce of two thousand and a yearly turnover of three thousand. So a lot of training was required and not all people actually followed these principles in practice as majority of them thought this was not a job in real sense and was a means to supplement their family income. This was also associated with low dignity, as a result of which the service standards fell. It was also observed that bad service came from the place where sales started to decrease. The immediate effect was that the pub manager, as a result of which customers go away as they are not served promptly enough, reduced staffs. (Johnston, 2003, p. 3) 3. What do you think are the main barriers to improvement? Since Smithy’s Brewery deal with humans their behavior are unpredictable at times. The high rate of attrition and aspiration do not match the organizational needs. Also these pubs don’t have a regular flow of staff, which compounds to their existing problem. They also need different number of staff at different times, which proves difficult to arrange. Good service cannot be guaranteed always because customers are so demanding that it becomes very difficult to satisfy them always. Moreover the concept of good service varies from customer to customer. Internally, Licensed House managers are too money minded and they spend hours in their laptop trying to analyze how much do they tend to gain, as a result they are left with very little time to interact with customers For maximum profit, the pub managers want to do business with majority of the staff being part timers and they are paid very poorly. They want these people to be well trained, articulate, just and thus providing top class service which is not possible from these people who look at this type of job as another means to supplement their income, to get extra amount so that they can fund their holidays. (Johnston, 2003, p. 4) In the corporate office because of the turnover of staff is so high that the central training team finds it difficult to arrange for training for all the staff. So they are best left in the hands to the managers, with supplementary reading material and videos. As a result of which proper training is not imparted to the staff and hence quality gets affected. (Johnston, 2003, p. 4) Majority of the staff regard this training as something, which they already know, or considers it to be a two day wonder package. Moreover in recent survey it was found out that none of the bar staff had not received the guidelines one is expected to follow while dealing with customers, whereas dealing with the customers is the most difficult part of the job. They also consider the training to be quite unnecessary .If the pub brought in new products, competition in the market readily brought it too, adding to their portfolio or they bought it from the competitors. The products had a similar tastes and pricing. As a result there was hardly any scope for differentiation. (Johnston, 2003, p. 6) 4. Evaluate the customer service report form as a means of measuring service quality The evaluation of the customer service form may be presented as follows: - The customer service report form uses a scale of 1 to 5 to measure the various touch points when a customer enters the pub till the time the customer leaves the pub. The form does not have any space for the waiter/staff who attends the customer. There should be some place for these also as it helps to understand the service level of each staff individually and the room for improvement for each one of them The form should have an option that how much time does a staff take to note down the order from the time he enters the pub and how long does he have to wait till the order gets delivered. Coming to the pub is all about unwinding and companionship-as the survey has found out. So a proper ambience with soothing music adds to the pub environment. There is no provision in the form regarding this aspect of music, ambience etc. The customer has the option of going to some other pub as well, and many of them do so. So it is important to know where does he rate this pub vis-à-vis other pubs. Whether similar brands are more easily available in other pubs or this pub has the variety? So a column should be there where he can rate this pub with other pubs It needs to be found out that how easily the customer gets his favorite brand in this pub compared to other brands. This factor is of utmost importance as certain customers are very particular about a certain brand. Non-availability of these brands might result in losing of that customer. Further scope of improvement:- In this form customers are asked to rate certain parameters, which are of primary importance. However, according to the customer if there are some aspects, which need to be improved but not mentioned in the form, goes unnoticed every time. So a separate column should be there to ask if there is any scope of improvement from customer’s point of view. 5, Develop a strategy to improve the business. You are expected to make use of theories and techniques related to developing operations strategy that are covered in the course and course reading. Strategies to improve business include: Service winner: To reduce high turnover of staff, only those people should be given a job opportunity that have the right attitude to work in a pub. This mans all those people who don’t see it only as a method to supplement summer earnings should be employed. (Fitzsimmons, & Fitzsimmons, 2000, p.46) Frequent users club: A significant number of the pub customers the regular visitors, so to keep them happy and loyal to the pub, a reward system can be put in place, where a small gratification can be given in form of a drink to regular customers or one who buys beyond a certain limit. This will wow the customers and make them come again and again to the pub (Fitzsimmons, & Fitzsimmons, 2000, p.47) Yield management: Here the company can track how the brands of the competitors are doing of similar tastes in similar ranges, and accordingly can vary the prices of its brands within a certain range. This will help to achieve higher inventory turnover and in case of higher demand can ask for better prices. (Fitzsimmons, & Fitzsimmons, 2000 p.48) Micro marketing analysis: The profile of the heavy users needs to be analyzed. Their preference and lifestyle needs to be scrutinized. Their spending pattern, their favorite shopping area also needs to be analyzed. More promotion can be directed at these points to find favorable brand recall (Fitzsimmons, & Fitzsimmons, 2000, p.49) World class delivery: - It is not just sufficient to meet the customer expectations but also to wow them, so new technology should be introduced to reduce costs and database should be also maintained & updated to understand the need of the customers even better, like remembering birthdays etc. (Fitzsimmons, & Fitzsimmons, 2000, p.56) Division of labour: This facility allows the staff to gain core competence in one part of the job. It is absolutely not mandatory that a staff should know all the part of the job with equal expertise. In this way he gains knowledge and expertise about that part of the job and hence the time taken to perform the task also reduces. (Fitzsimmons, & Fitzsimmons, 2000, p.80) Self-service: Since these pubs are plagued by manpower problems, it would be wise if some beer vending machines were installed. This would incur onetime cost but the pubs will get rid of recurring cost of manpower and customers won’t be turned away due to delay in service. (Fitzsimmons & Fitzsimmons, 2000, p.81) Service standardization: Since delivering of beer and food is not a complex process, so service standardization should be implemented as soon as possible. This has the advantage that it is possible to preplan all the steps and allows orderly flow of customers. So the general concept of bad service can be ruled out. Also by giving price incentives/add-ons it is possible to regulate the flow of customers. These incentives are to be given in off peak hours so that the rush during the peak hours can be controlled. (Fitzsimmons, & Fitzsimmons, 2000, p.182) Benchmarking: The team of a pub can be encouraged by benchmarking their team with a team which is known for the generating maximum sales (across the country). A competition in this regard can also be arranged which will encourage the staff to vie for the top position. Suitable team can be rewarded. (Fitzsimmons, & Fitzsimmons, 2000, p.188) Implementation of Six Sigma process: Standard improvement procedures like six sigma process can be tried to implement where all the employees at all level try to achieve constant improvement and try to attain virtual perfection. This method uses statistical data and operational issues to address the errors and bring about improvement. (Fitzsimmons, and Fitzsimmons, 2011, p.194) Service recovery: In case something goes wrong, the customer’s convenience should be given maximum importance, so a service recovery person should assist the customer, preferably the manager. The problem should be fixed quickly and fairly. The customer needs to be assured that it was a mistake and steps are being taken to resolve the matter as soon as possible. (Zemke & Bell, 2000, p.40) Main Recommendations:- 1. Since the brewery is facing staffing problems more focus should be made in taking staff with right attitude. 2. Training should be imparted to all those staff specially who all deal with customers and division of labour should be implemented so that they become efficient in that part of the job which they do and hence less time would be required. 3. Certain set procedures should be followed and service recovery team should be there so that service level doesn’t fall. 4. Rewards to be given to those employees who excel and performance benchmark to be set. 5. Since the pub is about fun and a place to unwind so performers and artists suitable for the pub culture can be brought in. This will be one more reason why people will come to the pub. They will get a chance to see live bands perform. They will make merry and the pub will sell more. 6. A market research firm can be appointed to understand the changing needs/tastes of the people and what else in terms of facilities do they expect from the pub. References 1. Fitzsimmons, J.A. & Fitzsimmons, M.J. (2000), Service Management: Operations, Strategy, Information Technology, New York, McGraw-Hill 2. Johnston, T. (2000), “Case 41: Smith’s Brewery”, In, Cases in Operations Management, 3rd Ed, Prentice Hall 3. Zemke R. & Bell C (2000), Knock your socks off service discovery, AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn Read More