The Customer Experience of the Werribee Park - Case Study Example

This report focuses on critically analyzing the customer experience of the Werribee Park. The Park is located in Melbourne Australia and is one of the biggest tourist attractions providing adventure, fun and Cultural knowledge for those who love to know more about the Church and the life back in the 1880’s. This park was acquired by the Victorian Government from the Catholic Church in 1973. The purpose was to develop a new tourist attraction and provide another area of fun time and leisure. Due to its rich culture and historical heritage, The Park is being maintained by the Parks Victoria as it provides a great attraction for history lovers and for people who like to get to know more about different stories attached to the park. As you enter the mansion, You are drawn by the brilliance of the mansion with its bright white background, You become mesmerized and drawn in by the simplistic yet brilliant structure. You can see each room being immaculately restored to show how the church used each of the mansions articles. It gives the visitor a true experience with its various tours such as the tower tour, where one can learn more about its history and background of how students used to live in that era and time. It also gives you an opportunity to study the entire structure and architecture of the building with its unique customer oriented and knowledgeable experience. To get the tickets and to find your way is quite easy as all the tickets of the tour are available at their gift shop or the Gate lodge. They have made it easy for any visitor to navigate around the Park which gives the tourist the ease to choose and decide what they want to see and what parts they would like to visit of the park. You can also experience the park from a new dimension and see it through the eyes of a worker if you visit the Park’s Farmyard. You can tell the vast difference between the life of the people who lived inside the mansion and those who lived outside. You can even experience the natural and manmade rivers that provide a relaxing experience to the visitor once he or she is done roaming around the Park. For those who do not wish to take a lot of tours can also buy an audio wand from the gift shop which gives you all the details and stories of all the areas of the park. It is also an excellent Souvenir for yourself to take back home. For those who wish to stay back and engage in other exciting activities, the park offers a precinct within the park that has a variety of places such as the Café, The Gift shop, Sofitel mansion and spa and a winery known as Shadowfax Winery. It also has a safari for those who love the wildlife at the Werribee Open Range Zoo. Werribee has a multi faceted history which dates back to over 40,000 years as the river known as the Werribee River, previously known as Wirribi Yaluk has been running for so long. As a visitor one can experience all the history that people during those years have lived and be able to understand the life of a student at the Corpus Christi College or the life of the Roman Catholic Bishops who lived in the mansion once it was bought by them from a Wealthy Grazier of the time named Philip Lock, who converted the place into a luxurious private estate.One can almost feel the aura as you enter the Park and have a truly amazing experience that you can take back and share with friends and family. Its zoo also provides some value added packages for those who wish to take a safari trip. Although there are no BBQ facilities available, their personal BBQ facility is only limited to large groups, therefore should one visit with the intension of spending the day at the zoo and the safari, it is advised to do so with a larger crowd so that you can avail the BBQ facilities of the Park. They have some amazing concessions for the elderly which makes the experience all the more economical for a large family. It also has interesting Tours such as Rhino Revealed and Rip Roar Feed that proved thrilling and exciting safari experiences to the visitors. Now the report would critically analyze the Park through a comprehensive SWOT analysis. This analysis will also highlight the way and the extent to which the Park has been able to provide the customer with the satisfaction of getting an excellent service. Being a service oriented organization; Werribee Park has to ensure that all the target customers get value for money. Since a part of the project required a personal visit to the Park, it will provide a good basis for analyzing and judging the successfulness of the Park in achieving customer satisfaction through various services. The report will first define how the organization is studied using various concepts of services marketing and relationship management and several other concepts. It will then highlighted the critical factors of the Park using the SWOT analysis, which will help understanding the nature of the business and the ways it can exploit new opportunities and minimize risks and threats. It will highlight both the external and the internal environment of the Park and how it affects the nature of the business. Lastly, the conclusion will give a concise view of the entire experience of the visitor at the park and focus on the feelings and emotions that the visitor encounters during the time spent at the park. WHAT IS SERVICES AND RELATIONSHIP MARKETING? In many organizations, goods that are produced are tangible, can be stored and can be purchased at a later date. These goods are produced at a manufacturing organization. The there are those goods that cannot be produced and kept for selling later in a market. These are known as services. Services marketing relates to marketing goods that have five main features that differentiate them from any other goods. First of all is the lack of ownership. This means that any consumer availing a service cannot own the service. In the case of Werribee, Consumers buy the ticket to get an excellent service for the day or the no. of hours the package is for therefore they do not have the capability to own the service perpetually. Then comes the factor of Intangibility. Service is not something you can hold or touch but you can experience it. In order to make the experience more worthwhile, Werribee has offered many different attractions such as the winery, the zoo and hotel and spa. Then is the factor of Inseparability. You cannot separate the service from its owners therefore whatever The Victorian Government decides to do with the park, the service element will change accordingly. We then see a service in terms of perishibility. One cannot hold a service perpetually. It is produced and consumed simultaneously. One cannot buy the safari ticket and keep it perpetually. It is bound to expire. Lastly we talk about Heterogeneity of a service. No two same services can ever be exactly alike. Since service is intangible, Standardization is impossible. Werribee cannot assure one will find the same animals doing the same thing at the safari tours or that the Consumers will find the same kind of wine at all wine tastings. (Kotler) This is how Services Marketing is different from Marketing of goods. Relationship management is also very important in a services sector as it is all about the consumer and what the consumer expects to receive. Therefore in order to establish long lasting ties with your consumers on an emotional level,you need to understand the importance of consumer relationship and how to study their needs, wants and demands. (Lovelock, 2007) STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESS Services have many more complications and elements that are not existent in a goods oriented industry. This is why in services marketing we look at four additional P’s of marketing. The traditional ones being: Price, Product, Place and Promotion and the new four dimensions being: People, Productivity, Process and the physical environment. (Rust, 1996) These factors define the kind of services the customer expects to get and what values emotional and beneficial that the consumer attaches to the service. We can look at the strengths and weaknesses of the Werribee Park by looking at the eight dimensions and try to figure out how this internal environment analysis can help Werribee determine objectives and strategies for both the long term and the short term. STRENGHTS Werribee has a major advantage of being a service oriented organization due its people that is the staff that it has and the way they are trained to provide a truly wonderful experience to each and every individual that comes to the park. It also focuses on promotion of the services through providing details and educating the visitors on the parks history. Their Marketing mix involves Aspects that allow it to provide a unique and wonderful experience to the consumers through a friendly service which shows remarkable productivity of its staff. (Clarke, 2000) Consumers find it extremely eay to navigate through the park even if it their first time visiting. This shows that the park also has an excellent process that allows smooth flow of traffic and an easily understandable guide as to how visitors should go about exploring the Park. (George, 1981) Brochures, maps and guides all make it easier for the people to locate places that they wish to see. Audio wands are also available for those who do not wish to visit certain parts but would like to know all about it. One of the strongest points that provide the Park its competitive advantage is the location that is the physical outlook of the park, with its vast land, farmyard and brilliant mansion providing details of the country’s heritage. This provides the park with the uniqueness that can be exploited and turned into a major strength. The location of the Park is also one of its strengths as it is near to the city and other attraction is only 30 minutes away from Melbourne. This allows the park to increase their core Target market. The consumers are extremely satisfied and content with what the Park promises and what they receive. There is no dissonance all the more consumer find the experience to be one of the premium experiences that they have had. WEAKNESSES Pricing could be the Parks major weakness as it is charging a premium for its service and quality of the experience. The Price of $9 for a single entry might seem to be a little over the budget for some who cannot even visit certain portions of the park with the payment of the entry ticket. Although one can say they are justified to charge a higher price, it can be one of the problems in attracting more visitors. The Park however might also be charging a higher price due to the high quality service that it is providing. For them to maintain such high premium service, their costs need to be transferred to the consumers of the service. Another weakness could be the requirement of the Park to wear the ticket on your clothes so as to identify those who have paid and those who have not. This could be a negative as most people would not prefer wearing the ticket all the time. Also some of the visitors might not like wearing the ticket due to the color as it might clash with their attire and may bring out a negative reaction to it. Rather, the Park should develop a system such as a barrier or an entrance where the ticket could be punched in order to avoid the consumers from wearing the ticket all the time. This might bring discomfort and might not be like by many. (Wright, 2002) OPPORTUNITIES AND THREATS OPPORTUNITIES One of the most important opportunities that the park can explore is the wide number of expatriates and foreigners within the country. These people are the ones the park can exploit the most. With the increase in the number of foreign students in Australian University, this target market provides an excellent opportunity for the park to increase its target market. Moreover, The diversity of the parks attraction provides a great opportunity for the park to attract different kinds of crowds. If the park plyas its cards right like it recently did with the addition of the Sofitel Spa and Hotel it can turn itself into one of the country’s major atytractions (Berry, 2004) THREATS Threats to the park are faced by such industries worldwide. Nowadays, the trend of going to museums and places of natural history is decreasing day by day due to the increase in other forms of entertainment such as TV, newspapers and magazines. Even channels such as The National Geographic and The History Channel provide history lovers with all the information that they require (Bruhn, 2006) The Internet is one of the major threats the park faces. It needs to realize the importance of the World Wide Web and see how it can use this threat and change it into an opportunity for the Park. People can find everything that they need to know on the internet, this is why the trend of visiting parks, museums and other such places is slowly but surely decreasing. CONCLUSION In conclusion, Werribee is an excellent service providing organization that highlights the cultural heritage of the country and provides the visitor with a unique experience of how historically people lived, studied and practiced religion. It provides both locals and tourists with a comprehensive guide and makes the experience more worthwhile with added services for adventurous people such as the safari and for people who want to relax and have a fun time with its spa and hotels. All in all if the park is successful in minimizing threats and overcoming weaknesses it can explore more opportunities provided by the internet. It can also increase customer base through exploiting its own strengths. For those who have not visited the Park it is recommended that you do and see history of Australia as you have never seen before. REFERENCES 1. Lovelock, C. and Wirtz, J. (2007) Services Marketing: People, Technology, Strategy, 6th ed. Pearson Education. 2. Kotler, P. and Amderson, A., (1996) Strategic Marketing for Non-Profit Organizations, 5ed. Prentice Hall.   3. Rust, R. (1996), Service Marketing, HarperCollins College Publishers. 4. Clarke, G.  (2000) Marketing a Service for Profit. Kogan Page Publishers. 5. Berry, L. (2004) Marketing Services: Competing through Quality 6. Bruhn, M. (2006) Services Marketing: Managing the Service Value Chain. Prentice Hall. 7. Kurtz, D. (1998) Services Marketing. John Wiley & Sons 8. Kotler, P. (n.d.). Services marketing. Retrieved from Learnmarketing.net 9. Doerr, J. (2010). Who Drives the demand – a critical concept in services marketing strategy. Services Marketing Blog 10. George, W. (1981) Marketing of Services. American Marketing Association. 11. Wright, L. (2002) Principles of Services Marketing and Management. Prentice Hall. Read More