Service failure as the breakdown in service performance - Essay Example

The paper “Service Failure as the Breakdown in Service Performance" is a thoughtful variant of a term paper on marketing. Service failure is the breakdown in service performance that does not meet the customer’s expectations. Services are usually intangible and therefore relying on customer evaluation is very important. The service failures will always be present but the way the company handles itself to recover from the failure always matters. The customers can have several responses regarding a service failure including satisfaction responses, emotional reactions (anger, disappointment or regret) and behavioral responses (complaining).

According to Seitel (2011), the frequent reason people switched companies were the experiences of service failure. This is because many employees do not care about helping their customers and even for those who do; they do not provide the best of the services. Service failure can adversely affect a business whereby the long-term loyal customers may change to another service provider who provides better services (Ogden & Ogden, 2012). Bad services can be very disappointing and frustrating to the customer that usually ends up costing time and money on both parties in the name of trying to salvage the situation.

However, once a customer experiences a great service, the customer will be a campaigner of the company that brings its merits with it.An example of service failure on a customer from which my close friend experienced is a good example of what different people undergo: My friend went to his regular restaurant for a lunch hour meal. To his surprise, the waiter served him a cold meal. My friend complained to the waiter and the meal taken back but the waiter did not even offer a considerate apology for the mistake.

The waiter brings back the reheated meal after 20 minutes and still no apology was given for serving a cold meal or taking that long to bring back the meal. According to Seitel (2011), customers always want to find out why things fail and why specific countermeasures taken, demonstrating the perceived need for, and potential value of providing an explanation. If my friend were the first-timer customer, the whole experience would have made him never come to that restaurant again. Because of this one experience, the new customer perception of the service performance would have failed to meet his expectations.

As for the longtime customer, in this case, my friend, he would expect that this sub-par service reciprocated with excellent services in the future. In this case, the waiter who was serving my friend had just started the job at the restaurant. He failed to understand that customers must be treated and always respected like kings.Some of these service failures are just beyond the person’s control. In the case of my friend, the waiter who served him was not the regular waiter. It was his first time on the job that means that he was a little nervous.

My friend was not too happy when the new waiter ignored his needs and provided poor services to him. The management of clients can also be a cause of service failure. In the case of the restaurant, the reason behind the behavior of the waiter on my friend can be that the manager uses the number of tables the waiter serves in order to track their sales performance. The waiter may be a nice person but due to the pressure by his boss, he neglects the needs of his customers for the sales. Most businesses rate a good service in terms of the effort they provide or the techniques they use.

This is not always the case, as a good service is required to match a customer expectation with the experiences. All customers have different expectations and no two customers are the same. The customer must always feel special and their intentions well understood (Ogden & Ogden, 2012).However, in some cases, the customer is in fault. In one of my recent vacations at a popular hotel, I saw two women complaining that the hotel could not find their reservation. They caused a very big scene at the hotel lobby but after the hotel management carefully looked at their reservations, they realized that they had booked at their sister hotel that was in another town.

This entire situation was because of the error made by the two women. They never even thanked the hotel management for clarifying the situation and even offering them a free ride to their sister hotel. In such situations, it is best to make the customer feel right even though they were wrong (Ogden & Ogden, 2012).In conclusion, service delivery is not an easy task to deliver to your customers. A customer will believe that you have provided good services if you have met their expectations, excellent services when you have exceeded their expectations and poor services when you have not achieved what they wanted.

However, much of the service failure is because of how organizations relate to their customers. They fail to offer training to their employees on how to handle their clients and recover from any service failure encountered.