Marketing Plan: Jims Cleaning Group - Essay Example

?Marketing Plan: Jim’s Cleaning Group Introduction Jim’s Cleaning Group (hereafter referred to as Jim’s Cleaning) has grown by leaps and bounds sinceinception. As of today, Jim’s Cleaning is one of the most trusted names and is well known for providing reliable cleaning services. The company has been able to make its mark by working assiduously and meticulously completing all orders that it gets. Jim’s customers know that their service provider will go that ‘extra mile’ and ensure that everything it worked on is spic and span. Put differently, Jim’s Cleaning ensures peace of mind for its customers and that it why it stands out vis-a-vis other players in the industry. Jim’s Cleaning has its own professional cleaning equipment. It is known to be a reliable company that starts and completes the job on time. Its franchisees are fully insured. The company guarantees quality services at a fair price. About the Product According to the American Marketing Association, a product is a bundle of attributes; features, functions, and benefits that an organization offers to sell to the target customers in exchange of money. A product may be an idea, a good (physical tangible product), or a service, or any combination of the three. As of now Jim’s Cleaning offers only ‘services’ to its customers. The company offers its cleaning services to domestic as well as business customers. Its cleaning services are divided into the following divisions; Jim's Carpet Cleaning, Jim's Window Cleaning, Jim's Car Cleaning, Jim's Blind Cleaning and Jim's Pressure Cleaning. Jim’s Carpet Cleaning The company does a methodical cleaning of carpets and thereby ensures that the customer not only gets the best feel and appearance of the carpet but also protects the investment made on the carpet. The company uses the most advanced products and equipment and cleans as per the Australian National Standards. The carpet division also cleans upholstery, drapes and mattresses. Customers are offered two options; Steam Cleaning and Dry Cleaning. The former method, also known as hot water extraction uses hot water for cleaning carpets. The dry cleaning method is recommended for carpets that require regular preservation cleaning or when carpets have to be dried quickly. Jim’s Window Cleaning Jim’s Cleaning enhances the appearances of homes by cleaning windows to perfection. This cleaning exercise also cuts energy costs in winters by allowing more light inside the home. The company guarantees streak free, shining windows after work. Jim’s Cleaning has the expertise to clean all internal and external windows. Given its state of the art equipment, Jim’s Cleaning personnel can reach double storey and high rise buildings. Jim’s Pressure Cleaning Jim’s Pressure Cleaning offers tailored programs to suit the requirements of commercial clients. This division specifically targets real estate agents, builders and local businesses, in addition to residential customers. Services include mould and dirt removal, cleaning of driveways, fascia, paving, pathways, outdoor timber, and tiled areas. Jim’s Car Cleaning Jim’s Car Cleaning division simply loves its job and guarantees quality job, reliable service and money back guarantee. The car is cleaned at a location convenient to the client. The customer need not take the car anywhere as the personnel from Jim’s visit the customer and do the job. Depending on the quantum of work a customer requires, Jim’s car Cleaning offers Premium Wash, Mini Detail and Deluxe Detail. As part of its specialty services Jim’s Car Cleaning offers full cut, polish and wax coat for the car. The customer can also opt for shampooing the car. Jim’s Blind Cleaning Jim’s Blind Cleaning not only cleans but also repairs blinds. As an additional service, the company replaces the defective parts of the blinds as well. The division offers proficient service to take care of these precious window coverings, be it of any type or make; horizontal or vertical. The company promises to clean a large variety of window blinds and coverings including venetian blinds, aluminium blinds, roman and fabric blinds, roller blinds, vertical blinds, plantations and wood & timber blinds.  The Target Market At present Jim’s Cleaning targets the households as well as the commercial clients. In general, people who do not have time for routine cleaning jobs or people who wish to spend their time in other activities are potential target customers for Jim’s Cleaning. Jim’s Cleaning provides appropriate service for home cleaning and leave the house spic and span once the job is done. Jim’s Cleaning ensures the credentials of all its cleaners through a process of security checks prior to assigning them work. This ensures that the customers’ homes are in safe hands. The company also specializes in vacate cleaning. Jim's Cleaning guarantees to leave the rental accommodation spotless. This way the cleaning company ensures that the customer also gets back their bond money after leaving the premises. Jim's Commercial services are adroit at catering to business clients. It has a proven track record of servicing offices, factories and warehouses. The company has the necessary wherewithal; equipment, resources and staff to deliver on-going cleaning services and meeting the highest standards for commercial property maintenance. Jim’s residential and commercial customers have the option to choose from the basic ‘Essential Clean’ package or opt for the ‘Premium Clean’ package that provides value added services. Marketing Mix for Jim’s Cleaning While the external environment in which a company operates may not be controllable, an organization has a set of marketing tools that are within its control. These tools, referred to as the marketing mix, are maneuvered by the company to educe the desired response from the target market (Ivy 2008). The marketing mix in services has seven elements namely product, price, place, promotion, physical evidence, processes and people. A company uses these elements to ensure that the service delivery process is smooth, consistent and of the quality desired by the target customers (Chai 2009). Product As discussed above, Jim’s Cleaning has various Cleaning Divisions. The recommendations for expanding it divisions have been given in the subsequent sections of this marketing plan. Promotion Jim’s Cleaning should not use television as a medium of advertising as it will not prove to be cost effective. However the company will do well to capitalize on the out-of-home (OOH) and Internet as mediums of advertising. Sending direct mail, with customized messages for residential and office clients will also prove effective. Jim’s Cleaning should distribute fliers in its target areas. These fliers should carry testimonials from existing satisfied customers. Place Jim’s Cleaning business is such that it has to be rendered at either the customer’s residence or at the office, depending on who the client is. The company is expanding through the franchising route. Jim’s Cleaning has master franchisees in Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia, Northern Territory, Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales. These master franchisors further appoint sub-franchisees so as to penetrate their particular regions. Price The services of Jim’s Cleaning are already reasonably priced. However, small local players offer a lower price than Jim’s Cleaning and eat into the market of the latter. It is recommended that Jim’s should not lower its price; rather it should compete on the plank of differentiation. Offering good quality cleaning should be the focus of the company and the same message has to be conveyed to the target market. People People form one of the most important constituents of the services marketing mix. It is the people who are in touch with the customer and the latter tend to form an opinion about the service quality by judging the expertise of the staff. It is therefore imperative that the company invests in hiring, training and retaining of competent franchisees. The people can prove to be a form of competitive advantage for service organizations (Goi 2009). Jim’s Cleaning is concerned about the safety and security of its customers. It therefore adopts a rigorous screening process before granting a franchisee. The franchisees are fully insured and their background is checked before they are allowed to take up work. Processes Processes are the rules and procedures followed while rendering a service. Jim’s Cleaning should ensure that all such procedures are standardized and are conveyed to all franchisees. This will help in enhancing the quality of cleaning and customer will talk highly of the concern. For e.g. the process of cleaning a car can be delineated and this way the customer can be told exactly how long will it take to complete the job. The company should also have a process in place to deal from the initial enquiry right till the point of after-sales. Physical Evidence The brochures, advertising material and the website are the physical evidence from which customer’s will form an opinion about Jim’s cleaning services. The cleaning crew of Jim’s Cleaning should have a uniform which must be clean and neatly ironed. This will contribute in giving a professional image of the firm. The cleaning equipment, invoices given to the customer etc. should epitomize cleanliness. Competitors James’ Home Services, One Planet Cleaning and CRC Home Services are the main players operating in the Australian cleaning services industry. The James’ Home Services gives tough competition to Jim’s Cleaning as it provides pretty much the same services as the latter. In fact mobile pet grooming and pest control (available in Queensland only) are two services which are rendered by James’ cleaning but are not present in Jim’s repertoire. While Jim’s Cleaning sends price quotes of various services upon request by the customers, James’ Home Services have all the prices displayed on its website. James’ Home Services is committed to customer satisfaction. The company offers a service guarantee wherein it rectifies, free of charge, any problem the customer may have with regard to the cleaning work. It encourages customers to leave feedback and comments so that the company can improve its processes and procedures on the basis of these inputs. One Planet Cleaning is yet another big name in the industry and gives Jim’s cleaning a run for its money especially with regard to commercial clients. One Planet Cleaning has an impressive list of clients including ING, BP, Hyundai, Spotlight and Genesis. A unique feature of One Planet Cleaning is that it provides professional emergency cleaning services, both for residential and commercial customers. Such service is available round the clock. The emergency services include, among others, duct cleaning, plumbing, waste and recycling disposal, and electrical services. CRC Home Services covers all areas of the Gold Coast and the Hinterland. With 12 years of experience under its belt, it comes as a close rival to Jim’s Cleaning. The services offered by CRC Home Services are identical to those offered by Jim’s Cleaning. CRC is pretty flexible in its pricing policy and lavishly offers discounts to heavy users of its services. In terms of distribution strategies, the three main competitor’s of Jim’s Cleaning follow the franchising model. SWOT Analysis of Jim’s Cleaning Strengths Known for high quality cleaning Large franchisee base Foolproof system of hiring franchisees Weaknesses No diversification Absence of CRM (customer relationship management) Labour intensive work Opportunities Diversify into cleaning products. Annual cleaning contracts Associate with a social cause Threats Small players capturing market share by offering low prices. Franchisee churn, joining rivals The SWOT analysis of Jim’s cleaning suggests that it can capitalize on its strength of an existing good reputation to ink annual deals with customers, especially the corporate ones. The company will do well to develop a CRM system so that it can have lasting relationships with the customers. A franchisee churning to other rivals will no longer be a threat since the marketing objectives for next year (discussed later) will ensure that the franchisees of Jim’s Cleaning would earn much more (through enhanced cleaning work and commissions on tangible products) than what the rival companies can offer. SMART Objectives As a business, Jim’s Cleaning has done well so far. However in the wake of increasing competition, the company should increase its sales and market share. As of now, it is rendering only cleaning services. It is recommended that Jim’s Cleaning diversifies into tangible products that are related to its current line of business. Jim’s Cleaning should introduce a host of cleaning products under the Jim’s brand name by the end of 2012. The company should pursue the following SMART Objectives: Increase customer base by 10 percent by the end of 2013. Manufacture and distribute cleaning products through multilevel marketing from January 1, 2013 onwards. The detailed marketing strategy and tactics to be adopted to achieve each of these objectives have been detailed below: Increase customer base by 10 percent by the end of 2013. In order to increase its customer base by 10 percent, Jim’s cleaning will have to Enter more niche areas for cleaning services Encourage existing customers to give more referrals Enter Niche Areas. It is recommended that Jim’s Cleaning forays into the following niche areas in the future: Bathroom Cleaning Kitchen Cleaning Laundry Floor Cleaning The company can create separate divisions for these areas. These additional areas fit into the core service, i.e. cleaning services that the company also offers. Jim’s Cleaning can charge a premium price for these services as these domains are extremely critical, not only from an appearance point of view, but also from the hygiene point of view. The company will have to make minimal investment for this expansion as it can train the existing workforce and cater to these additional areas. Encourage Existing Customers for Referrals. Services are different from goods because of their unique characteristics of intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability and perishability (Moeller 2010). Therefore Word-of-Mouth plays a much bigger role than other form of promotion. The best promotion tactic for Jim’s Cleaning would be to delight the existing customers so that they talk highly of the company and recommend it to friends, relatives and acquaintances. As a sales promotion tool, the existing customers could be given a rebate of ten percent on the next cleaning service if the referral given by them actually translates into a customer and uses the services of Jim’s Cleaning. In this way the existing customers will divulge the names and addresses of genuinely potential customers and Jim’s cleaning will get a larger chunk of the market share. Initiate Distribution of Cleaning Products through Multilevel Marketing (MLM) Hitherto Jim’s Cleaning is in the business of rendering various cleaning jobs. For the smooth running of its business it procures cleaning equipment. Some of this equipment can be termed as assets as they are repetitively used in the cleaning process. Vacuum cleaners, sweeping machines, high pressure jet cleaners, mops and trolleys, and scrubbers are examples of equipment that lasts for a pretty long period of time. New product line. In addition to assets mentioned above, the company requires cleaning material like soaps, detergents, air fresheners, deodorisers, toilet papers etc. These products are fast moving goods and are repetitively purchased by the franchisees of the company who actually do the cleaning jobs. To acquire these products, the franchisees have to rely on different suppliers. Certain brands of cleaning products are not available in some parts of the country and therefore, it may so happen that different franchisees use different brands of cleaning material. It is recommended that the company starts the production and distribution of these products by January 2013. This will amount to backward vertical integration and will not only give Jim’s Cleaning a growth opportunity but will also enable it to regulate and standardize the material used by its franchisees. In this way the company will be able to earn the profit margins that earlier went to suppliers of such materials. The following aspects of this strategy deserve special attention: Outsourced production. Jim’s Cleaning may not have the expertise in production. It is therefore recommended that the production activity is outsourced. The products will however be sold under the brand name Jim’s. Differentiated products. There is heightened awareness about environmental concerns these days. Companies are making all efforts to take care of the environment. This is a golden opportunity for Jim’s to conserve the planet by manufacturing cleaning products that are environmental friendly. The company has already made little effort in this regard as it has been awarded ‘Excellent’ Certification by the Australian Car Wash Association - Water Saving Rating Scheme. Now, the company can make a bigger contribution. ‘Going Green’ is the new mantra of success and Jim’s Cleaning can create a loyal customer base by manufacturing and using bio-degradable products. New positioning. Jim’s Cleaning is already positioned as a ‘reliable, reasonably priced professional cleaning company’. With the new product line in place which will be used in all cleaning jobs, the company will be positioned as a ‘reliable cleaning company that also keeps the Earth clean’. Such positioning is likely to increase the goodwill of the company and many more people who want to do their bit for the environment will get associated with the company; either as franchisees or as customers. Multilevel marketing. Jim’s Cleaning does not have a distribution channel as hitherto it has not marketed any tangible products. Setting up a distribution channel for the goods that it intends to manufacture will be a costly and time consuming process. It is therefore recommended that the company distributes it new product line through multilevel marketing (MLM), also known as network marketing (Lema 2003). About MLM. In a MLM arrangement, goods are sold through individual people. People typically sell to products to their friends and acquaintances and even to strangers (Bloach 1996). There is thus no need to set up the conventional distribution channel in MLM framework. An attractive feature of MLM is that the seller gets commission for the direct sales made by him/her as well as by the sales made by his/her recruits as well. The success of MLM rests on creating a multi-layered network. When drawn on paper, it appears as a pyramid-like structure (Constantin 2009). Existing franchisees as recruits. The biggest advantage that Jim’s Cleaning gets from MLM is that the existing franchisees will act as the first line of recruits. There is thus a ready made market for the product and that too without any distribution costs. The franchisees too benefits as they will use the cleaning products in work that they routinely get. In addition to that, the franchisees get an opportunity to make more money by adding more level(s) of recruits under them. They thus get commission on the sales made by these recruits. Selling the products through MLM is thus a win-win situation for Jim’s Cleaning. Launch party. Jim’s Cleaning should announce the arrival of Jim’s brand of cleaning products with much fanfare. It is recommended that the company should throw launch party wherein active members of some Australian environmental organisations like Clean Up Australia and Friends of the Earth Australia are invited. With such a guest list, Jim’s customers will remember the new range of cleaning products to be environmental friendly. The event is likely to get media coverage and thereby give valuable and positive publicity to the company. Action Plan The action plan for achieving the aforesaid objectives is depicted below Task Dec 2012 Jan 2013 Feb 2013 Mar 2013 Apr 2013 May2013 Sep2013 Dec 2013 Training franchisees for new niche areas. To be rolled out in phases (Region wise) v v v v Roll out discounts for existing customers in case the referral becomes a customer v Identify outsourced partner for production of cleaning products. One time exercise initially. Review intermittently v v v v Production of Cleaning products v Launch Party v Training of Franchisees on MLM. To be trained in batches (region wise) v v v v Controls The following areas will be monitored to gauge performance and to check if the stated objectives are being met or not: Segment-wise monthly revenue report Jim’s Cleaning will have to make and analyse the segment-wise monthly revenue report. This will indicate whether the new niche areas that the company entered into are giving the desired results or not. Inspection of production site Jim’s Cleaning management will have to intermittently visit and inspect the manufacturer to whom the outsourcing work of production of cleaning products has been assigned. This will ensure quality products are manufactured and the reputation of the company increases. Customer satisfaction levels Jim’s Cleaning should make it mandatory for franchisees to get a customer feedback form filled after the job is over. This will help the company to maintain a database of the customers as well as evaluate the performance of franchisees based on customer satisfaction levels. Conclusion Jim’s Cleaning has hitherto been a service company and has grown at a decent pace. There lies immense opportunity for the company to expand its customer base in the existing line of business. Moreover the company can diversify and enter into the manufacturing and marketing of cleaning products. With appropriate marketing mix and well chalked out strategy, Jim’s Cleaning can become a house hold name in Australia. References Beagrie, S. (2004). How to... conduct a SWOT analysis. Personnel Today, , 21-21. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/229950392? Bloch, B. (1996). Multilevel marketing: What's the catch? The Journal of Consumer Marketing, 13(4), 18-26. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/220134972? Campbell, I., & Peeters, M. (2008). 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