Services Marketing

SERVICES MARKETING

Summary

I always consider a good service as a necessary condition for running a company,or even a small restaurant. Why service is of so great importance? Why nowadays so many people care about it so much? Years ago, I went to the Elegant Salon to make a haircut, however it’s bad service made me very uncomfortable. The Elegant Salon is a very big haircut industry company in China, and famous for it’s service. So I made some researches about this company to find the answer. The first part is description about my bad experience in the Elegant Salon and the basic information of this company. The second part is analysis through customers gap and provider gap. The customer gap contains customer expectations and customer perception. And the provider gap contains the listening gap, the service design and standards gap and the communication gap. And the third part is recommendations to different gaps.

Table of Contents

Part 1: Critical incident description

Part 2: Analysis

The Customer Gap

1.The customer expectation of Elegant Salon:

1) Expectation of staff service attitude: Service should be enthusiastic

2) Expectation of staff service attitude: Service should be enthusiastic

3) Expectation of hairstylist: Attitude is everything

2. The customer perception of the Elegant Salon

1) Perception of the Elegant Salon’s style  

2) Perception of staff service attitude  

3) Perception of hairstylist

The Provider Gap

Gap1: The listening gap

Gap 2: The Service Design and Standards Gap

Gap 3: The Communication Gap  

Part 3: Recommendations

1.Recommendations to close the Customer gap

2. Recommendations to the listening gap

3. Recommendations to close the Service design and Standards gap

4. Recommendations to close the communication gap

Part4: Reference

Part 1: Critical incident description

The Elegant Salon was founded in 1996, which is headquartered in Chaoyang District, Beijing. Neat office environment comprehensive management system and management consultancy provide the effective business security and management system. It has over 4 thousands of square shop, 300 technical consultants shop. And it is the only one with its own original haircut and hair salon business brand in China. So I think such a famous company must have very nice service and I went to its shop to make a haircut. However, the barber just ask me a few simple questions to know the look I want, and then started his job. I thought maybe he is professional and have treated lots of customers like me, so he is easy to understand me to design a good hairstyle fit for me. I totally believed in him and I just closed my eyes and try to enjoy his service. During his service, he kept promoting shampoo, hair conditioner and other goods of Elegant Salon brand. I felt very bad and even didn’t want to talk to him. Then I asked him to stop talking and he is unhappy about my response. After finishing my haircut, I opened my eyes to see my new look. Honest to say, it is a failed work. The new color and style of my hair didn’t fit for my face. I asked the barber to make my hair another color because I was very unsatisfied and he refused to change the color for free. I thought I would never come to this company’s shop and didn’t recommend it to my friends.