Service Quality and the Marketing Mix for Service Recovery

Speaker Notes
Presentation To: SureFire Parcel Deliver Ltd
By: Christine Tum
Date: 23rd October 2009

Service Quality issues/ problems at Surefire Parcel Delivery

The issues in services quality may arise from diverse sources. According to Purasuraman
(2005), there could be gaps between the the customer expectations and the management’s
perception of customer expectations. This could also be caused by a gap in the
management’s perception of customer expectations and service quality specifications as
portrayed in the diagram in appendix 2.

Some of the quality problems experienced at Surefire that affects the delivery include:

• Response time: at Surefire, there have been some complaints about the time it
takes to respond, pick up a parcel and deliver it. This is especially in the urgent
same-day deliveries.

• Claims procedure for lost packages: Out of the thousands of parcels delivered by
Surefire, there are some few parcels that may have been misplaced in the sorting
system and thereby not reaching the intended recipients on time.

• Courtesy by Surefire staff: There have been instances where Surefire staff have
portrayed impatience with customers who seem to be having difficulty in giving
the correct information e.g location addresses.

• Queues at the branch service counters: Many times the parcel drop off and
collection centres experience higher customer traffic and end up with queues
waiting to be served.

• Breakdown of bikes and vehicles is becoming more common. Some of the

motorbikes purchased two years ago have proved to be of sub-standard quality
and often breakdown on the way to collect or deliver parcels.

• Busy telephone lines: The B2B customers who have long term contracts often call
the Surefire response office for parcel collection. There are 5 lines open for in-
coming calls but there is only one staff designated to answer the phones. This
means that many times, the callers either find a busy tone or the calls not
answered promptly.
 • Accuracy in filling out the forms: In some occasions there have been cases of the
forms not being filled accurately and therefore leading to accompanying parcels
not being delivered the first time as they are returned then re-delivered later.

Evaluating the effectiveness of the current human element of the service encounter
at Surefire Parcel Delivery

MacDonald (2002) says that the salesperson actually selling the service becomes part of
the service. This makes means that the human element is extremely important for Surefire
as the human interaction forms part of the service experience by the customer.

The top management should be more involved in driving a customer centred service
organization so that it is taken very seriously and trickles down to the customer-facing
staff.
The human resources and finance departments should be involved in setting aside a
budget for staff training to ensure that there is continuous improvement in the level of
services.

The organizational structure is key to the delivering quality services to the customers as
the focus of the different levels should be to deliver the best value to customers and also
to listen to customers rather than focusing more on processes and operations. How the
departments are sensitized to respond to the customer needs.

Kotler, Keller (2009) put forward a checklist of sorts a list quoted from Parasurama et al
showing the SERVQUAL attributes including; Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance

The human elements of the service delivery as put forward by Parasurama (2005)
include:
• Reliability: Ability of the employees to perform the promised service dependably
and accurately.
• Responsiveness: Willingness to help customers and provide prompt service.
• Assurance: Knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to inspire
trust and confidence.
• Empathy: Caring, individualized attention the firm provides its customers.

These are the elements that are directly affected by the human element and for Surefire,
and how they are rating.

Always Sometimes Rarely

Service Quality Attributes
Collect and deliver parcels within the
promised time x
The forms are filled in without errors x

All staff are aware of the Surefire service x

products and rates charged

The staff communicate immediately to the x

customers in case of any problems

Greet the customers with a smile x

The staff are courteous to the customers x

The sales executives call on their x

customers regularly and know their needs

Give customers individual attention while X

serving them

Staffs take responsibility and ownership to x

ensure that the customers’ parcels are
delivered correctly.

Staff are willing to help any customer x

x
The staff are neat and professional

The Importance of Customer/stakeholder relationship

The level of satisfaction received by the customers is normally based on the expectations
that they held about the company before interacting with them. Kotler and Keller (2009),
state that customers form service expectations from sources, such as past experiences,
word of mouth and communications such as advertising.

It is important therefore for Surefire to know the expectations of the customers. It is in

surpassing the customer expectations that Surefire will be able to gain the rewards of
service quality.

For Surefire, building good customer relations will lead to;

• Word of mouth: Happy customers will help to spread the positive attributes about
the brand.

• Referrals: the satisfied customers will refer other customers to Surefire and
therefore increasing its market share.

• Increased share of wallet: The satisfied customers will increase the amount of
business dealings with Surefire.

• Customer loyalty: The happy customers will not find any reason to seek services
from competitors.

• Profits: The cost of acquiring new customers is higher than that of retaining the
customers and this leads to better profits.

How Surefire can develop a relationship with customers/ stakeholders

• Listening: Surefire should implement a regular ‘Voice of the customer’ surveys

and establish a service quality information system. This will help the company to
collect the feedback of the service from the customer’s perspective.

• Reliability: Maintaining high standards concerning the collection and delivery of

parcels.

• Responding quickly to correct any problems arising with the customers.

• Managing end-to-end processes of the delivery and ensure that parcels collection,
transportation, sorting and delivery are all done in a systematic professional
manner.

• Employee research will help to identify the root causes of any service gaps and be
able to rectify them.

• Teamwork helps to build ownership at all stages of service delivery and thus in
total the customer receives
 • Total market surveys to check is if the service quality delivered by Surefire is at
par or above that offered by organizations in the same industry.

• The sales and marketing manager can organize for mystery shopping to identify
gaps in the customer contact moments.

• The Senoir managers should perform front desk services to customers in order to
be exposed to the customers’ experience as delivered by Surefire.

• Seeking continuous improvement through out the delivery process will help the
customers enjoy quality services consistently as well as constantly remind the
employees of the importance customer orientation.

• Managing and measuring expectations will lead to Surefire having a point of

reference from which to build the improvements in service delivery.

• Once the expectations are identified, Surefire should implementing different

options of exceeding expectations.

The integrated marketing mix to deliver superior service by Surefire

Product:
Although Surefire has two products, the same-day delivery and the next day delivery,
there are some special needs by urgency and by the level of security required. For
examples some companies want to deliver payment vouchers to banks and require a more
secure means of delivery. Also there are some extra urgent same-day deliveries that
require very quick response and therefore cannot be grouped with the rest of the parcels.

I recommend that Surefire offer two more products:

• Same-day one hour delivery services

• Same Day Voucher delivery
Place
The location where Surefire collects parcels are important in portraying a customer
centric company. Some of the features that can make for conducive atmosphere would be
lighting, sitting areas, water dispenser, ventilation among other elements. The aim is to
create a relaxing atmosphere for customers waiting to be served.

Price
Surefire should consider using diferrential pricing approach instead of the current
competitive pricing. Foe example the long term b2b contracts should enjow lower rates
than the B2C and C2C customers. This will show them clients that they are appreciated
and are considered special to the company.
Promotion
Surefire should develop a communications plan that will clarify their market position in
order to solidify the grounds gained in the market in the 10 years of operations. Currently
the promotion plan is erratic most customer activities happening at the end of the year
only.

People
People are a crucial element to the service delivery by Surefire. Recruitment and training
of the staff should be a priority to the management. Soft skills should play a major part of
appraising the staff performance. Other factors could be fluency in common languages
and personal presentation.

Physical evidence
The packaging of the parcels should be secure yet presentable. The conditions in which
the parcels are transported and received will also portray the level of care taken by
surefire in the whole delivery process.

Processes

The forms filled by the customers should be easy to read, understand and fill out without
too many unnecessary details. The records should also be maintained in confidence since
they show addresses of both the sender and receiver, which C2C customers are especially
sensitive.