Significance Of Service Encounter And Managerial Implications: A Case Study Of Dominos

Flowchart of Front-stage and Back-stage Operations of Dominos

Customer Actions– In respect with the customer actions, the process starts with the entering in the Dominos premises and experiencing several physical evidence service like the parking space for the vehicles, blue colour walls and employee uniform, distinct ambience with music and television and menu items. The consumer actions include all those collective activities performed by me during the course of the service delivery (Aspray, Ocepek and Royer, 2014).

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In the next phase, the consumer actions relate with the service provided by the Dominos which comprises of various set of actions. This process starts with various actions like receiving the menu item lists, confirmation of the order, felling the ambience, receiving the bill and filling of feedback forms. For more effective service delivery, it is important that the customer and staff of Dominos interact with full space.

Front Stage Interaction– The front stage interaction in the service delivery includes the face-to-face interaction between me and the staff. In this route of interaction, the staff will listen and respond to my queries. These queries can be related to the ordering of pizza, help in choosing a respective product for consumption, getting of the order to eat and paying the bill by completing the whole process of service delivery. This line of interaction plays a crtical role in the whole service delivery model which needs to be handled carefully by the management with full efficacy (Zomerdijk and Voss, 2010).

Back Stage Interaction– This is a backline process in the service delivery model which is also called as invisible interaction. This type of interaction made between the internal department of the branch which includes of the staff, management and the operations (Systems).  The check in and check out registration is also a part of the process in service delivery model. This line of interaction comprises various order and customer support activities like taking personal record of the customer including the needed menu item or product, baking of the food and managing various other activities (Payne, Storbacka and Frow, 2008). The whole process and every activity of the system is handled by the internal staff working in Dominos and this is why there is no face to face interaction between the customers and staff.

Physical Evidence– The physical evidence is related to the customer perception which leads to the resemblance of the store or its nearby elements in the mind of customer even if the customer is far away from the store. This includes the environment at the Dominos store, physical elements like wall colour, table and furniture, menu checklists, staff dress or uniform, parking facilities near the store and the waiting area (Ryu and Han, 2010).

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Importance of Service Encounter and its Significance

The service encounter blueprint provides an overall pictre of the serice provision to perceive an entire service process and its integrated structure (Noone and Mattila, 2010). The blueprint is used for analysing the service process techinique including fail point, employment engagement and customer wait.

The end point of the servic encounter will always be measured in terms of customer satisfaction. This satisfaction model will be derived from the key determinants including market share, profitbaility, customer feedback and customer referrals.

Market Share– Fast food is a growing industry and many businesses perceive stong potential in the market. In addition, there are already many big competitors present in the market and giving tough competition to Dominos in terms of price, product and competitive advantage. Some of these competitiors are McDonald, Piza Hut and Burger King.

For gaining the market share, Dominos can use their service delivery model in an effective manner and make the customer satisified.

  • Higher Profit– For any organization whether service based or any other from the industry, making profit is the primary concern (Weerawardena, McDonald and Mort, 2010). If the customer is satisfied, sales and profitability of the organization will automatically increase. On the other hand, it may go to negative also and leads to the loss if the customer were dissastisfied.
  • Customer repitition and retention – This aspect of the determinant is also diretly related to the customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The number of customer repetition in the Dominos store will show that the company is successful in making the customer satisfied. Hence, they will also be loyal to the brand.
  • Customer Feedback– During the last stage of service delivery when I had completed the food given by Dominos, the company always make fill the customer feedbck form with the help of mobile messaging link. The reason behind this policy of the company is simple as they want to improve each and every aspect of their service delivery model. Higher or five star average rating shows that the customer is satisfied with the brand whereas low rating i.e. below three stars, shows that the customr needs to impove a lot in delivery effective service.
  • Customer Referral – This also plays an important role in the growth of the Dominos. After fully eating the Pizza delivered by Dominos, it upon me that wheher should I refer their pizza to someone or not. It is directly related with my satifaction and disatisfaction. I will refer if satisfied and will not refer if dissastified.

During the service delivery model, the gap between the management, staff and operational process need to evaluate crtitically so that the service encounter can be positively eastablished. This can be done by using the RATER model which stands for Reliability, Assurance, Tangibility, Empathy and Responsiveness. This model help to evaluate the customer expectations (Larson and Steinman, 2009). Dominos needs to fulfill all aspects of RATER model so that to find out the respective gap. For filling the gap of relaibility, Dominos need to ensure that their Pizza is maintained with an optimum level of quality and should be delievered as per the promise. Dominos should also ensure their customers that their concern and issue will be solved by their experienced staff who are well knowlwegable and skilled to tackle any problem. The tangible elements of the Dominos are very simliar irrespective of countries and branch. In terms of Empathy, Dominos should always make their customer happy by delivering quality pizza and beverages. The last aspect of Rater model is also important which states the staff responsiveness towards the queseris of customers. If they are solving queris on an immediate basis, the customer will feel more delightfull.

The manager of the Dominos plays an important role in the positive service encounter. For an effective service delivery model, they need to understand and evaluate every element of the service model including the operational processes, customers and the staff. The negative service encounter can lead the organization to bear a high amount of cost and as customer may also be dissatisfied due to the poor performance of the management and staff of the Dominos. This makes Dominos compensate for the loss in various parts like process, customer retention and marketing.

Analysis of the Service Encounter Blueprint

The management of Dominos also needs to ensure the significance of the positive encounter with both lines of interaction i.e.  Line of visibility and line of internal interaction. They also need to emphasis on the three important service recovery areas (Patrício, Fisk and Falcao, 2008). This service area includes the interaction with customers, processes and systems and planning of the staff.

In the first recovery area with relation to the customer, it is important to convert the failure encounter into the peaceful encounter. For achieving this strategic goal, the management of Dominos needs to train their employees and staff so that to improve the perception of the customers towards the brand. The management also treats their customer on the priority basis. If any error committed by the staff in Dominos, the management needs to make immediate apology and make feel the customers that they are feeling sorry for what happens from their side. This will make the brand value rise in the eyes of the customers and help in the customer retention and referrals.

Considering the process and system used in the service delivery model, the management should ensure that they are well integrated to deliver the effective service. They also need to evaluate every aspect related to the service encounter. Therefore, an effectiveness in the process is also directly related with the customer satisfaction.

The manager should also train their staff and management according to the changing market environment (Wang, Chen and Chen, 2012). All staff and managers should be techno friendly and know how to target their prospective customer and convert them into the consumer.

The reason why Dominos is playing under market leadership is due to its offering of best services, their high standard set of policies regarding the employee behaviour, menu localization, cost leadership strategy and pricing strategy. One of the major factors that lead to the success of the Dominos is the aggressive and mega advertising. This help the company in getting consumer awareness. In addition, the company also optimise their delivery channel by reinforcing their slogan – “Dominos Pizza: You Got 30 MinutesTM”. This shows that every activity in their supply chain is integrated to provide optimum value to the customers and also provide a competitive edge to the company in the fast food industry.

In addition, as long as Dominos continues to listen to their customers, they can stay in the competitive environment, which is full of advancement in the tech world. They also have a growth potential due to the continuous development of the fast-food industry.

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