Service-Dominant Logic and Customer Satisfaction - Term Paper Example

? Service-Dominant Logic and Satisfaction Service-Dominant Logic and Satisfaction Introduction The concept of value integrates quality and consumer satisfaction; in fact, service-dominant logic regards the supplier and consumer as the co-creators of service or value. In this case, companies focus on creating value actualization more than they do to commodities. Moreover, they have realized that creation of value is more significant than production of distinct goods and services since it depends on customer expectations. On the other hand, creation of value actualization is a vital role taken by the customers, and this may require contacting suppliers through their own individual ways. Nevertheless, numerous dimensions can be applied to approach through which new logic and value; in fact, there are critical issues rose relating to services-dominant (Achrol & Kotler, 2006, 320). Client expectations concerning value and satisfaction are based on three-concept quality with core factors for differentiating them. However, the disparities among these concepts are vague and overlapping (Bebko, 2000, 26). Expectations held by customers regard the quality of services and products encountered, which is similar to the expectations held about the entire firm, which offered the service. Moreover, there are situations that regard the expectations of individual services experienced by customers. This increase chances for them to be specific and concrete; for instance, time consumed while waiting for a receptionist, which is more of to their expectations than the entire quality of the services offered by the company. 1. Analyse and respond to the explicit expectations and implicit expectations of core clients at the start of the project front-end. Client’s expectations refer to the beliefs concerning delivery of services, which considered the standards and reference point for evaluating the performance. Customers are fond of making comparison of their perceptions concerning performance of the firms, which is evaluated through references of the point’s evaluation such as the level of quality, knowledge and their expectations (Gummesson, 2006, 239). In fact, identification of clients’ expectations is vital to the marketers and the entire company due to their critical aspect of seeking to deliver good quality service to them. On the other hand, lack of understanding of the customer services can result to a loss of customer’s business, while the competitors are gaining market share (Porter, 1985, 30). Explicit expectations of the core clients at the start of the project are based on the promises made through personal and non-personal statements concerning the services made by the company to the customer (Graf & Maas, 2008, 20). In this case, personal statements require communication through salespeople, services, or repair personnel. However, this promises become non-personal in situation when they are acquired through advertisements, brochures and other publications (Hubbert, Sehorn & Brown, 1995, 21). Therefore, logic is established through promises made concerning the exact quality of services that will be delivered in a way that manages client expectations. In this case, this guarantees that the promises made will meet the expectation of the client concerning a certain service. There are company representative, who are over-promising due to lack of knowledge regarding the necessary promise that can be made. However, confusion is caused by failing to consider that services are customized; thus, this lead to lack of ease in definition and repetition. In other instances, company representatives lack the knowledge concerning the nature of the final form of the service that will be delivered. Explicit services have a substantial influence on customers’ expectations based on the desires of the services and their speculations. In fact, this is due to the way these services alter customer’s desires in general based on their prediction concerning the experience of the next service. Implicit expectations are based on promises regarding services related to the cues and not the explicit promises, which can result to inference about the nature of the services. Moreover, implicit expectations are influenced by quality cues, which are dominated by the price and tangibles that are associated with services (Johnson & Mathews, 1997, 290). In this case, premium prices for a service and impressive tangibles leads to high client’s expectations from the services. For example, a client-purchasing insurance policy and he or she is faced by two companies with different prices that are radically dynamic. In this case, this may lead to expectations that the firm selling the insurance at the highest price will offer higher quality services and a better coverage (Yap & Sweeney, 2007, 137). Moreover, this is similar to the case a customer in a five-star hotel expecting high standards of services due to his desires and prediction. Whether the customer has implicit or explicit expectation, all expectations are used as reference points to compare delivery of services at beginning of the project. However, these expectations vary based on the reference point held by the client. Nevertheless, different customers have intuitive sense of their expectations; marketers are required to be thorough and clear understand, evaluate and manage these expectations (Korkman, 2006, 1). In addition, there are different ranges of levels of customer satisfaction, which are based on their desires and adequate services and not a single level. There is a tolerance zone, which represents differences between desires and services based on the level of service that they consider sufficient. In other situations, customers may have similar expectations based on their desires concerning different categories of services. However, these categories are not classified the same in the entire industry. For instance, there are customers with desires based on their prices of services offered by the firm or type of services offered. For example, when a customer desires services through expectations of fast-food restraint, he or she expects quick, convenient, and tasty food, which is offered in a clean setting. Other customers seek services from a costly restaurant; they expect stylish environment, fine food, and cordial employees. Therefore, expectations of desired services should be used as a benchmark for evaluating the level of services offered by a firm in the industry, while the categories of these services are considered similar to customers’ perceptions. 2. Develop ways to meet evolving expectations and emergent needs during project execution. Evolving customers’ expectations can be met by developing ways based on the problems faced during the project execution, which can led to heightened expectations. Moreover, offering quality services during the first project is important since customers attach value to services reliability that is above other dimensions. However, there are situations when the project fails during the recovery phase; this doing it right during the in the future depends on the reliability of the project recovery, which is critical to the project (Khalifa, 2004, 645). For example, a client may have expectations of receiving services with a point. In case, he or she experiences a problem in the future, there is need to provide means through which they can contact the company to get the problem solved. In addition, further problems may be faced during the project execution; thus, there is need for adequate service levels to deal with these emergent needs (Shembri, 2006, 395). In additions, temporary services in the project to satisfy emergent needs are considered intensifiers at the present level that involve adequate services, which increases with the decrease in level of customer tolerance. Other ways for meeting evolving expectations and needs relates to the seeking perceived services alternatives from other providers. In a situation where customers have acquired multiple service providers, there are chances that the providers will offer adequate services that are better than initial during the first project (O’Neill, Wright & Palmer, 2003, 281). Tolerance for service performance prevails to knowledge of existing alternatives. Therefore, a client is guaranteed that in case a need arises in the future, there are other service providers available to deal with the problem. Nevertheless, others can schedule and lower levels of services compared to others. Therefore, customers’ perceptions concerning their services may focus on existence of alternatives and level of adequacy of services when tolerance cannot be accommodated. There are expectations derived by the customers based on the managers and supervisors; for instance in business-to-business situations. In this case, in order to address the emergent needs and expectations, employees need to conduct a marketing research in order to quicken the project cycles (Dahlgaard & Dahlgaard-Park, 2006, 263). Moreover, this increase the expectations for speeding the delivery during situation when they are experiencing pressure to deliver their results. Therefore, there is need to define the clients’ perceptions in order to increase chances of meeting evolving expectation and needs. In this case, the client’s perception is defined in terms of influence based on the degree of the influence caused by the services delivered to them (Lusch & Vargo, 2006, 281). In addition, the evolving customer expectations can be altered by the performance of the service providers through the roles of the service delivered. The other approach to address evolving expectations can be based on the clients giving specifications of the level of expected services in the future (Zeithaml, 1981, 32). However, this approach fits customers with explicit expectations, whereby they can assist the firm by indicating their expectations and things that can lead to their dissatisfaction. Therefore, this makes it easy to deal with evolving expectations since they are based on the present expectation while considering the ways to avoid chance of causing dissatisfaction. 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