Basic Marketing: A Global Managerial Approach

Perreault−McCarthy: Basic

Marketing: A

Global−Managerial

Approach, 14/e

19. Implementing and
    Controlling Marketing
    Plans: Evolution and
    Revolution

Text © The McGraw−Hill

Companies, 2002

556 Chapter 19

Our case shows that people in different areas of the restaurant affect customer

satisfaction. The waitperson couldn’t do what was needed to satisfy customers

because the cashier had trouble with the credit card machine. The TQM approach

helps everyone see and understand how their job affects what others do and the

customer’s satisfaction.^6

The restaurant case illustrates how a firm can improve implementation with

TQM approaches. We used a service example because providing customer service is

often a difficult area of implementation. Recently, marketers in service businesses

have been paying a lot of attention to improving service quality.

But some people seem to forget that almost every firm must implement service

quality as part of its plan—whether its product is primarily a service, primarily a

physical good, or a blend of both. For example, a manufacturer of ball bearings isn’t

just providing wholesalers or producers with round pieces of steel. Customers need

information about deliveries, they need orders filled properly, and they may have

questions to ask the firm’s accountant, receptionist, or engineers. Because almost

every firm must manage the service it provides customers, let’s focus on some of the

special concerns of implementing quality service.

Quality gurus like to say that the firm has only one job: to give customers exactly

what they want, when they want it, and where they want it. Marketing managers

have been saying that for some time too. But customer service is hard to implement

because the server is inseparable from the service. A person doing a specific service

job may perform one specific task correctly but still annoy the customer in a host

of other ways. Customers will not be satisfied if employees are rude or inattentive—

even if they “solve the customer’s problem.” There are two keys to improving how

people implement quality service: (1) training and (2) empowerment.

Firms that commit to customer satisfaction realize that all employees who have

any contact with customers need training—many firms see 40 hours a year of train-

ing as a minimum. Simply showing customer-contact employees around the rest of

the business—so that they learn how their contribution fits in the total effort—can

be very effective. Good training usually includes role-playing on handling different

types of customer requests and problems. This is not just sales training! A rental car

attendant who is rude when a customer is trying to turn in a car may leave the cus-

tomer dissatisfied—even if the rental car was perfect. How employees treat a

customer is as important as whether they perform the task correctly.

Companies can’t afford an army of managers to inspect how each employee

implements a strategy—and such a system usually doesn’t work anyway. Quality

cannot be “inspected in.” It must come from the people who do the service jobs.

So firms that commit to service quality empower employees to satisfy customers’

needs. Empowermentmeans giving employees the authority to correct a problem

without first checking with management. At a Guest Quarters hotel, an empow-

ered room-service employee knows it’s OK to run across the street to buy the

specific bottled water a guest requests. In the Saturn car manufacturing plant,

employees can stop the assembly line to correct a problem rather than passing it

down the line.

The implementation effort sometimes leaves customers dissatisfied because they

expect much more than it is possible for the firm to deliver. Some firms react to

this by shrugging their shoulders and faulting customers for being unreasonable.

Research in the service quality area, however, suggests that the problems often go

away if marketers clearly communicate what they are offering. Customers are satis-

fied when the service matches their expectations, and careful communication leads

to reasonable expectations. Sometimes the solution is simple. At Disney World, for

example, waiting in line for a popular ride can be very tiring. Disney found, however,

Manage
expectations—with
good communication

Building quality
into services

Train people and
empower them to serve