Page 198 - DMGT510_SERVICES_MARKETING

Unit 10: Role of Employees and Customers in Service Delivery

Customer Retention Strategies: The service marketer should stress on retaining customers, as Notes
they are less expensive than customer acquisition. A retained customer will also contribute
handsomely to the bottom line through positive referrals and repeat purchases over an entire
lifetime. The service marketer can attempt four types of bonding with customers:
1. Financial bonds - through favourable pricing and incentives;
2. Social bonds - by way of personal and enduring relationships;
3. Customisation bonds - through mass customisation, feed forward and anticipation;

4. Structural bonds - joint involvement and integrated systems.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:
11. Online ticketing system service is a high customer service.
12. The customer’s participation begins with the concept/feature of service.

13. The decides the level of customer participation.
14. The service provider can form a bonding with the customers by giving
him/her favourable incentives.

15. The service provider creates bonds with the customers by joint involvement
and integrated systems.

10.3 Summary

Service organisations could be perceived to be radically different in their approach to

customer service and consistency in service delivery.
A better skilled and trained internal customer would be able to communicate better with

the external customer.
Everyone seems to possess the same high skills in uniformity that makes it hard for the

customer to detect any change in the service delivery. This goes a long way in putting the
customer in comfort zones, preventing him from having any feeling of fear, anxiety or
dissonance.

The internal customers play various roles in an organisation: contractors, modifiers,

influencers and isolated.
By making the consumer participate in the service delivery process, the service firm

harvests both benefits and challenges.
The firm benefits from shared cost effect, and is able to make do with lesser service

personnel.
The ulterior motive of the service marketer to get customer participation is to increase

productivity, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.
Simultaneously, the goal is to reduce costs and uncertainty that comes from unpredictable

customer behaviour.

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