Marketing of ACE Karaoke as a Service Provider - Coursework Example

Table of Contents Introduction: 2 Body: 3 Services Being Offered by ACE Karaoke: 3 Influence of servicescape in delivery of the service: 3 Definitionof Servicescape: 4 Servicescape: 4 Servicescape of ACE Karaoke: 5 Dramaturgical Approaches in ACE Karaoke: 7 Evaluation of Service Quality: 11 History of SERVQUAL model: 11 Functioning of the SERVQUAL model: 13 Evaluation of ACE Karaoke: 14 Conclusion: 15 References: 15 Introduction: It is a unique way to learn about the music and songs. This serves the desires customers who wanted to learn music and songs. At present day service marketing plays a critical part for every industry. It serves every industry to advance themselves in their field. If service marketing is managed in proper manner and with good strategies, then return on investment of any industry will high. So, it is important for ACE Karaoke to provide best services to their customers who are willing to come in this field. ACE Karaoke has a big name in music services industry. They provide all facilities to learn music and songs. They are count as a good service industry in music world. They have foothold on retail sector, importing and manufacturing & distribution sector. ACE Karaoke is top tier supplier and manufacturer in this sector. They have lots of varieties and equipments related to music and songs with range of prices. They have more than seventeen languages music. However, at present days many music institute and service provider related to music are come into the market. They are also providing same or best facilities that ACE Karaoke do in their regional area. This type of musical institute helps people to make perfect in this field. Nevertheless, it becomes professional, due to lots of rivalry in the marketplace. There are many musical service providers who deal with lots of world music and musical instruments to build the customer strong in their selected discipline. The high competition in the market creates a critical situation for customer. Even more there are different types of music and classes are available in market. It is also seen as a problem for the customer, to choose which services of music will be safer for them. Here, we are going to discuss about ACE Karaoke as a service provider in music world and how good they are in their services and maintain their relationship with their clients. It also discussed about evaluation process the services encounter of ACE Karaoke. Body: Services Being Offered by ACE Karaoke: The ACE Karaoke provides all service which are related to music and songs. They provide all equipments related to music such as microphone, amplifiers, cable & accessories, DJ & stage lighting, Karaoke machines, headphone & earphone, magic micro phone of Karaoke, mixers recorders, speakers & subwoofers, system package, open box sale, English Karaoke music, Karaoke cloud music for downloading, Chinese Karaoke, Spanish Karaoke and international Karaoke. They also offer same day shipping to their customer. Influence of servicescape in delivery of the service: Servicescape means the real physical presence of work environment. A work environment, where the actual services can be performed, presented and delivered. It is necessary for any service industry because here the customers can interact with the service provider and can distinguish their needs to them. It is of the essence for all service providers; hence, in the service industry you need to interpret your clients and their demands. A responsible and good service industry should meet the demands of their clients and assist in asserting the relationship between you and your customers. Even more, it gives a huge impact on your clients. It produces a perceptual experience in the mind of clients and facilitates them to evaluation and appraisals. In other words, servicescape is a physical work environment where the services are delivered. It counts as a tangible factor. It aids to client in their evaluation process of service quality. It has great impact on client when they seek for services. Several researches and studies say that servicescape can be affected with the internal factors, such as lighting, colour, background music and all. If any service industry fails in these, they have a bad impression on their clients. It is cause of failure of service industry. Definition of Servicescape: The all physical factors that managed by the service industry to strengthen employee and client’s action (Bitner, 1992, p.45). This definition is accepted in all service industry. The above definition is elaborated by Ezeh and Haris in terms of consumer behaviors and its responses. Definition: “The physical environment (with or without customer input) housing the service encounter, which elicits internal reactions from customers leading to the display of approach or avoidance behaviors” by Ezeh and Haris. (2007). Servicescape. [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.onlinereview.segi.edu.my/pdf/vol3-no1-art9.pdf. [Accessed on 08/05/2014] These classifications may vary with the work culture of individual service industry. Since the servicescape has differences in the grouping and classification which includes cleanliness in work area, ambience of work area and signs, artifacts, layouts, functionality, design of work process and other physical factors which are related to the service industry. Servicescape: Servicescape mean a physical presence of services in front of customer, so that they can feel the services and can trust service provider. Where the physical facilities related to service will be provided to customer. Where the customer can solve their query related to the services. Every industry which is related to service sector, they should have good servicescape. In case of service industry there should be good ambience and good service should be delivered. The professional teachers and skilled labour are required in this service industry, so that the customer will able to learn and can gather as much knowledge about music. The music service centre as a service provider they have to be professional. Through this, customer will feel like a professional skilled musician and they will get motivate too. Servicescape of ACE Karaoke: The physical facilities that provided by ACE Karaoke in terms of servicescape are reception, functionality and special layouts (it includes the layout of room, equipment and furnishing and sitting comfort), ambient conditions (such as lighting and temperature of room, air quality and noise), cleanness, special signs and symbols for emergency to their clients. These facilities as a servicescape will intact more clients and helped ACE Karaoke to retain their clients. These types of servicescape will provide to maintain good relationship between the clients and the management, in terms of customer relationship management. When a client visit a service industry, first things that comes in to mind of client is always a servicescape. If servicescape of any service industry is good and provide better facilities like ACE Karaoke then it help to increase number of clients. ACE Karaoke is providing best physical facilities that every client requires to sustain. A special layout for clients like room, equipments and furnishing and sitting comport will help the clients to enjoy this services and especially from ACE Karaoke. It will make relax to the clients and they feel comport during the use of services of ACE Karaoke. Even more ambience of any service industry should be good in terms of lighting and temperature of room. In addition air quality is also important now a days, it makes better feel to clients and they to focus on their work. These things are also important for any service industry in terms of servicescape. The lighting and room temperature are good enough to feel relax to their clients. The clients will feel no pressure during the use of services of ACE Karaoke. Cleanness and special signs and symbols are very important in a service industry. A neat and clean servicescape will provide germs free environment to the clients. These things make a special effect to the clients. Special signs and symbols always help them in an emergency. Key aspects of the service encounter: The service encounter is a delivery process between the client and the service industry. The whole process carries the treatment between the representative of service industry and output of service industry. Here, customer first approach the representative and discuss the query. It might be linked to the service industry or his/her own needs which to be solved by service industry. Here the service industry needs to satisfy the client by fulfilling the requirement of it. The customers first approach the representative of the service industry, who takes queries of the customer then it refer to the top management. The top management of service industry tries to resolve the problem of the client. Service industry deals with strangers as a clients to whom they has to deliver the services and for this service industry are paid by their clients. Apart from this, employees of service industry have to take care of their clients by convincing and maintain the good relationship among them. It is a true fact that to maintain a good relationship with clients is very vital for a service industry. Beside from this service encounter also concern the financial relationship with their clients. However, the financial transactions are whitewashed with the aids of good image. The employees of service industry have lots of work pressure to satisfy their clients (Svingstedt, 2005). So they need to be fast in their work and supposed to be goal oriented at the same time. They have to show their personal concerns towards their each client. It also seems that many employees make personal relationship with their clients in spare time. This has both advantage and disadvantage for service industry (Gustavsson, 1997). Every client has their own needs and demands from service industry, which they wanted to be fulfilled. The clients have also some service expectation in terms of approaching to clients or initial contact from the employees of the service industry. The clients also check the way of interaction or communication style from employees should be excellent. These things create a good impression on the mind of clients. So the personality of employees should be good and should have humor and charm and so on. All these aspects are called as employee composition. However, employees of service industries also like to see characteristics to their client, which make good interaction among them and aid to understand the needs of both. Dramaturgical Approaches in ACE Karaoke: Dramaturgical Approach in service encounter can be termed as the interaction between service provider as actor and customer as audience during the process of service encounter. Here, the service provider is considering as an actor, whose main role are to frequent visit with audience (the customer) and introduce their script (as service) to audience. In other words, staff or employee of service provider should interact with their customer naturally and like as an old friend. In their first visit, they have to introduce their service to the clients. It will be done thru the help of brief presentation of services and its features or facilities along with services. It also includes the cost of services and question – answer round from the client related to the service. The questions from the clients will be answered by the employee or staff, which should in brief and understandable to the client. The role customer in this script (service process) is to intact with their service provider frequently. The client, meet first time with their service provider, they feel nervous when the service provider approaches to first. That time, the client should be clam and should listen to the whole presentation and process which being described by the staff or employee of service provider. After the over presentation, the clients have to right to ask questions to them related to services, which will be solved by the staff or employee of service provider. The expectations of both parties (the service provider and the customer) should meet with each other, which will be very useful to make and maintain long term relationship among them. The expectation from ACE Karaoke during services process is to know the rule from the client side and provide bets facility according to that. Whereas, the client’s expectations are private space, quality of audio equipment, variety of songs, atmosphere and the service quality from service provider. This whole process of service is being done by Dramaturgical Approaches, which includes high involvement of personal service such as self service of ACE Karaoke. It provides Karaoke machine, in which the clients can search the songs by title, artist or index, even more they can adjust the volume of mic, speaker and light and able to choose the key or mode to hear or sing the song or music. Figure 1. Service Interaction Model (Larsson, 2009, p.104) Evaluation of Service Quality: Service quality is a very important concept for companies. The companies have to understand the requirement of this. It helps service industry to grow in better way in this competitive market. It plays a vital role for service industries. So the companies should know how to evaluate and measure of service quality. From client’s point of view this measurement and evaluation is done, in order to desirable needs of clients and their satisfaction. A good service quality leads higher client satisfaction, customer loyalty, profitability and reduced cost. The evaluation and measurement of service quality is done with SERVQUAL model. In this method, social responsible client aids to evaluate the service quality with attributes of SERVQUAL instrument. A questionnaire is developed from SERVQUAL model and distributed among the clients. Clients will rank these attributes and give a feedback on this. History of SERVQUAL model: 97 attributes were identified by the Parasuraman et al. (1985), which have impact on the service quality. These attributes were important in assessing the client’s expectation and the perceptions on service delivery (Kumar et al., 2009, p.214). These attributes were classified into 10 dimensions to assessing the service quality. It was the first stage of purification of these 97 attributes with ten dimensions, which were; tangible, reliability, communication, security, responsiveness, understanding, credibility, competence, knowing customer and curtsey. Then it went into second purification stage and in this stage, all ten dimension were compressed to form into five dimension scales which are; tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. Tangibles: It defines the physical visual aspect of a service industry. It includes physical facilities, communication materials and equipments. Reliability: Whatever you have foretold to your customers, you demand to execute it with accuracy. Responsiveness: In this you have to show willingness to aid customers. Assurance: In this you need to show your knowledge about your work and build a trust and confidence Empathy: At every step, you have to care your clients and his/her requirement. However, this 5 dimensional scale was tested for reliability with the hold of five unbiased samples on five different self sufficient service industries. The output of this test was very reliable and showed very low levels of correlation between among the unbiased samples. It’s proved that this 5 dimensional scale has linear factors which can be used in evaluation and measurement of service quality (Parasuraman et al., 1998, p.24). Later on, again a validity test was performed on this scale and using the same unbiased samples. To determine content validity and analyzed to construct to be scaled was explained in details. It also showed that the extent to which the scales attributes illustrated the construct domain. These procedures utilized to develop the SERVQUAL model. This SERVQUAL model was developed for the service industry and retail business. Its main objective is to know clients satisfaction and how the clients rate them for their work. This process is very crucial for every service industry and retail business for their growth and return on investments. It is consider that this model should be used on service industry and retail business after every interval of three to four years to evaluate and measure the service quality. It will aid to know actual performance of industries. It also recommends that to take suggestion of improvement, perceptions and feedback from employees are required to know about the service quality of industries. The clients and the employees are equally required in this model to evaluate and measurement of service industries. This SERVQUAL model is very vital to track down the performance of the company. In grouping clients of the company into distinct ranks by finding their SERVQUAL marks. It is also a very vital to know (Cronin & Taylor, 1992, p.64). Functioning of the SERVQUAL model: SERVQUAL model helps to find out the service quality of the company. It also aids to judge between client expectation from the service and the client perception of the service delivered. It requires, client as a respondents to answer the questions of both expectation and perception. It may be that expectation and perception of client can vary. This difference is called as gap (Parasuraman et. al., 1988). Figure 2. Measuring service quality using SERVQUAL model (Kumar et al, 2009). Evaluation of ACE Karaoke: The evaluation of ACE Karaoke is based on three categories, which are Pre-Consumption, Consumption and Post-Consumption. The pre-consumption includes waiting zone, reception and room check. All these attributes have positive and negative aspects. Which should be evaluated be the clients. The positive attributes are, waiting zone is well decorated and designed very comfortable to the clients; reception is friendly greeting with known clients and active to prepare the room; room check is for providing extra heater. Whereas the negative attributes are, some areas of waiting zone are still in under construction; there is only one staff in reception and lack of communication with new customers; in room check only cold air conditions are available and have to wait long time for preparation which is nearly about ten minutes. Consumptions includes equipment and services. In equipment, positive attribute are clean room without smell; comfortable sofa are available for customer and great stereo system are available with updating of songs, whereas negative attributes are only two microphones are available for twenty five people which is very difficult to share; small screens which are very hard to recognize the song lyrics and lack of service ring to call someone for help. The positive attribute of services: good quality of system for requesting songs and easy to control the lights and stereo system; negative attributes: limited kinds of drink and snacks are available for the clients and only focus on Asian people. Post-Consumption includes payment system and customer loyalty. The payment system of Ace Karaoke is very good; they accept both cash and credit card. In other hand, the customer loyalty has only negative attribute. The word of mouth is done by old customers only brings their friends and there is no membership card facility to retain costumers. Conclusion: ACE Karaoke mainly provides service of pleasure and leisure related to music with good ambience and facilities. The process of servicing providing is generally fluently, satisfied and acceptable to the clients. The customers enjoy the service of ACE Karaoke. High quality equipments of Karaoke are provided to customer for their personal use. Staffs and employee of ACE Karaoke are very good and skilled. They behave with their clients in a good and friendly way. They are very helpful and active. They treat their old customer as an old friend, which is very positive for ACE Karaoke to maintain good relationship with customers. However, few services such as drink and snacks related issue and microphone issue should improve by ACE Karaoke management. Even more, they should focus on new customers which are not Asians. References: Centralbryan, 2010. About statistics Sweden website. [Online]. Available at: http://www.ssd.scb.se/databaser/makro/MainTable.asp?yp=xldzv&xu=90465001&omradekod=HA&omradetext=Trade+in+goods+and+services&lang=2&langdb=2 Center for the study of Social Policy, 2007. Customer Satisfaction. [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.cssp.org/uploadFiles/Customer%20Satisfaction%20What%20Research%20Tells%20Us.pdf Raymond P. Fisk. (2009). 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