The Service Encounter: Managing Employee/Customer Interaction in Service Businesses - Admission/Application Essay Example

Service Encounter Journal Form of Service Firm: Henry’s Esso Service Encounter: March 16, 2015 Type of Service: Car Repair Time of Encounter: 9am What Circumstances lead to you going to this kind of service? On my way to school from home in Arlington Texas, my car’s radiator overheated and smoke started pouring from my engine. I pulled off to the side of the road and tried to reach my family back at home. There was no response from home but I however managed to get phone number my mechanic from home. On recommendation of the mechanic I managed to present my case to Henry’s Esso. I managed to pull off to the side of the road and called my roommate who picked me up. Before we leave the scene I called a tow truck to pick up the car to Henry’s Esso. Why did you choose this particular company or brand (Why not brand- be thoughtful. why is this brand important to you) who are other competitors? My car has always been serviced by Mark, my personal mechanic. When my radiator heated up and I knew I could not use it for the day I reached to Mark first for any recommendation. He has always serviced my car splendidly and I hold his recommendations very high. I therefore chose Henry’s Esso purely because of professional recommendations of my personal mechanic Mark. With no very good knowledge of the market I relied mostly on Mark’s expertise and wealth of experience working on my car. I hold Mark’s recommendations of any car servicing company because of his competency and for this reason I could go for any company irrespective of DHM car service center just being a stone throw from the scene. List your general expectations for this service. Working on Mark’s recommendation, I have set the par to high even though he isn’t’ the one working on it. Mark has always shown a lot of good work ethic and timeliness that makes me rank his professional advice very high. My general expectations therefore includes but not limited to 1. Professionalism 2. Timeliness 3. Quality service delivery 4. Good customer relation 5. Prompt communicating if need be 6. Cost efficiency Henry’s Esso as told by Mark is as good as I expect and therefore I chose it confident that my needs will be sufficiently met here. Look at the advertisements and web pages (all promotions you can find) for this service. Describe them. Are they targeting the correct markets? How do these ads and promotions impact your expectations for the service? Do they overpromise? How would you change them? (Make recommendations don’t say Id leave them the same) Most of advertisements and web pages for car repair services has deployed the use of discounts to woe their customers. Most web pages for example use picture of advance technologies to show how efficient their services are. Most advertisements for car repair services however share same characteristics of targeting financial efficiency aspect of the service they provide. These ads and promotion really raises my expectations of Henry’s Esso services. Recommended as one of the best in the market by my personal mechanic plus the aspect of the market reflected by these ads and promotions I expect a lot form them. From my experience with most car repair service I would confidently say that these ads and promotion overpromise. I remember a case last year when I was in New York and had to repair my car. I searched online for a repair company and decided to choose the one which showed a lot of sophistication in its service provision. With all the hype and promise my car didn’t take long before the same problem reemerged so I feel that these ads and promotions overpromise and should be regulated accordingly. I will change these misleading ads and promotions by pressuring the government to pass a legislation on tight guidelines on firms that mislead their customers. I will also ensure that I sue a firm for providing wrong information about their products and thus face a fine equivalent to damage I suffer. Describe the Physical Evidence and/or Services cape of the location (physical cues, the products sold, promotional materials, etc.)- I expect detail here- and analysis, why, how does it fit positioning, use marketing thought here! First and foremost I will say Henry’s Esso pleased me due to his accessibility. The company is just by the road side and provides arrange of services with spare parts shop just within the compound. The firm also provides car wash service to their customers as after sales service. The firm also has within its compound a coffee shop where its customers can cool off as they wait for their car to be worked on. As much as Henry’s Esso doesn’t have a lot of ads and promotions online the compound is well light with lots of promotional materials with price clearly labeled for clients who might not be aware of their dealings. What were the key elements of Pricing? - be specific and Exact- how does this compare to competitors? Use pricing terms- comparisons- be detailed here!! How much did you pay? Was this what you expected? Was it worth the value? Henry’s Esso key elements of pricing include Labor, quality of the service required and extent of damage of the car. I would say that this is relatively same to what most competitors consider in their pricing. The only difference is the relatively low prices charged by Henry’s Esso. After getting my car done I parted with $ 50 and this was even cheaper than I expected. Given the professionalism and efficiency of Henry’s Esso services I would confidently say that the price I paid was worth the value of the service rendered. Were there any Technologies used in the service? Describe them: if none- describe who did the service and how they did it be particularly aware of SSTs- look for hidden ones, don’t be vague or dismissive! You may need to ask employees. There wasn’t any usage of technology in repairing my car. The employee, Daniel, was the mechanic who worked on my car. He was extremely helpful and took down every information I gave him. The mechanic then told me want for his call as he asses what was actually wrong with my car. Daniel was really down to details and asked all the relevant questions. I would therefore rate this encounter as a six over ten in terms of satisfaction. Describe your contacts with employees- how many times did you interact- what were their roles- what did they say/do- be specific? Evaluate the contacts- key Moments of Truth. I mostly contacted Daniel, the mechanic who worked on my car. We talked like three times to make any adjustment needed for better service delivery. I also made contact to Jane, the cashier lady on issues to do with my payment. Describe the firms target market in detail- Demographics, Psychographics, Usage- do the other customers you see reflect the target market? What is customers role in the servicescape? From my assessment, the firm targets middle class car owners in America. Demographically, the firm targets the residents of Arlington, Texas with exception of travelers from other states. This is clearly reflected by the customers that I met here. How would you describe your level of overall satisfaction with the encounter? What exactly made you feel this way? What elements of the Encounter were you particularly dissatisfied with? Did your role/mood have an impact upon your dissatisfaction? I would rate my satisfaction with this encounter as a six over ten. The way the firm relay information and make you feel part of the whole process is the main reason why I feel I was very satisfied. I would otherwise pose my dissatisfaction with the time aspect of the whole service delivery. How likely is it that you will go back to this service firm? When? Why? How often? What would you do or buy differently next time? The probability of me going back to Henry’s Esso ranges between 50 to 60%.. The time of going back is dependent on the timing of my break down but I would prefer December when the firms has a lot of offers. Next time, I would insist on timely provision of services. Dissatisfied, where will you go instead? (be specific, and give reasons why another firm may be better). What competitors do you go to or avoid Giving the timing problem I would prefer to stick to my personal mechanic, Mark. I feel Mark provides me with a good edge in terms of pricing and timing. The services wasn’t that bad but I would prefer to stick my personal mechanic Works Cited Czepiel, John A. The Service Encounter: Managing Employee/customer Interaction in Service Businesses. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington, 1985. Print Read More