Front and Back Stages
The services marketing concept is widely known as the ways by which the business organization manage its services in different levels to ensure meeting the demands and expectations of clients with ease and effectiveness. The business organization that has been selected as the case study in this essay is The Spice Room located in Australia. It is one of the best Indian restaurant originated in Australia and has maintained the culture and heritage of the place with its great quality food items available for the guests in Australia. The restaurant delivers the best quality Indian cuisine and boosts of beautiful decoration and marbled ceilings covered with Indian designs, which has easily created a great ambience and enriched the lunch and dinner experience of the guests visiting the restaurant (Thespiceroom.com.au 2018). The meals that are delivered to the guests are produced by the exotic vegetables, fresh seafood and meat products sourced from the farmyards and suppliers associated with the process of management of stakeholders in business. The menu consists of a wide variety of food items that are both exemplary and quality wise great, due to which the popular Indian dishes like biriyani, rice and tandoor items have been popular delicacies within the customers (Lovelock and Patterson 2015).
The customers are not only satisfied with the great quality food items that are being provided with, but also the management of a Indian culture has resulted in gaining a positive mindset of the restaurant. The grilled items and tandoor items are burnt with the right temperature, which has maintained the great taste and quality too and thus the customers are satisfied too. In spite of the economic growth in Australia, there have been fluctuations in prices of commodities along with the higher price of wholesale food items, which has made it difficult for the clients to understand the expenses made by restaurant to keep them satisfied and retain, as it was found from the National Restaurant Association’s survey in Australia (FISK 2013). While the front stage activities involve welcoming the guests and managing communication with them about the kids of services they want, the back stage activities mainly include managing value chain process and ensure that food services are delivered to them on time, though they should not be informed much about the internal operations carried out (Wirtz and Lovelock 2016).
The services marketing involves management of services and design emphasis to create business to client interaction and focus more on the non-technological principles and function including the ability to empower employees to know the customers. The font stage of The Spice Room, Australia has prioritized on the service encounter and managed communication between the business and its customers related to the services to be delivered by the restaurant authorities to the guests (Nasution et al. 2014). The back stage operations are considered as the services provided in the value chain and the customers cannot see those.
The Front Stage of The Spice Room
As it can be seen from the picture that the front stage of the business involves the receptionist and customers’ services staffs associated with the welcoming of guests to the restaurant, managing the orders placed by them along with their booking based on their necessary seat arrangements. It is an effective platform present at the restaurant and as it has always been the fact that the first impression is the last impression, so the restaurant has managed the guests well by welcoming them with something special to create a positive mindset among them regarding their experience they will be gaining while having food at the restaurant (Berry 2016). The receptionist present at the front stage illustrates about the necessary booking procedures and making arrangements of the table to be booked for the client while the customers’ services staffs mainly take up orders and any customer related queries that are asked by the clients before visiting the restaurant by communication through mails, chat message conversations, etc. As soon as the client books the table, the front stage having direct connection with the back stage, makes sure to transfer the information and messages regarding the services to be provided to the client (Amin et al. 2013).
The back stage is the operational area where the food preparations are made and the information and messages are directly transferred from the front stage to the back stage. This includes considering the expectations of clients and even understanding their allergic food items to make sure that the food is prepared keeping in mind the health and safety standards. The customers are the most important stakeholders in any business and within the hospitality sector; it is of utmost importance when satisfaction of clients is the first and foremost thing to be considered by the restaurant (Lu et al. 2013). The Spice Room has maintained good connection between the front stage and back stage staffs to deliver the right services to the guests accordingly. After the bookings are made at front stage, the customers are provided with proper seating arrangements where they can relax and have a enjoyable dining experience. The needs of theirs along with the food items the guests want to have are ordered to the waiters while within the restaurant, the chefs have even questioned some guests about the food materials that might be allergic to them. This has helped in preparing the best quality food and keep them satisfied as a whole through maintenance of food health and safety standards too (Kang, Tang and Fiore 2014). The back stage includes the technical core components where the bookings and orders are managed and then information about the food to be prepared is provided to the staffs present at the kitchen. By gaining the right information from the technical core department to the kitchen facility, the services are delivered on time keeping in mind their dietary habits and consuming behaviors for enriching their dining experience (Chang 2013).
The Back Stage of The Spice Room
The service encounter within a restaurant basically signifies the level of engagement of the hotel staffs and managers to deliver the best quality services to the customers to keep them satisfied. The Spice Room, because of its good communication between the front stage and back stage has maintained coordination and team work, which has not only facilitated the services delivery and marketing, but has also made them visit the restaurant again to obtain some better experience every time (Wong 2013). While entering the restaurant, the receptionist has welcomed the guests and made them aware and acknowledged with the kinds of services delivered at the restaurant, the number of guests and how many seats are required for having a enjoyable supper. The service encounter establishes close connection with the visitors and this has been a great approach undertaken by The Spice Room to deliver services based on their specific needs and preferences. Due to the great quality services offered, the restaurant has remained full most of the times and with the additional Indian culture and heritage, the restaurant has been craze for grilled and tandoor food lovers all over Australia (Dabholkar 2015). The restaurant has started a self service check in and check out that enables automated check-in-service system and there is no need to wait in queues or wait to make bookings rather the bookings are made automatically with the use of various payment options (Gazzoli, Hancer and Kim 2013). The automated system has made it convenient for the customers to make bookings of seats at the restaurant and it has largely reduced the workload and pressure to the restaurant staffs too. The website managed by the business thespiceroom.com.au has allowed the clients to book online as well and they have been provided with accessibility to various product and service related features that can be availed along with other activities regarding sustainability and CSR the business has been associated with at present (Giebelhausen et al. 2014). Therefore, the service encounter has helped in managing the front and back stage operations perfectly and furthermore allowed The Spice Room for better communication management, implemented automated system for gaining self-service and transforming the services to service system for greater client satisfaction and improved services marketing too.
The managerial roles bring efficiency in managing the front and back stage operations appropriately and to deliver the best quality services to the customers. While the back stage operations are managed to keep proper control over the functions managed at the front stage of the restaurant, the mistakes that might be experienced there could be reduced largely. The controlling components of the front stage are managed at the back stages like the front office operations are more concerned with the revenue generation and management of admin operations, the back office operations involve regulatory obligations , maintaining client safety, food safety and even maintaining the quality standards (Choi and La 2013). The manager of the restaurant should keep close eye on the performances of staffs and create proper connection between the front and back stages for promoting greater flow and exchange of information between the business departments and prevent any conflicts that might emerge. At The Spice Room, the HR manager also has played a vital role in managing the human resources by understanding their training and developmental needs, encouraging and motivating hem to perform top their potential and keep the guests satisfied. With the utilization of value model, the clients’ behaviors are understood and proper recruitment and selection processes have been conducted. The employees are selected without any discriminatory activities and rather they are trained in such a manner, so that they can keep the customers engaged while visiting the restaurant and even influence their readiness to purchase decision (Choi and Choi 2014). The managerial implications include using the research outcomes for developing a value framework and understand the purchasing behaviors of clients, based on which the resources are allocated at the business to generate better broader and reliable services. With the arrangement of training sessions by the managers, the employee skills have improved and the services’ delivery has been facilitated by creating positive customers;’ perceptions towards the value chain management (Thespiceroom.com.au 2018). The resource based knowledge and information regarding the value chain framework has further assisted in enhancing the potential of business to become a successful restaurant in Australia within no time.
Service Encounter
The recovery of service specified providing the customer with additional benefits in the form of discounts, offers or free services’ delivery in case of any faults or mistakes committed by the restaurant authorities. It is an effective way to keep the client engaged in spite of the faults that are to be taken to assure them that the faults have been rectified and the client satisfaction is the first thing that the restaurant is concerned about. The service failures could occur due to later delivery of food, bad quality food and defects in food item (Nasution et al. 2014). There might also be food items that are out of stock, incorrect temperature and heating resulting in bad quality food and even the inappropriate behaviors of staffs, which could major issues as well. At the front stage, issues could emerge due to wrong orders placed, error for billing and incorrect invoice. The organizational policies and laws represent the restaurant to be held responsible incase of any faults committed by them that have lead to client dissatisfaction (Thespiceroom.com.au 2018). To ensure prevention of bad image and reputation, the restaurant has been penalized in certain cases and could even result in providing the clients with discounts and offers for the purchases that they might make in the future from The Spice Room.
Conclusion
The hospitality businesses, especially the restaurants were managed with proper maintenance of front and back office operations just like the case of The Indian Spice, which had been one of the major Indian restaurants originated in Australia. While the back stage mainly involved managing the concerns and activities prepared by the front stage operations, the front stage operations included welcoming the guests and keeping them engaged through providing them with information about the food items and related services offered by The Spice Room, Australia. Both the front and back stages were responsible for managing the business activities and ensured proper services marketing through service encounter, delivery and service recovery as well. The manager of the restaurant should play a major role in transforming the business and make sure that the Indian based restaurant in Australia could sustain the competitive business environment within the hospitality sector conveniently.
References
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