Service Management System of Wolver Hampton Bus Service - Essay Example

RESEARCH PAPER ON SERVICES MARKETING MANAGEMENT (WOLVER HAMPTON BUS SERVICE) TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………………3 Description of Wolver Hampton Bus Service ……………………………………………………4 Service Management Strategy and System ………………………………………………………6 Service Quality Management Strategy and System ……………………………………………...7 Marketing and Standard Tools In Terms Of Service Provision………………………………….10 Role of Customer In Service Provision, Delivery And Promotion………………………………11 Problem Evaluation with Solution……………………………………………………………….13 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….14 References………………………………………………………………………………………..16 INTRODUCTION: Services marketing, based on relationship and value, means relationship between customers and a dealer or a marketing representative. It may be used to market a service or a product. There are several major differences in services marketing, including: 1. The buying power or purchasing power of a customer is intangible. 2. The service may be based on the reputation of a single person not more than a single person. 3. It’s more difficult to make comparisons between the qualities of similar or identical product and services. 4. The buyer cannot return the service in terms of service marketing. Service Marketing includes 3 more Ps, i.e. people, physical evidence and process service that will follow the success in right direction. The major difference in services marketing and marketing is its traditional and well knowned "4 Ps," Product, Price, Place, Promotion, and additional 3 "Ps" in service marketing consisting of People, Physical evidence, and Process. Service marketing is not limited to the appearance and aesthetic of the business internally as well as externally; it also includes the general and genuine appearance of the employees of the organization. Service Marketing development is in fact making a stable place in educational marketing and also developing economies in terms of services marketing management not in just industrial or international management. Traditionally, many service industries both business and non business sectors would not be market oriented, in fact, there are several reasons behind it. Marketing business and non business services include some basic elements as marketing goods. And they should focus on good services by defining their segments and target markets. The four main characteristics can differentiate services marketing from goods i.e. intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity and perishability. These factors should be followed in an effective manner to make service marketing strategy more good and successful. DESCRIPTION OF WOLVER HAMPTON BUS SERVICE: Wolver Hampton Bus Station is owned and operated by the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive. Under the authority of West Midlands Passenger Transport, they promote and develop public transport across West Midlands. (Transport and travel Research, 2005).This public transport service came into force on 1st October 2002. They work for the benefit and ease for the public in Wolver Hampton and all across West Midlands. They take responsibility to provide effective public transports to its customers. They also promise to provide good and effective service especially for blind and disabled people to make their travel easy and free of hurdles. Because wheelchairs and mobility scooters are increasing in UK, so, they also want to minimize that by providing the people with best and useful way of traveling. Service marketing is basically a concept of providing best services to its users and its customers. This company lacks in this area. They started the bus services but they didn’t provide any satisfactory services to its passengers. Customers are the king because they make the company successful. Following problems were faced by the passengers rather than the students of Wolver Hampton: Poorly maintained bus stop, which shows very unwelcoming condition. Rude and unacceptable behavior of bus drivers. Poor condition of buses. Unsatisfactory service and unpeaceful environment in bus. The response from the service maintenance was slow and unsatisfactory. Buses were late on regular basis. Security services were really bad. They didn’t provide any entertainment in the bus. Purchasing a ticket for disabled people became difficult because of poor service. There was no shelter for students or people, where one can stand under, while raining or snowing. There were several other issues and problems in Wolver Hampton bus service which really dissatisfied its passengers. In short, this bus service failed to provide good services to their passengers, which is a very unrealistic approach in service marketing management. As a primary analysis of a company, I went through several issues in it, but I took one as providing a good solution in terms of service marketing. A SERVICES MANAGEMENT STRATEGY AND SYSTEM: Service management strategy and system (Harris, 2003) means that how can we manage and arrange the function and system of any organization by fulfilling customers’ needs and wants. Also providing them, best and satisfactory services which should be properly managed and if any problem occurs while performing function in any system of the organization, that would be resolved immediately and in a timely manner. If Wolver Hampton tried to develop better strategies for their company, the problems would not have occurred. If everything was maintained properly they would have resolved those issues on time. I am mentioning one example here with a solution in context of service marketing: For e.g. problem of purchasing of tickets for disabled people became a difficult task and they faced several problems for getting tickets. Solution: if a proper and effective strategy and system would have been followed for this purpose, the problem would not have occurred in such a way. They even promised to provide good service for disabled people to make their traveling more convenient. In terms of services management strategy and system, they could have made separate counter or place for disabled passengers for their convenience and ease. This would have not only satisfied them but in fact, would have made them happy and feel that they are really special and valuable. If any strategy and system should be followed clearly and effectively, it will surely give some positive results. In service marketing management, providing best services is a key thing which should satisfy its customers at any cost and also in every stage whether it’s at start, middle or at the end. A SERVICE QUALITY MANAGEMENT STRATEGY AND SYSTEM: Service quality management means to provide good and high quality service to its users by developing better and effective strategies for the system of any company (Christopher, 2001). Approach to service quality management aggregates end to end service level in real time to enable proactive management of service quality management system. Wolver Hampton could have improved its service quality in many areas to increase more passengers for their bus service and it would have also increased their productivity level in terms of revenues. They could have performed much better in several areas some are: Poorly maintained bus stop: it was very unwelcoming for its passengers. They could have worked on it. They could have increased the quality of the bus stand by providing them good seating arrangments, shelter and good standing place for students as well as other passengers. Quality can increase anything and attracts customers. So if they provided best quality service, they could have got passengers loyalty and trust. Poor condition of buses also shows the poor quality service management by Wolver Hampton. They could have made this even better and comfortable place for passengers by providing them comfortable seats, some entertainment in bus and good and peaceful environment while traveling. Another example of bad service quality management and system was the response from the service maintenance because it was very slow and unsatisfactory. If a customer or a passenger complains for bad service, notice should be taken immediately without any delay. Wolver Hampton also lacked in this, which also shows their bad and ineffective strategy in terms of service quality management. Buses were late on regular basis. This also shows the bad service from Wolver Hampton Bus Service. If they mentioned any time on a buses or bus stand, bus should arrive on that time. Passengers waited for buses by standing on a bus station. If buses reach according to the given time, this will show the good quality services by the company. Security is a very necessary thing all over the world. Everyone needs some security and safety for their lives, while going any where whether it’s traveling on bus or by train. Wolver Hampton also failed to provide satisfactory service to its passengers. How can single people be loyal to any company if he/she didn’t get any satisfactory, good and quality service from its providers? Last and the most noticeable issue or a bad example of bad quality service was purchasing a ticket for disabled people. That was a difficult task for blind and disabled people. If company wanted, they could have provided best services in this area by minimizinzing problems for those people who really needed help and comfortable environment and place for their traveling. These areas show bad service quality by Wolver Hampton Bus Service. If they tried, they would have performed even much better in fact, very well in these areas by giving quality services to its passengers. Developing a good strategy and system according to this, is a key thing in any business and in service marketing management by giving importance on services provided to its customers. MARKETING AND STANDARD TOOLS IN TERMS OF SERVICE PROVISION The evaluation of both services marketing tools and standard tools can be evaluated through service provision. Service provision can be defined as that, provision which means "providing" or making something available to its users. Service marketing can be evaluated easily by focusing on customers and by noticing their view about the product and services. To evaluate marketing and standard tools for configuring service provision followed points should be considered: Gaining customer confidence by providing high quality service. We should be aware of and know about our target audience. Direct mail or interaction is a good and effective way to reaching prospective customers. Showing enthusiasm while performing marketing and service related functions. Buying or purchasing anything is an emotional decision for customer. Show prospects, good feelings about company, make business relationship with customers and also find solutions to make their lives more easy and improved by resolving their problem in a good manner. Overcome customer feelings of distrust by offering them written guarantees and other good offers that satisfy them. Sales presentations means to give a brief description about services that will be clearly understandable by them. Should create a small business marketing plan that shows the company strengths and weakness and also their opportunities. ROLE OF CUSTOMERS IN SERVICE PROVISION, DELIEVRY AND PROMOTION Providing a good and quality service to customers is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. Customer service is the activity to enhance or increase the level of customer satisfaction and the expectation that customer feels about the product and service (Turban et al., 2002). It’s important by product, industry and customer that the company should satisfy its customers in a good way. Customer service is more important if the purchase relates to a “service” as compared to the “product". Customer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales person and service representative), or by automated system known as self-service i.e. Internet sites. The experience of a customer also affects the total service experience of a company. Customer service is normally an integral or major part of a company’s customer value proposition. Customer service plays an important role in an organizations ability to generate income and revenue from its customers and users. Customer service should be included as part of an overall approach to systematic improvement. In today’s world, people and companies are not paying attention on customer services but some are doing this effectively. When a company fails to provide a good customer service, it is due to lack of support, cooperation and mutual understanding among company’s employees and management in making any customer service policy. Promotion is also an important factor in customer service. Customer should be aware about the product that he/she is purchasing. Promoting a product and service in a good and effective way will show good service providing by the company. If a person clearly understands about the products and services, it means, strategy regarding quality customer service is successful. Another aspect is delivering, the product and services to customers.delievery of product and services should be on time as it will increase customer trust and loyalty towards the company and it also shows quality service strategy to customer. A challenge in Customer Service is that, we focus and give attention on the right key areas. The focus should be customer, his needs and wants and his expectation towards the company. Continuously improvement in process is a good way to enhance quality and process of customer service. It can also be done in such a way that, we believe that we are struggling to bring change and improvement in customer services. PROBLEM EVALUATION WITH SOLUTION There were several problems in Wolver Hampton Bus service which showed lack of planning and mismanagement by the company. They didn’t work hard to provide good services to its passengers. These problems are: Poorly maintained bus stop, which shows very unwelcoming condition. Rude and unacceptable behavior of bus drivers. Poor condition of buses. Unsatisfactory service and unpeaceful environment in bus. The response from the service maintenance was slow and unsatisfactory. Buses were late on regular basis. Security services were really bad. They didn’t provide any entertainment in the bus. Purchasing a ticket for disabled people became difficult because of poor service. There was no shelter for students or people where one can stand under, while raining or snowing. Solution says that, if company develops a good service strategy by keeping customer in their mind, problems will not occur. Satisfying customer is a key thing in marketing and in service marketing as well. These problems would have been minimized, if they could have worked hard to cope with these problems and difficulties faced by the passenger (customer). Complaints should have been taken properly; this would have satisfied the customer in a good way. If passengers needed any help and they faced any difficulties regarding their services, it’s the responsibility of the company to resolve the issues of the customers in an effective way. Problems and issues can occur in any business, in any company, but the thing is, how we can resolve and find the solution for those problems. If customer complains about the bad services of the company, it surely means that company is lacking in some areas and it needs to improve and make that service best for our customers. CONCLUSION: Service marketing says that, providing good and effective service to a customer that satisfies them with a better solution. Developing a good strategy for business is a key in service marketing and implementing those strategies in a right way is also very important. Customer is the king for any company and we should clearly understand the role of a customer and their expectation towards services of the company. We should analyze each and every aspect related to, customer services while developing any framework for the company. Identification of the key areas is also very important and we should focus properly on weak areas of a company. Opportunities should be taken in positive and effective way. If these opportunities are in favor of the company, they will benefit the company in long term. Selecting a right theory in service marketing will also affect business in positive and successful way. Operating a company in a good and successful way, is to develop a good business plan and effective marketing strategy by, observing existing and changing business environment, but focus should be customer and their service. Way of implementing marketing plan and marketing strategy should follow the right direction. References 1. Peter Mudie, Angela Pirrie: 2006, Service Marketing Management, (3rd Edition), Published by Butterworth-Heinemann. 2. By Hans Kasper, Piet van Helsdingen, Mark Gabbott: 2006, Services Marketing Management: A Strategic Perspective, (2nd Edition revised), Published by John Wiley & Sons. 3. Roland T. Rust, Anthony J. Zahorik, and Timothy L. Keiningham: 1996, Service Marketing: Quality And Financial Impact, Published by HarperCollins College Publishers. 4. Christopher H. Lovelock, Lauren Wright: 2001, Principles of Service Marketing and Management, (2nd Edition), Published by Prentice Hall. 5. Gillian Hogg, Mark Gabbott: 1998, Service Industries Marketing: New Approaches, Published by Routledge. Read More