Parcel Delivery Service Concept for Consumers - Research Paper Example

Parcel Delivery Service Concept for Consumers Student: Program of Study: Date and Time of Submission Introduction The concept of marketing mix was coined by Professor Neil over fifty years ago. This concept was developed using the case of manufacturing firms where they were using the concept of product, price, and promotion commonly referred to as 4 Ps for marketing. The same concept can be applied in the service industry to help in service delivery. However due to limitations of this concept, new 4 Ps have been added, and they include:- People Evidence Process an Productivity and Quality. The concept of 8 Ps in marketing mix has been used majorly as a basis for the service concept. Ordanini, Parasuraman and Rubera (2014) in his article introduces this as the aspects that help in providing benefit and value for the customers. In another paper, Arvidsson (2014) describes 8 Ps as integrated service management tools and decision variables which any organization manager faces. Success in service delivery or customer satisfaction arises when a consumer has a positive experience with a brand. Consumers will expect to gain the same level of service if a problem arises (Leppäniemi et al., 2017). The occurrence of a single and negative customer service is bound to ruin customer relationship. The customer is likely to shift to another provider. The expectation of the customer towards a product is quite sensitive. The expectation of any reputable brand is an optimal level of value creation. Concept of marketing mix Process The process can be described as the means and sequence through which operating systems work. Usually, for a successful business, process are very essential. The poorly functioning process will aggravate both the customer and employees. Low productivity will result in circumstances where process design is ineffective, and this can even result in service failure (Vargo and Lusch 2014). Physical Evidence It can be described as the tangible elements that the customer will encounter in work. It is the perceptible metaphor which has been used either as a symbol or slogan by the company, in the case of the parcel delivery it is the parcel itself. This is what the customer will identify with (Virvilaitė 2015). People The business success depends on the customers and employee, satisfaction or dissatisfaction which greatly influence the outcome of the business. One way of avoiding customer service challenges is to curve a well-trained customer service team. The team should be sober, kind and courteous (Vargo and Lusch 2014). Lack of any of these qualities will make customers question how the team will assist sorting out their problems. Productivity and Quality In most cases, the concept of productivity and quality has been left for operation manager, nevertheless, recent studies have linked it to the customer satisfaction. Firms that experience optimal levels of consumers’ satisfaction carry out their objective of service perfection at the distribution center. This means that it is not prudent of assuming distribution center to be a separate unit from the consumer. Improving quality from the customer perspective result into higher corporate profits and improved productivity which helps in keeping low cost. Cordon et al., (2016) defined productivity as the level of organization efficiency on transforming inputs to output using factors of production. Arvidsson (2014) defined the concept of service on delivery as what is being experience by customers. It includes the quality and perception hence determines the level of customer satisfaction. During the after-sale service, customers expect the service to be delivered promptly. Customers are wary of time precision and cost. For instance, a consumer would be excited to hear that fixing a broken television would take just an hour at the cost of 40 dollars. However, disappoints crops up when the ‘rules of the game' changes when fixed cost turns to variable cost and one-hour changes to longer duration. This is equivalent to selling to a consumer a product which doesn't deliver. This will form the basis of customer perception hence needs to be taken into consideration. The molecular model For a proper understanding of the product marketing, the molecular model helps in understanding the overall market visibility. This model is a good approach and can be used by both service and goods marketing. Ambrose et al. (2013) state that the model is good in describing the customer needs and is related to additional service properties which can be used by marketers to meet the needs of the customers. This concept can be explained using the diagram below:- Figure 1: Augmenting the core product: Source: Ambrosio, et al. (2013) The customer always expects quick resolution of the failures of the product. Just like in grievance’s treatment, customers do assess fairness within service recovery by use of three factors; that is, outcomes, procedural fairness as well as interactional treatment (Ambrosio, et al. 2013). The outcome of research performed in the hotel industry in the UK indicated that consumers prefer to obtain recovery resources which match both the type as well as the magnitude of failure. Researchers suggest that customer’s evaluation of three justice components; that is, distributive, interactional plus procedural justice, in service recovery has effects on post-complaint behavior (Punel and Stathopoulos 2017). Figure 2: Recovery Paradoxes: Source: Youn et al. (2014) Customer satisfaction, failure and service recovery impacts on emotions vary within the industry settings such as restaurant and hotel industry. In this industry, the emotions failed to influence recovery perception fully. The customer-relationship with service firm can completely alter their reactions from failures to recovery. According to Youn et al. (2014), healthy customer relationship operates as a buffer in instances of service failure. It results in lower levels of dissatisfaction. According to Bengtsson and Vikingson (2015), customers may exhibit heightened tolerance to failure if they have cultivated social bond between themselves and service provider. Moreover, positive prior-service experience alleviates negative impacts of poor complaint-handling towards customer commitment as well as trust. Research also shows that consumers who have high expectation of a continuous relationship possess lower recovery expectations which have a positive effect on post-recovery satisfaction. As such, perceived personalization, reliability, familiarization as well as social bonding plays a vital role while building a relationship with consumers, especially in the hotel industry Metrics Benchmarking The performance metric may include 10 to 30 core measurements. It operates as a type of scorecard which is linked to specific performance, objectives, and activities. The measurements may relate to financial, operational initiatives, customer service and innovation perspectives. For instance, consumer-based measurements may need to perform an evaluation of ability to obtain and retain consumers after failures while financial-based measurements may be geared to ascertain profitability or increased returns related to assets. Operational measurements may try to ascertain comparison between the planned and the actual happenings. The whole process, therefore, involves a comparative analysis of metrics within the process, which sometimes calls for revised targets. Singh (2016) describes service process as a chain of activities that are mandatory to be performed simultaneously to produce service. These chain of activities take place both at the service provider’s premises as well as in their partner’s and customer’s premises hence customers does not have direct control over each process that takes place. However, it must be able to have control over the process in its entirety. It is a common fact among service provider a good values well-functioning delivery processes. The processes that take place continuously include the design and control of the customer experience during the service encounter. The customer outcome is as a result of these processes. That is a customer can either get satisfied or dissatisfied with the service delivery experience. The table below shows a comparison of positioning matrices for service criteria:- Table 1: Comparison of Positioning Matrices for Service Criteria Source: Singh (2016) The service delivery matrix can also be presented in the table below:- Figure 3: Service Delivery Map Source: Singh (2016) The customer service delivery system matrix matches the customer’s desired service encounter activity sequence to the design and structure of the service system and its number of pathways. This is well presented in the above diagram. Ways of improving service delivery include processes like integrating users into the service development process like user involvement, user research, and user experience, co-creation of value among other services. Research methodology Research design can be described as an iterative process that includes reflection, exploration, creation and implementation. In this study will use step process framework in the empirical part of the study. Descriptive study design. In this case, the data will be collected without changing the environment where both secondary and primary data will be collected. The study will use both structured and unstructured research questionnaire to get deep into the study topics. For gaining further understanding and insights concerning the topic, the study conducted research which covers both the service provider and consumer viewpoint. Qualitative research approach will be used here; it will include data collection in the field where participants experience will be collected. The tool used in collecting data here included open and closed ended questionnaire. The research schedule will also be used here to help in collecting crucial information relating to service delivery. The interview schedules will be used in the contextual interview which takes place in the context that the service process occurs. It is an ethnographic research method that allows the researcher to observe the situation and also probe the behavior of objects that's in scope. Content analysis will also be used in the analysis the feedback of respondents where random samplings will be employed in using the results. The result of the data will be presented in the form of tables, pie charts, and graphs where applicable. The analysis and interpretation will be analyzed against the study objectives and other previous findings by other scholars. Sources of data The sources of data for this research was mostly primary sources. The primary data was collected using respondents in the field. The targeted population was mostly individuals who were working in parcel delivery and the public at large. They were interviewed, and their responses were recorded down to help in answering the questions of this research study. The study also used secondary sources where past literature concerning service delivery was investigated and compared with the research findings before making a conclusion. Results and findings The study investigated over 50 respondents in service industry concerning the parcel delivery service concept for consumers. The demographic factors of respondents are shown below:- Figure 4: Gender of Respondent From the figure above, the male respondents were the largest with 30(60%) and female 20(40%). It shows that we interviewed more male than female. Secondly, we investigated the level of education. The results of the investigation are shown in the figure below:- Figure 5: Level of education It shows that the largest percentage of respondents 43% had bachelor's degree and above, followed by diploma at 39%, high school respondents were 12% while only 6% of respondents had primary education. Content analysis From the analysis, 20 respondents were selected to establish the validity of the data. Two of the responses were disqualified because they did not belong to the targeted population. Despite the fact that two respondents were disqualified, the researcher studies keenly on the content of the respondent's feedback. The content analysis was done according to the approach by (Singh 2016).The contextual approach to the investigation was used in the analysis where the analysis was done in the excel work book with each question being presented at the top of the column and keenly processed. Some of the processed questions are as follows: 1. When do you normally pick your parcel? 2. Can picking parcel make you leave your home and pick it? 3. Is there any agency in picking the parcel? Reasons why consumers chose the self-picking option From the results above 68% of the respondent's states that they only pick their parcels at different service points if they are not at home, 22% of the respondents states that they pick them when they leave work while the remaining 10% pick them when they arrive. This is a clear indication a gap where individuals are not taking the parcel delivery as an important activity. 1. Do you usually receive home delivery of parcels? 2. Is home delivery option exist in your service option 3. What was the speed of the last service you used? 4. How can you rate the cost? 5. What is your desire for parcel delivery services? Most of the respondents recite option not available in the current system with another large percentage citing self-picking as the easiest and fastest means of picking the parcel. On time of delivery and efficiency, most of the respondents argue that the time is okay though sometimes it takes unnecessarily long in some courier hence notification of the clients are also necessary to alert consumers. 8.0 Critical Evaluation of the Results From the content analysis, the researcher has found some of the characters which are mentioned repeatedly by the respondents. The researcher classified these repeated characterized to a SWOT analysis matrix, and this is shown in the table below:- Figure 6: SWOT Analysis From the SWOT analysis matrix above, respondents show that they vale good service quality and speed of the delivery. This is because the self-picking option was considered as easy and convenient to be used especially when the goods are urgently required. It was further noted that the attitudes of the respondents towards self-pick-up was so positive, this is an opportunity which the company can maximize by reducing cost. There is a need for the courier providers to provide tracking option for the parcel so that to improve efficiency and convenience. This will alert the consumers as to when the product is ready, and it is time to pick it up. The major weakness is a lack of evening delivery option and location of the major parcel delivery are only situated in towns and not residential areas. All the threats from the table relate to insufficient information, the respondents were not aware of all possible delivery alternatives, and pre-notification were not reaching the customers or too late. Therefore, this gap can be sealed through providing alternatives to efficient delivery. The service points should also be located in major residential areas to help in fixing the by-the-way picking of parcels by customers. This will help in creating competitive advantage. Recommendation From the result from empirical study, it shows that the customers do not complain so much as per the current arrangement of service delivery. However, few things need to be fixed so that competitive edge might be found in the industry. Parcel tracking should be implemented so that consumers and customers can be reliably be informed when their parcels will arrive at the pick-up points. This will motivate the customers to increase their participation or usage of the service. The sender of the parcel should also be notified when the parcel has been received on the other end. This method of communication will improve efficiency in parcel delivery process and surety in the use of the service. Reference Ambrosio, A., Maddalena, P. and Marrucci, L., 2013. Molecular model for light-driven spiral mass transport in azopolymer films. Physical review letters, 110(14), p.146102. Arvidsson, N., 2014. Consumer attitudes on mobile payment services–results from a proof of concept test. 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