Service Blueprint and Customer Experience
Discuss about the Customer Experience and Brand Analysis of ‘Service’.
Service marketing of a service organization is a kind of marketing associated with increasing the customer value and customer relationship. Service blueprint is the technique, which is used for creating service innovation to increase customer value and customer relationship (Radnor et al. 2014). This technique simultaneously demonstrates the service process, customer contact points and evidence of service from the point of view of the customers. This study will depict the service blueprint of The Langham Hotel in Melbourne. The blueprint will demonstrate the check in and checkout service of the hotel. Apart from that, the study will also discuss the service process and customers included in the service blueprint. The service blueprint of The Langham Hotel demonstrates satisfactory customer service provided to the customers. The customers get warm welcome from the receptionists at their check in desks. The bellboys of the hotel are also quite responsible to take and deliver the baggage of the customers securely to their rooms. However, the managers of the hotel train the hotel staffs to be more interactive at the checkout desk to get the feedback of customers. The hotel must also be updated with technical advancement for providing more efficient and satisfactory customer service. Likewise, this particular paper attempts to put forward ways in which the hotel could improve upon its services and satisfy customers to the maximum.
Opportunities to improve customer experience
As illustrated through the service blueprint of The Langham Hotel, the hotel has satisfactory customer service provided to the customers. In the registration process, the hotel uses online registration system having high technology. Effective and smooth registration system makes the customers happy through booking the hotel rooms quickly and without any harassment. The hotel has also developed technical advanced registration system. It leads to high level of customer satisfaction. Moreover, the Langham has highly polite and talented receptionists at its reception desk. They provide deep-hearted and warm welcome to the customers, which they check in the hotel (Langham Hotel 2018).
The Langham hotel always ensures that its receptionists are well informed about the hotel information to provide resolve all the queries of the customers properly at their check in time. Furthermore, the hotel staffs are also highly responsible for providing assistance to the customers in taking their bags to their room (Kazemzadeh, Milton and Johnson 2015). The hotel provides adequate training to the employees, which ensure that the employees are capable enough to provide satisfactory check in service to the customers. Securely managing the bags and delivering them at their rooms at check in and even delivering the bags at check out plays an important role in the hotel service. In this extent, The Langham has trained and effective bellboys for securely managing and delivering the bags of the customers during their check in as well as checkout time (Lim and Kim 2014). Further, the Langham Hotel hires the most efficient cooks for preparing delicious foods to be delivered to the customers. The hotel is well capable of maintaining its interactive marketing in their service through providing positive and satisfactory customer service with the talented and trained hotel staffs. However, the managers of the hotel train the hotel staffs to be more interactive at the checkout desk to get the feedback of customers. The hotel must also be updated with technical advancement for providing more efficient and satisfactory customer service. Thus, this clearly highlights the opportunities for the hotel to further improve its customer experience. The opportunities include:
Opportunities to improve customer experience
Enhancing customer service levels and overall customers visiting the hotel
Customer service levels could be enhanced by offering exceptional and innovative services (John, 2003). The hotel needs to explore ways they can further enhance the present services. This would help in effectively retaining the existing customers and catching the attention of new customers.
Increasing revenue levels by making employees more proficient and capable.
There is no doubt in the fact that proficient and competent employees can make greater contribution towards hotel success and revenue levels (Sharp, 2005). Employees who are fully updated and informed about the latest work practices and prevailing market trends are likely to put in high efforts towards overall success (Simon and Sullivan, 2003).
Enhancing overall brand image and market position of the hotel
In order in increase customers and enhance the revenue levels the hotel needs to work upon its brand image as well as market position. In case if the hotel has sound and positive brand image along with sound market position it would automatically attract more customers to the hotel, ultimately resulting in higher profits and revenues (John, 2003).
The below sections throw light upon several strategies Langham Hotel could consider in order to enhance customer service and revenue level and make effective use of the present opportunities. The strategies include:
The hotel should aim at offering higher training prospects to the staff so that they interact more effectively with the customers (Sharp, 2005). The hotel should also offer them online training options so that they can anytime anywhere access training material and resources. In doing so they can create a virtual class online where all the lectures and training sessions are updated regularly. Those who were unable to visit any training session could simply access it online. Moreover, regular discussions and meetings should be arranged with the hotel staff in order to understand areas they need to improve upon and require further training and guidance. (Simon and Sullivan, 2003) Also, staff should be allowed to give their views on how the training sessions could be made more effective.
Research and Development
The hotel should invest more resources and time towards research development (R&D) to understand latest trends prevailing within the hotel industry. They should aim at offering exceptional provisions and services. The hotel should understand what the customers are actually looking for and what gives them highest level of satisfaction. Also, they should keep a track on latest advancements taking place around the industry and being considered by their competitors.
Strategies to capture the identified opportunities
Focus on Customer Satisfaction
There is no doubt in the fact that customers form an important part of each and every business (John, 2003). Thus, the hotel should aim at offering maximum satisfaction to the customers and serve them with exceptional and latest services as well as provisions. One happy customer can bring other new customers for the hotel (Sharp, 2005).
Customer Satisfaction
The hotel should also ask for customers’ feedback whenever they visit the hotel. They should also be requested to provide their views on how hotel services could be further improved or if they think there is anything that hotel needs to add to its service portfolio.
The Langham Hotel in Melbourne needs to consider few strategies for improving upon its services and satisfy customers to the maximum by taking into consideration the brand equity strategies proposed by Berry (2000). Berry (2000) has devised a framework for building brand equity for offered services. He proposes brand equity as being “the differential impact of brand meaning and brand awareness joined with consumer reaction towards brand marketing that is his explanation of Keller’s (1993) description of brand equity. Additionally, Berry (2000) adds to it by stating that the service branding framework doesn’t differ in kind from that of goods, just in terms of degree. He asserts that the chief disparity in developing brand equity for offered goods in contrast with services is the high significance of service performance, implying human outcome for services instead of machine outcome for the good. As per the Berry (2000) framework, brand equity is grounded upon brand awareness along with brand meaning, where brand meaning holds a higher impact upon brand equity as compared to brand awareness. Further, the below section throw light upon the proposed strategies for the hotel by taking into consideration
By external brand communications, Berry (2000) refers to the information related to the service corporation, which is not in company’s control. The external brand communications could have high impact upon the awareness as well as the meaning associated with the brand (Sharp, 2005). The awareness about the brand might not just be attained from the offered brand, but also from communications related to the company available at independent sources (Simon and Sullivan, 2003). For the reason that these communications aren’t intended like a means of reinforcing the brand, they don’t hold the same impact upon brand awareness as well as brand meaning.
Higher Training Prospects
Word-of-Mouth
According to Berry (2000) word-of-mouth is quite widespread in services because of the service traits of intangibility. WOM is considered as being highly important in respect to service sector (Sharp, 2005). Word-of-mouth can greatly help the hotel to attract more customers. But for this first the hotel needs to make sure that they fully satisfy their existing customers so that they spread good image and views about the hotel among their friends and family (Simon and Sullivan, 2003). A positive word-of-mouth can greatly help in attracting a good number of customers (Sharp, 2005). At the same time a negative word-of –mouth can greatly prevent the customers from using particular services.
The employees are frequently considered as being an important determinant of the consumer’s experience with respect to the services and are frequently related to the steadiness of the service quality offered (Grönroos, 2000). Moreover, the constancy of quality is directly associated with the heterogeneity of offered provisions. Same is applicable in case of Langham Hotel. In case if the hotel has devised brand’s service image, this could simply be damaged in case if no focus is being laid on the role played by the employees (Sharp, 2005). As a result, service marketing must lay emphasis upon internal marketing of the brand instead of product marketing. Further, Riley and de Chernatony (2000) support this view because of the significant part played by the staff members. Further, internal marketing is employed for getting the staff members to share the values of the hotel, for effectively communicating them to the visitors.
At the time when branding any product or service, the value delivery system is supposed as being internal as well as unnoticed by the clients. While the value delivery system with respect to services is completely visible and involves the customer being an active contributors (Grönroos, 2004). Moreover, the role played by the clients within the service delivery procedure holds a vital affect upon development of any service brand. Likewise, in case of the hotel, the manner in which customers assess a particular service significantly relies upon the level to which the client takes part in service delivery. The clients could be engaged in service delivery of the hotel in different levels. Involving customers could greatly help the hotel in understanding what they want and ways of further improving the offered services.
Conclusion and managerial implication
To conclude, it can be clearly stated from the above discussion that Langham Hotel needs to enhance its customer service, offer greater training prospects to the staff and increase revenue levels. There is no doubt in the fact that proficient and competent employees can make greater contribution towards hotel success and revenue levels (Simon and Sullivan, 2003). Employees who are fully updated and informed about the latest work practices and prevailing market trends are likely to put in high efforts towards overall success. In order in increase customers and enhance the revenue levels the hotel needs to work upon its brand image as well as market position (Sharp, 2005). In case if the hotel has sound and positive brand image along with sound market position it would automatically attract more customers to the hotel, ultimately resulting in higher profits and revenues.
References:
Berry, L. L. (2000). Cultivating Service Brand Equity. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 28 (1), 128-137.
Grönroos, C. (2000). Service Management and Marketing – A Customer Relationship Management Approach. Chichester: Wiley.
John, J. (2003). Fundamentals of Customer-Focused Management: Competing Through Service. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.
Kazemzadeh, Y., Milton, S.K. and Johnson, L.W., 2015. Service blueprinting and process-chain-network: an ontological comparison. International Journal of Qualitative Research in Services, 2(1), pp.1-12.
Langham Hotel 2018, “Melbourne 5 Star Luxury Hotels | The Langham, Melbourne”, Langhamhotels.com, viewed 15 May, 2018, <https://www.langhamhotels.com/en/the-langham/melbourne>.
Lee, C.H., Wang, Y.H. and Trappey, A.J., 2015. Service design for intelligent parking based on theory of inventive problem solving and service blueprint. Advanced Engineering Informatics, 29(3), pp.295-306.
Lim, C.H. and Kim, K.J., 2014. Information service blueprint: A service blueprinting framework for information-intensive services. Service Science, 6(4), pp.296-312.
Keller, K. L. (1993). Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Managing Customer-Based Brand Equity. Journal of Marketing, 57 (1), 1-22.
Radnor, Z., Osborne, S.P., Kinder, T. and Mutton, J., 2014. Operationalizing co-production in public services delivery: The contribution of service blueprinting. Public Management Review, 16(3), pp.402-423.
Sharp, B. (2005). Brand Equity and Market-Based Assets of Professional Service Firms. Journal of Professional Services Marketing, 13 (1), 3-13.
Simon, C. J., & Sullivan, M. W. (2003). The Measurement and Determinants of Brand Equity: A Financial Approach. Marketing Science, Winter, 12 (1), 28-53.
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