Managing in the service environment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Managing in the service environment - Essay Example Nowadays exporting of services is an expanding business. India is currently recognized as the largest services exporter in the world. Services sector comprises 70% proportion of the total output in the world but only 20percentage proportion of the same is incorporated in world’s international trade. Thus exporting of services is an under developed industry. India’s experience reveals that development of economies is not necessarily lead by the industrialization. Services sector driven economic development is also possible. India moved from being an agriculture based economy to services based economy without involving industrialization (The Nation). Therefore identifying the issues relating the companies in the services sector has become rather important to the development of countries. It has been revealed that the service quality in British banks is substantially low. Customers are increasingly dissatisfied by the banking experiences in England (Johnston, 1997). Such i ssues and increasingly identifying economic significance has called for challenging research studies relating the service quality. 1. Introduction of Customer Service Customer service plays an important role in building the brand loyalty. â€Å"Loyal and an involved customer† is an asset to a company. Developing such a customer base is recognized as the aim of â€Å"customer service† by most of the modern day businesses. ... Part of the contemporary businesses’ everyday mission is to cultivate consumer relationships by strengthening emotional connection with the customer. Listening to customers through rigorous consumer research and strong consumer orientation by keeping the products relevant and appealing are important elements in customer service. 2. Introduction of Service Quality Service quality is defined as "the extent of discrepancy between customers' expectations or desires and their perception of what is delivered" (Zeithaml et. al., 1990). According to the SERVQUAL approach the spheres of service quality can be described in terms of (1) Tangibles: â€Å"Appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel and communication materials"(2) Reliability: "Ability of the organization to perform the promised service dependably and accurately. (3) Responsiveness: "Willingness of organization’s staff to help customers and provide them with prompt service"(4) Assurance: "Knowledge, comp etence and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence in the customer towards the service firm" and (5) Empathy: "Caring, individualized attention the firm provided its customers" (Manjunatha and Shivalingaiah, 2004). Thus it can be seen that customers’ expectations from a services based company includes attributes of physical environment as well as the human resources. Physical capital of the company has to be appealing and convenient to the consumer. Contemporary businesses use this concept as a marketing strategy and invest substantial amounts of resources to build the physical environment of their companies. Example: modern stores are carefully designed to reflect the image of the company brand. The showcases and environment of these stores are specifically