Page 77 - DMGT522_SERVICES MANAGEMENT

Services Management

Notes If not, disillusionment may set in and negative feelings might creep into the customer’s
mind.
Classic examples of over-demand include:

There is more demand, in India, for LPG supply and connections.
Till the advent of the Cellphone service, telephone connections had high demand
which could not be met by the Telecom Department of Government of India.

Berths in Indian Railways, especially during the summer or any other holiday
seasons.
Some solutions to beat this high demand would be to have bookings, waiting lists,
reservations, RAC (Reservations after Cancellations), etc. Appropriate demarketing is
also done by the respective organisation or apex bodies. For example, Petroleum
Conservation Research Association (PCRA) educates housewives and motorists on how
to save fuel and consume less. Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. used to demarket its
service by exhorting people to talk less during peak hours as others were in the queue.
During World War II, there were tremendous shortages of food, butter, margarine and
petrol. The propaganda departments of the War Ministry of Great Britain brought out
hoardings (billboards) with such messages as “Do you need to travel?” etc.
If the service marketer finds that there is a long waiting list for its service, it might go for
additional capacity and service support. Thus Indian Railways announces ‘Holiday Specials’,
airlines add more flights etc.

A market survey was conducted for Shell by SIES College of Management Studies, Nerul,
New Bombay to find the potential for their 12 kg. LPG cylinder in seven nodes of New
Bombay. The demand was estimated to be 10,000 cylinders per month (weight adjusted for
the 12 kg. cylinders of Shell). This estimation was confirmed when a tally of the total
waiting list for LPG connections from the public sector companies was made, amounting
to 10,000 cylinders of consumption per month! Armed with this information, Shell decided
to increase its delivery and other services in New Bombay.

6. Negative Demand: This is a kind of anti-demand. Customers would do anything to avoid
consuming a particular service. This could be because they might fear bodily harm,
irreversibility in the consumption, high risk, etc. They would sometimes pay to avoid the
consumption/experience of the service offer. Cosmetic surgery – With increasing media
reports of the harmful effects of cosmetic surgery and beauty treatments, there might be a
negative demand by the target market for the service. Similarly, there are people who
have a phobia against inoculation and would do anything to avoid it.

Example: Laser eye surgery: This is a pioneering Russian technique to improve vision by
‘etching’ the lens of the eye. The catch is that once etched, it can never be reversed. This aspect, if
comprehended by the customer, would bring forth negative demand.
Time-sharing resorts: When this service offer came into the Indian market in the early
eighties (Dalmia Resorts, Sterling Resorts, etc.) it created a negative demand amongst
people as they perceived an element of irreversibility in the scheme. A person paid a lakh
of rupees for the privilege of staying in any of their resorts spread all over India for two
weeks in a year. So far so good, it seemed. But people discovered that there were no
provisions for resale, transfer, or gifts. Worse, if it so happened that one was not able to
use the privilege for any year then he had to suffer forfeiture; there was no compensation
route.

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