How to Achieve Customer Excellence - Literature review Example

Institution : xxxxxxxxxxx Title : xxxxxxxxxxx Tutor : xxxxxxxxxxx Course : xxxxxxxxxxx @2012 Introduction Services are significant in modern business (Cook et al, 1999). In most cases, the service industry relies on the features that are experienced by the clients or customers. As a result the environment in which these services are offered is important. The service package is therefore a significant element in the service industry. The service package is defined as a bundle of goods and services with information that is provided in some environment (Fitzsimmons & Fitzsimmons 2011). The service package has five basic features which include supporting facility, explicit services, information, facilitating goods and implicit services. It is essential that all the five fundamental features should be experienced by the customers. In addition the features should act as a basis of the perception of the customers towards the service that is provided by an organization. This particular paper seeks to evaluate the McDonald restaurant in Australia in terms of how the five features make up the service experience of the organization. When a person recalls a visit to the McDonald’s for a certain meal, the five elements of the service package can to a great level be experienced by the customers. In general a typical experience of taking a meal at McDonald’s entails a entering the cafeteria, making an order for a meal at the counter, collecting the ordered meal from the counter, locating of an empty chair and table and then eating the meal. In essence the above series of activities that take place in the restaurant provide an impression that the restaurant has bundled up a lot of things /experiences, in order to develop a package that customers can purchase in order to satisfy their needs. McDonald has adopted the first feature of the service package which is the supporting facility. According to Verma (2007) the aspect of a supporting facility entails the physical resources that have to be put in place or integrated before the offering of a particular service. This may entails architectural appropriateness, supporting equipment, decoration and location. McDonald’s has to a great extent ensured that supporting facilities do exist in order to ensure that the services offered to consumers reach the market. The supporting facility entails various buildings that house McDonald restaurants in Australia. Another supporting facility is in terms of location. The location of a business is an essential supporting facility because it influences how accessible the business is to the customers. By the year 2011 there were 833 MacDonald restaurants in Australia. The restaurants serve around 1.7 Million customers each day. This is due to it adequate distribution of various restaurants chains or outlets in many of the Australian states. Table 1.0 below gives details about the various site locations and distribution of franchise of McDonald across Australia (McDonald Australia, Action Plan 2011 to 2012). 1.0 Site locations State Company Restaurant Offices Franchise Restaurant Total sites A.C.T 0 0 15 15 NSW 111 5 184 300 QLD 31 2 147 180 VIC 52 2 159 213 SA 11 1 39 51 WA 20 1 43 64 TAS 0 1 17 15 NT 0 0 7 7 Total 225 12 608 845 Apart from location, McDonald Australia has supporting equipment’s that work towards ensuring that customers gain a good experience of the service offered to them. Pantelidis, (2009) highlights the adoption of high tech technology into the food service industry has greatly transformed the service package. This is because businesses utilize technology to innovate new ways of proving their services and also improving the experiences customers, essentially with the increase in competition and the rise of customer expectation. McDonald has for instance adopted supportive technological applications such as the internet which enables customers to make orders of food online. The business has also adopted technology whereby customers can now receive promotional e-mails and blogs in which they can share their experiences about the services offered to them. In addition the business also uses technology in order to improve both its operational and managerial services (Pantelidis, 2009). The aspect of facility layout is also well implemented by the Macdonald’s restaurant. The company has ensured that there is easily traffic flow in each chain of the restaurant. Furthermore the layout of the restaurant is designed in a manner to ensure that there is a fast flow of goods and people and also adequate space exists for people to wait for the services to be delivered (McDonald Australia, Action Plan 2011 to 2012). In addition decoration has also been effectively undertaken by MacDonald’s restaurants. Any visit by a customer to the Macdonald restaurant is usually enticed by the attractiveness that exists in the physical layout and the decorations of the restaurant. Bright and attractive colors are usually used to design the many of the company’s outlets. Also the MacDonald restaurant is also well decorated with a huge letter M that is well designed in every store. This makes it easier for the customers to identify the restaurant. In addition, Macdonald Australia can be described to have architectural appropriateness. This is because the buildings are constructed using an overall theme which is to attract customers and give them adequate space where they can take their meals comfortably. Explicit services are also an essential component of service package that has been adopted by the Macdonald restaurant. Explicit services entail the intrinsic or essential features of a particular service. These are usually benefits that are readily observable when using our senses (Gilmore, 2003). In the context of McDonald restaurants, customers can enjoy various explicit services that are offered by the organization. For instance after the customers use the services offered by the restaurant, for example eating the food , they are able to benefit with the absence of hunger after taking the meal they ordered for. Another benefit is that one can experience a good level of enjoyment and a peace of mind that is attained from the hygiene standards maintained by the restaurant. Gilmore, (2003) highlights that; an explicit service should also be available. Macdonald restaurants usually operate for long hours, furthermore the company has also extended their services in certain outlets such as the Tasmanian branch to 24hours services, and this therefore makes the services offered be available. McDonald also ensures that the services it offers are consistent and at all times. This is because the organization has employed adequate staffs who ensure that the customer’s requests are meet which further leads to the customers gaining intrinsic benefits such as satisfaction after a meal and the absence of hunger. In addition the employees of the organization usually follow standard operation procedures which further result to offering effective customer services. McDonald also ensures that the services it provides are implicit. According to Drummond, (2006) a service is implicit when it can bring about certain psychological advantages that a customer can sense only vaguely. This implies that the implicitness of a service can also be measured by the extrinsic attributes of the service for instance the; convince, security, the sense of well being, atmosphere and attitude. A study by Markey and Watson (2011) reveals that Australia is increasing becoming a fast food nation in the sense that the country has moved to position 11 in spending in fast food joints. Markey and Watson (2011) further highlight that the 780 outlets of MacDonald’s have greatly increased the positive attitudes of consumers towards fast foods. In most cases Australian consumers are convinced that the services offered by the company are of high quality. This is due to the sense of security that is derived from the company’s image as global organization (Pret, 2010). In addition, to many fast food consumers, McDonald is evidently the home of good quality franchise. This is because it has greatly contributed to the provision of simple menus and standardized fast foods of good quality. These factors have made it easier for many fast food consumers to trust the quality of food provided to them. Furthermore the good attitude of consumers towards the services provided to them is also increased by the courteous and cheerful attendants in most of the restaurant (Warner and Lacroix, 2009). Facilitating goods is another service package that has been implemented by the McDonald restaurant. Facilitating goods can be described as the materials that are consumed and purchased by the buyers. In general they are the products that are sold to the customers (Kellogg and Nieb, 2005). Some of the essential attributes of facilitating goods is that they should be of good quality and also they should have consistency in terms of the quality offered. The MacDonald restaurant provides wide range of facilitating goods which are in most case food staff such as burgers, pizza , fries just to name but a few. The company has been renowned majorly for its high quality burgers and fries throughout the world an also in Australia. Russo, (2010) highlights that the restaurant has never compromised the quality of the food it services to customers. Information is another crucial element of the service package. Information involves the data that is given by the customers in order enhance the effective customer services. This information should be useful, timely and also accurate (Fitzsimmons & Fitzsimmons, 2011). Macdonald has adapted technology methods that can facilitate the collection and recording of customer information essentially when it comes to making home deliveries of the products. Consequently, the company does not experience difficultly when it comes to tracing customers and also delivering products to them on timely basis. Analysis of Macdonald Restaurant Application of the Service Package Verma, (2007) agues that; when evaluating the concept of the service package. It is essential for an organization to balance between the intangible and the tangible aspects of a particular service. According to Verma, (2007), customers in the service industry usually purchase a combination of both the intangible and the tangible aspects of a particular service. This is due to the fact that absolute good or services are usually very rare. In order to create a complete service package the services provided by organizations within the service industry should combine both the tangible and the intangible elements of the service as indicated by the context of the Macdonald restaurant. As highlighted by Laroche, et al (2005) intangibility can be manifested both physically and mentally. Many times when a customer makes a visit to the McDonald restaurant, what they see is that the outlets sell tasty products like humbuggers, however this offering does not make MacDonald’s service package to be based centrally on tangible services but rather the intangible elements of the package also exist in terms of the intangible services such as good customers care, timely services and good reception by the restaurant attendants. Verma, (2007), proposes that in order to come up with a well focused service package the perception of the benefits attained by customers should be a central aspect. Kwortnik and Thompson (2009) highlight that; any organization should have a service concept and promise. This is where the organization highlights how the service is bound to bring value to the consumers. Kwortnik and Thompson, (2009) further highlight that; the service promise and concept should work towards the management and the development of an effective service system. From the presentation above, Macdonald restaurant has developed a service package that is focused on the benefits that the customers will receive. In most case the service offered are always best suited to feet the needs of the customers. For instance in the recent years the company has been involved in expansion services whereby more outlets have been opened in various regions. This therefore enhances the first service package of supporting facility through the creation of availability. Conclusion The discussion above has evaluated how the Macdonald restaurant has applied the five features of the service package. One of the areas discussed is that of the supporting facility. The paper highlights that McDonald has implemented the features of supporting facility through having a good business layout, adopting good restaurant designs and also ensuring that the location the restaurant is available to customers. The paper also evaluates McDonald’s adoption of explicit services, implicit services, facilitating goods and information. In conclusion from the discussion above, it can be stated that the McDonald Company has effectively implemented the five feature of the service package. References Cook, D, Chon-Huat, G & Chen, HC, 1999, “Service Typologies: A State of the Art Survey.” Production and Operations Management 8,( 3), p. 318-38. Drummond, K, 2006, How to achieve customer Excellence, Gull Publishing. Fitzsimmons, JA & Fitzsimmons, MJ, 2011, Service Management: Operations, Strategy, Information Technology, 7th edn, McGraw-Hill. Gilmore, A, 2003, Services Marketing and Management, Sage. Kellogg, D and Nieb, W, 2005, A framework for strategic service management. Journal of Operations Management,13 (4), p323–337. Kwortnik, R and Thompson, G, 2009, Unifying Service Marketing and Operations with Service Experience Management . Journal of Service Research . 4 (11). Laroche, M, McDougall, M, Bergeon, J & Yan Z, 2005, “Exploring How Intangibility Affects Perceived Risk.” Journal of Service Research , 6(4), pp.329-42. Pantelidis, I. S, 2009, High Tech Foodservice; an overview of technological advancements. CHME 18,The Annual ResearchConference, Eastbourne, UK. Markey, A and Watson, C, 2011, Australia becomes fast food nation. Macdonald Australia , Action Plan 2011 to 2012, Macdonald Australia Limited . Macdonald Australia, 2011, Pret , A (2010). An introduction to Macdonaldalization. Sage . Russo, G, 2010, McDonald's Australia Limited. Statement by the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director . Verma, 2007, Service Marketing. Pearson Education India. Warner, S and Lacroix, A, 2009, Personality traits of Franchises- McDonald’s restaurants in Australia, Problems and Perspectives in management ,7(1). Read More