Page 64 - DMGT510_SERVICES_MARKETING

Unit 4: Customer Expectations and Perceptions of Services through Marketing Research

Benchmarking Studies: If a service firm is desirous of the highest of quality and adopting the Notes
best of practices then it does not restrict itself in studying or comparing companies in its own
industries. It tries to learn by researching about the operating methods of unrelated areas and
replicating them in their own organisation.

Example: A service firm can study a hospital’s hygiene and housekeeping system, a
hotel’s customer (or ‘guest’) care, a courier firm’s speed and accuracy of delivery, etc. - and adopt
them itself.

Service Distribution Studies: The marketing research would entail studying the effectiveness of
all possible type of distribution system - for example, direct versus franchising versus the usual
wholesaler-retailer-dealer network. The intermediaries like dealers, retailers, agents, etc., as
mentioned in the previous sections, are the ones who are “in touch” with the customers. Therefore,
a research on them would give the service marketer an authentic insight into the customer. The
intermediaries are also, in turn, the recipients of service of the firm and therefore their perceptions
are a window to the service delivery standards forming a major part of any satisfaction survey.
Thus a research on the intermediaries will give the service marketer an insight into the customers’
expectations as well as on their own service towards on the channel members.
Pricing Research: This research is done on the different pricing methods that a service
marketer has options of adopting. The research tries to help the service marketer to fit the
appropriate method to the objective of the organisation.
Promotion Research: Promotions are the broad communication tools at the disposal of the
service marketer to reach out to the customers. They include advertising, public relations, sales
promotions and personal selling. Each has their respective strengths, weaknesses and
effectiveness.

Example: Microland’s Pradeep Kar would have pondered on the best form of
communication for indya.com’s grand entrée. A promotion research would have given him the
cost-benefit of each of them. He chose to take out a full page (or even a solus) advertisement on
the 1st of January 1999 in The Times of India. The innovative and novel format, a first by any
standards, created waves and certainly helped his web portal to be noticed: it was a front-page
advertisement. It was possible that for the same effort and price, a public relations campaign or
personal selling would not have garnered the same introductory ‘hits’ so quickly. A research on
the appropriateness of the promotions, thus, is very necessary before the service marketer
designs his communications strategy.

Communication Research: Although this research comes under Promotion research, it is
comprehensive enough to merit separate nomenclature. This consists of mostly advertising
research (sample respondent’s reactions to various pilot advertisements), media research, panel
survey, etc.
Key Client Analysis: A Pareto or an ABC Analysis of a service firm’s customers would reveal
that 80% of them contribute only 20% of its revenues or profits; 80% of the revenues or profits
are generated, most of the time, by only 20% of its customers. This would make it imperative for
the service firm to give differential treatment to those customers who are key important to its
profitability and direct exclusive service for them. Without such research, a service firm may be
unaware of important and key clients. If the latter tends to be dissatisfied and pulls his business
elsewhere, the loss could be extremely damaging for the service firm.

Panel Studies for Customer Satisfaction Indices and Brand Tracking: Certain groups of
respondents, who are a fixed sample, are chosen for continuous research over a long period of
time. They are called a panel and such research is called longitudinal studies.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 59