Customer Service Strategies: New Look Hair Salon - Case Study Example

Customer Service Strategies Name of Student: Name if Instructor: Name of Course: Code of Course: Date of Submission: Customer Service Strategies Introduction The main objective of any business is to make profits. In order to make profits, a business must break even, which is point whereby it is able to meet all its costs. The revenue obtained after the breakeven point is the profit. It is therefore important that an organization is able to sell its products or services since it is by doing so that it is able to make profits. This gives the rise to the second objective of a business organization; giving value to the customer. On this point, it is important to note that the second objective will eventually become the first objective of any business if the current competition is the market is something to go by. Therefore, a business is able to make it in the market if it has acknowledged the fact that there is a better reason as to why business exists, not just to make profits, but also to give value to customers. Giving value to customers requires that an organization to employ a good customer service strategy (Goi 2009, p.1). The appropriate consideration of the 7 Ps might be certainly a good option for organizations to consider. The following assessment paper gives an insight into the 7Ps whilst taking a reference to the New Look Hair Salon. New Look hair Salon New Look Hair Salon is a beauty services provider located in Australia among other countries. The organization has several saloons located all over Australia. New Look Hair Salon provides hair dressing services amongst other beauty services such as manicure and pedicure (New Look Hair Salon, 2013. P.1). presently, the organization is doing great on the market. It is able to attract many customers who in turn lead to an increased generation of revenue hence guaranteeing more profits. However, there is a need for the organization to restructure its strategies so as to embrace sustainability and be able to compete equally with big players such as the Wella Professional Salon Services which is an international organization. As indicated earlier, the following assessment paper will assess the application and applicability of the 7Ps in New Look Hair Salon. The 7ps concept is a marketing concept which points out to the management of an organization 7 elements (P’s) which it juggles around with hence being able to increase its competiveness in the market. Ideally, the juggling around the 7P’s is a form of a marketing mix. The elements of the 7 P’s concept are product, prices, promotion, place, packaging, positioning and people. Product The product is the thing which is sold to the customer. The customer makes payments for the product. With respect to the New Look Hair Salon which is under study, it can be seen that it provides a service and not a product. As opposed to a product whereby there is transfer of ownership of a physical item from the seller to the buyer, there is no physical item which is exchanged between the seller and the buyer. On this point, it is important to note that New Look Hair Salon offer hairdressing manicure, pedicure and other beauty services. As per the provisions of the 7P’s concept, an organization must always review its products, hence ensuring that they are able to meet the desires and wants of a customer (Rafiq & Ahmed 2008, p.8). On this point, it can be acknowledged that the beauty and fashion industry is one of the most dynamic industries in the world. A hair style can become obsolete in months and even days. For this reason, it is important for the salon under study to continuously review its products so as to ensure that it is able to meet the wants of the customer. From the above discussion, it can be concluded that the New Look Hair Salon should ensure that its services are at par with the market standards and should always try to innovate new ides of providing better services. Price The price is also an important factor which an organization should always reflect on when trying to market its products or services. The price should e reflective of the value of the service or product which is being sold (Rafiq & Ahmed 2008, p.8). It should be acknowledged that pricing is an approach to attaining a competitive advantage. For this reason, New Look Hair Salon should offer its services in the most competitive price. This ensures that it is able to compete with other business in the market. In order to come up with an appropriate price for its services, New Look Hair Salon should first of all identify its target market. The target markets may be different if the company employs any market segmentation. On identify a specific target market; the salon should evaluate the market’s purchasing power. On this point, New Look Hair Salon should provide services which the market can be able to pay for comfortably. In addition to the above, New Look Hair Salon should evaluate the prices of the services provided by its competitors. This will enable the salon to identify the market pricing hence enabling it to set its prices competitively. Promotion Promotion enables an organization to sell it products/ services. The more the sales, the more the revenue generated and consequently the higher the profit margin. The aim of the promotion aspect is to ensure that the market demand for any specific product/ service which is being promoted. Linking this with the New Look Hair Salon, it can be pointed out that there is a need for the organization to promote its services. This will ensure that the salon captures a great share of the market. Promotions can be done in four ways. New Look Hair Salon should consider adopting some if not all of them. One of the ways is through advertising. Advertising is meant to make the target market aware of the service being provided and in so doing persuades it to get that service (Meenaghan 1995, p.23.). The second way of promoting sales is public relations. It will ensure that the public image of New Look Hair Salon and its service brands is good the third element of promotion is selling. New Look Hair Salon should always find ways of selling its services to the target market. Lastly, the salon should adopt appropriate sales promotions. This will convince the customers to get the specific services offered by New Look Hair Salon. Place A marketing strategy should always ensure that the customer is able to get a specific product or service at the required time and place (Goi 2009. p.2). In the modern completive times organizations are opting for marketing strategies which take the product to the customer and not bringing the customer to the product. For this reason, it is always important for an organization to make an evaluation of the supply and demand patterns in the market. It should be noted that the demand for a specific service is not the same in any the target markets. For instance, New Look Hair Salon should know that there is more demand for a flashy/ trendy hairstyle in a youth market as opposed to a market constituted by elderly people. Therefore, it should ensure that the service is available in salons which are near markets constituted by the youth. In a move to ensure that the services are available to customers, organizations normally open up new stores which are located near the target markets. It can be noted that New Look Hair Salon has several salons in Australia, a move which is meant to big their services close to the target market. Packaging The way in which a product is presented to the market and the customer is a very important factor in marketing. Ideally, the way of presentation should enable an organization to sell its services/ products. A good presentation is made possible by appropriate packaging (Tracy, B., 2013, p.1). The better the packaging, the more the sales. With respect to a service, it should come out strongly that customers do not pay for the service, but for the experience. Therefore, a service organization should strive to provide the best experience to a customer. The experience is the packaging of a service. New Look Hair Salon should find ways of ensuring that their companies enjoy getting services from their salons. Some of the ways of ensuring that New Look Hair Salon provides its customers with a good experience is by creating a god environment for service delivery. This may be done by painting the salons appropriately and air conditioning which ensures that the customers are comfortable. New Look Hair Salon should also find ways of adding value to its services which creates a good environment for the customers. Some of the ways of doing this is giving free services as part of the package of a bigger service, for instance free pedicure attached to a hairdressing service. Positioning With respect to positioning, an organization should ensure that it has a good image in the market (Tracy, B., 2013, p.1). Ideally, every organization should strive to be the number one choice for the customer. The building of a good image for an organization is a process which every organization should have at its core. Ways. One of the ways in which New Look Hair Salon can create a good market image for itself is by engaging in corporate social activities. This may be by providing free of subsidized hairdressing service to orphanages and sponsoring community activities. While positioning its self, New Look Hair Salon should also strive at positioning its services too. It should rand its services as the best in the market. This is used to ensure that the organization’s branded services are reputable in the market, hence making them a number one choice for customers in the market. A sure way of doing this would be to sponsor models and also being actively in beauty pageants, hence improving its image in the market. People The last P in the 7 P’s is the people aspect. According to the 7P’s concept, an organization should ensure that its hands the right people in and out of it (Tracy, B., 2013, p.1). On this point, it is important for an organization to realize that its human resource is its greatest asset. For this reason, an organization should ensure that its gets the right people at the right place in the organization. Therefore, an organization should have in place an appropriate human resource management strategy which ensures that it is able to get the most qualified employees in the market and also retain them. Taking a look at New Look Hair Salon, it can be acknowledged that its business can be divide into distinct processes each of which consumes a considerable amount of time in addition to requiring specific skills for execution. Taking an example of hair dressing, it can be seen that there are several types of styles which a customer can choose from. In addition to this, it can be acknowledged that not all hairdressers are competent in all the styles; every employee has his/her area of specialization. For this reason, New Look Hair Salon should ensure that it gets the right people to work for them. Moreover, it should place them at the right place. For this reason, employees should be employed with respect to their skills and the job planning and allocation should be done against these skills. This ensures that the quality of service is high, hence increasing chances of attracting and retaining customers. Concluding, it has been seen from the assessment that the consideration of the 7 P’s concept by an organization could help it realize success in its marketing. From the assessment, it can be seen that organizations should juggle between products, promotion, packaging; positioning, prices, place and people hence being able to ensure that trey provide the meet customer services. From the assessment it can be acknowledged that marketing is multifaceted, hence necessitates for the integration of various aspects from the 7 P’s concept. However, it has been identified that an organization should not compromise its being, hence should not overdo things which put it at a greater risk of incurring losses due to increased costs. Summing up, the 7 P’s concept is an ideal marketing concept which New Look Hair Salon should consider. References Goi, C., 2009. A Review of Marketing Mix: 4P’s or more? International Journal of Marketing Studies, Vol. 1, No.1, pp. 1-14 New Look Hair Salon, 2013. New Look Hair Salon, Retrieved on 13th March from < http://www.newlookhair.com.au/services/ > Meenaghan, T., 1995. The role of advertising in brand image development, Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 4, no. : 4, pp.23 – 34 Rafiq, M., & Ahmed, P., 2008. Using the 7P’s as a Generic Marketing Mix, Marketing Intelligence and Planning, Vol. 13, No.9. Pp.4-16 Tracy, B., 2013. The 7P’s of Marketing. Entrepreneur, Retrieved on 13th March 2013 from < http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/70824> Read More