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Unit 4: Customer Expectations and Perceptions of Services through Marketing Research
not just kids and teens, it launched a series of advertisements showing elderly couples eating at Notes
the restaurant and sharing tender moments along with delicious food, families celebrating
birthdays at the restaurant, and so on. This strategy by the food chain helped change its image
from that catering to the kids and teens market to being a complete family destination.
Instilling the Service Philosophy in the Employees of the Service Provider
A service provider, while training his employees, should clearly communicate his organisations
service philosophy to them. The management can also instil the service culture in its employees
through tangible evidence, which help reinforce the companys service philosophy in the minds
of the employees as well as communicate the same to customers.
Example: Theme parks and several toy stores have service personnel dressed up as
cartoon characters to convey the fun element and create a lively and buoyant mood in the other
service personnel who will in turn be able to replicate the same while serving customers.
Tangible clues of the service also convey the care and concern of a service organisation towards
its employees.
Example: The ambience created in an advertising firm can help in stimulating the
creativity of its employees as well as in conveying the right image to its customers.
Image
A customers perception of the service quality is also dependent on the image of a service
organisation in the mind of the customer. Organisational image is the customers perception
about an organisation and this may be either at the local level or at the corporate level.
A customer who has a positive image about a company is likely to ignore some instances of
poor service. However, repeated bad experiences will damage the image of the company in the
eyes of the customer. In contrast to this, if the customer has a negative image of the service
organisation and if the organisation fails to provide proper service, it will further add to the
negative image of the organisation in the mind of the customer and result in dissatisfaction.
Price
The price of a service has an impact on customer perception of the service. The price of a service
influences customer perceptions of value, quality, and satisfaction. Due to the intangible nature
of services, customers often assume price as an indicator of quality of service. If a service
organisation prices its service low, customers may doubt its quality. On the other hand, customers
have expectations of high quality if a service is priced high. Customers may also assess the value
of a service in relation to its price after consuming the service.
First Serve, then Deserve
Caselet
By Jagdeep Kapoor
he concept of customer service in India is often shrouded in myth and mystery. For
the same reason it does not get the importance it deserves. I would therefore like to
Tstart with debunking a popular myth.
Contd...
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