SOLUSI UNIVERSITY
P.O. Solusi Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
FACULTY OF COMERCE
DEPARTMENT OF BUSINES ADMINISTRATION
ASSIGNMENT IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE COURSE:
(MKGT404) – SERVICES MARKETING MANAGEMENT
DUBE PASSMORE
SU: 190115E
LECTURER
TSHUMA N.
BIMESTER
2nd BIMESTER 2023
Question: Topic: Customer experience, actors shaping customer experiences, strategies for
creating good customer experience and highlighting how dimensions of service
quality influence customer experience.
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Introduction
Customer experience has become one of the most practiced competitive business model in a
globalized service marketing. Key to its establishment is the need to sustain a competitive
advantage embedded in the quality of service that companies provide. Shemwell, (1998)
indicates that effective customer retention is critical to drive business success at the same time
meeting customer needs. Building positive relationships is a winning strategy that an
organization would use, targeting customers and delivering superior value over competitors,
(Kotler, 2009). Customer service experience goes hand in glove with an organization providing
excellent service quality that exceeds customer expectations, this will help the firm remain
competitive on the long run and as a result attain its key objectives such as organizational
profitability and competitive edge. In this write up, customer experience is the main subject of
discussion where we explore further, actors that shape customer experience in the service
marketing industry. In addition we will delve into outlining strategies that create good customer
experience. It is of great concern to indicate the importance of these strategies as they help
companies fulfil a mandate to provide quality services through a number of service quality
service dimensions such as tangibles , responsiveness to name a few. The dimensions to quality
services have shown a great influence in the provision of quality services to customers in view
of the service provision.
Definition of Key terms
Service is defined as an activity rendered by the service provider to the service purchaser in
order to satisfy the needs indicated by the client. Doodey &Paquete describe services as an
economic activity that does not consist in the production of physical goods. Key to customer
experience is the first impression obtained by customers after an interaction with a company
brand from awareness to purchase and to loyalty or churn. Delivery of quality services also
influence customer’s perceptions and expectations. Customer service is the provision of
services to customers before, during and after every purchase made. Service quality is defined
in Newman (2001), as the degree and direction between customer service expectations and
perceptions.
Customer journey is defined as the processes of purchasing and experiencing products and
services as seen from a customer’s perspective and can be thought of as a walk in the
customer‘s shoes. (Holmlid &Evenson, 2008).A service quality is a comparison of perceived
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expectations of a service with perceived performance which gives rise to understanding user’s
needs and fulfilling expectations is a responsibility of service providers as customers have
greater expectations from service providers. Such expectations have resulted into experiences
that would offset their expectations.
Customer Experience concept
Customer experience brings new ways of strengthening customer relationships. Verhoef et al
(2009), highlight that practitioner attention is devoted to the concept of customer experience.
In a study by McCarthy &Schadler, (2014) in Forester research findings, customer experience,
is the main priority for a number of executives in various organizations worldwide. This is
further considered a key determinant of long term success by McCarthy &Schadler, (2014).
Customer experience has led to the boom of several internationally leading brands such as
MacDonald’s Apple, Tesla and Google to name few. Their great aim has been in delivering a
superior customer experience by incorporating the mission, vision and value statements.
Research into Customer experience has become integral for academic marketing literature and
this is highlighted by MacColl-Kennedy et al ,(2015), suggesting that customer experience has
brought an impactful and insightful scholarly work published in recent years. This notion is
supported by, Bolton, et al (2014). Customer experience is borrowed from the hedonic
consumption contexts like entertainment and hospitality where service offering is the creation
of extra-ordinary experiences as stated by Arnould &Price, (1993).
In a growing business to business markets, Witell et al, (2020) reiterate that customer
experience is as a predecessor of customer satisfaction has gone through radical changes that
has shaped the service market today. The advent of technology has changed the way people
view customer experience .From time immemorial, customer expectations have been radically
changing and each time, becoming faster than the speed at which companies strive to improve
their customer experience. Customers have great expectations from end-to-end interaction as
they expect it to be the best experience they can obtain within a company.
The customer experience concept, from the manager’s view of service management, oversees
every step of service delivery process, which is an experience that creates a touch point where
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the service environment’s design, function, and customer interaction with service providers
affect customer experience, Jaakkola, et al (2015).
Oracle in its global research study has found that 74% of senior executives believe that
customer experience impacts the willingness of a customer to be a loyal advocate. This
indicates that investing in their experience lead to customer loyalty. Customers put great
emphasis on brand of their choice and they become happier with the company that strive to
take care of their needs through building a strong customer relationship. For those customers
who feel poorly treated or ignored on their customer service emails, they are more likely to
discontinue any business interactions with the organization. This has led to a number of
companies to deliver a superior customer experience that surpass that of their competitors. This
now entails competitors to keep studying the business matrix more often and less with theirs.
In fulfilling customer experience, a company should consider one of the following aspects such
as:
 Setting customer experience as number one brand differentiator in the industry
 Customers may leave a brand they love after just one bad experience
 Customers are willing to pay a price premium for luxury and indulgence services,
simply by receiving a great customer experience.
 Buyers make impulsive purchases after receiving a more personalized customer
experience.
 Customers that rate companies with a high customer experience score are bound to
spend more time and remain loyal for a longer period of time.
Customer journey
A customer centric perspective oversees the customer journey, hence to understand the
emergence of customer experience one need to walk in the customers’ shoes. A search online
for customer journey yields many thousands of results and demonstrate that interest in the
customer experience concept which entails organizations to stay so close to the customer seeing
through their journey. American Express’s research findings, found that 86% of customers are
willing to pay more for them to enjoy a better experience with products or services on offer.
As a result a number of companies across the globe, find it prudent investing in customer
experience. In actual fact, organizations that successfully implement a robust customer
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experience strategy achieve a higher customer satisfaction rate, a reduced customer complaints
resulting in an increased revenue generation. Surprisingly, a small number of organizations in
America are willing to seriously invest in the customer experience as it has proven its
importance in increasing organization’s profitability.
Actors in Customer Experience
Providing a memorable customer experience tend to increase loyalty, sales volumes and
recommendations through feedback from customers. Customer experience as defined by
Zendesk Customer Experience trends report (2019), outlines it as an experience which focuses
on the relationship between a business and its customers , with every interaction, no matter
how brief and even if it doesn’t result in a purchase. In addition, Forrester Research position
customers experience as a perceived interaction of customers with your company. This briefly
indicates that customer experience is an emotional state of the customer in response to their
interaction with your brand. The interaction relates to the company brand promise and
continued reputation as it seek to position itself in the service market.
The most common players to customer experience are customers, employees, technology and
the brand. To offer positive customer experience, organization should consider four aspects
that need to work hand in glove to provide an optimal customer experience. Of the four actors,
the brand creates the highest level of expectations by your customers.
From the side of the organization, eemployees need to deliver on the brand expectations as is
promised in the organizational brand initiative. Customers on the other hand come up with their
own perceptions of the brand promise leading them to greater expectations. The company
employees need to act accordingly, through delivering on the brand promise in perfect
alignment with organizational goals and on the other side giving customer befitting service that
satisfies their needs. To get going, let's define these actors one by one as follows:
The brand
A brand relays messages in the form of advertisements, emails, ads, Chatbot to tell current and
prospective customers on what the organization is planning in terms of delivering their
experiences and satisfaction, known as the brand promise. Nowadays organizations prioritize
electronic advertisement than the traditional one delivered through TV, print media, and radio.
On the contrary, online advertising media such as, direct mail or email, has taken advantage of
technological advancement of the 21st century to develop seamless customer experience.
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Social media through social networking sites such as Facebook, WhatsApp, TikTok and do
provide a platform for either current or past customers to refute or endorse the brand promise.
This they do by telling their emotional stories through interaction with your brand. As a result,
prospects analyse these comments or reviews by combining them with your brand message
which help form their initial expectations from the organization.
Big companies encourage employees to make use of the golden rules to business engagement,
such as “Treat your customers as you want to be treated.” As simple and easy rule it might be
to follow, it has the power to exterminate the overall organizational business.
The assumption of this rule is that customers need to be treated the same way, although in
reality, different customers want to be treated differently. For instance, some customers want
high touch and a lively welcome when they walk into a retail store like TM Pick n Pay and
some just prefer to be left alone until they ask for assistance. The golden rule to business has
good intentions, contrary it can potentially cause harm to your business’ end results. The
platinum rule to business assert that: “Treat customers as they want to be treated”, it thus seems
so a simple statement but it has numerous execution elements. Companies are thus reminded
to conscientize their employees to live and abide by this rule, through imparting a corporate
culture, hiring practices, training, performance and evaluation, as well as incorporating
compensation structure that will enhance the organization achieve customer satisfaction.
The customer
Customers journey, help customers develop expectations and perceptions about your company
and its products. These customers are acquainted to actively interact with the employees such
as the salesman because they now need to have a realistic experience with your service
provision. At every turn of each interaction, emotional responses are born, with some emotions
more intense than others .This is so, because customers perceive and expect different services
they need based on which one is more important at a given time. It is evident that a company
exceeding customer’s expectation creates a positive emotion, and when the company falls short
of these expectations, the customer definitely exhibits a negative emotion. For example, Langa
buys the wrong size of shoes from Bata Shoe Company. He goes back and get it changed
without a concern, eventually Langa will express some positive emotions because the company
has just helped him out.
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However, as expected, it won't be an event that will lead the customer to compliment the
organizational efforts considering that it is the very first time. A customer becomes so loyal to
the company when they continue to have more positive emotions than negatives and to build
such relationship and confidence, it is the duty of the organization to maintain its status quo.
Furthermore, customer expectations are dynamic in nature hence they continually change with
brand messaging and how they get to enjoy ttheir experiences with your company really
matters.
Technology Influence
The advent of technology has brought about new ways of dealing with customer experience.
Technology has brought a sigh of relief as organizations obtain alternative ways of satisfying
customers. In every way possible, technology is key in delivering memorable customer service.
This can only happen if the organization embrace it and change the way it does business.
Technology has brought about effortless and seamless customer experience in that where
customers would travel long distances to acquire your services, they can now obtain them at
the comfort of their homes. A few years back in 2019, a world- wide pandemic reminded
organizations that customers won't need to always frequent your shop or business premise to
get a service as this can alternatively be done through online means. For example Google has
rolled out a number of initiatives to help customers enjoy effortless and seamless service such
as Google Assistant without them having to travel to a Google shop. This shows us how
important technology has become in bringing in, a memorable customer experience.
Technology has brought about an enhanced engagement between customers and service
providers. A good case study is Alibaba.com, a Chinese online company that has strived so
well through the use of technology. The company offers top of range services to its customers
globally where they can conduct business through their cellphones, get the goods or services
delivered to them in no time and thus reducing transportation and agent costs. As a result of
technology advancement, companies are focused on accelerating customer service provision
because the internet is tightly packed with other competitors waiting to offer differentiated
services to your disgruntled customers. Customers through technology enjoy a seamless switch
from one vendor to the other, hence keeping a healthy customer base now rests with the
employees who are frontline representatives of the organization. As has been noted, employees
are the face of the organization because they are the ones who firstly interact with customers.
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This creates the need to ensure that employees are conversant of technological innovations that
drive customer experience for the betterment of the organization’s long term and short goals
and objectives.
Improving and upgrading your technology, employees, brand helps the organization retain its
position as a market leader. This comes from the assumption that customer taste is dynamic
and unpredictable and as a result understanding and improving service marketing relationship
helps build a long lasting bond beneficial to both the organization and the customers.
Ways to improve Customer Experience
Improving customer experience has become a major issue as companies seek to position
themselves in an ever-changing customer experience. There is need to consider seven ways to
create a holistic customer experience strategy that helps an organization increase customer
satisfaction, reduce complaints as it affects revenues inflows and outflows.
Creating a clear customer experience vision
A customer experience strategy should have a clear focused vision that directly communicates
the customer message to the organization. One of the simplest ways to define the vision is
through creation of a set of statements that will act as a guiding principle to the vision statement.
For example, Chicken-Inn uses their core values embedded into their culture, such as
delivering a top of the range service and embracing change.
Putting these principles into practice help drive the culture and behaviour of the organization.
Every member is a team player of your organization and thus they should know and be guided
holistically by these principles which is embedded into all areas of training and development
initiatives.
Understanding who your customers are
The next step in building customer experience principles and strategies is bringing to life the
different types of customers who may directly deal with customer support teams. If an
organization is poised to get to know customer needs and wants, it should be able to connect,
interact and empathize with different challenges that customers face as it directly affects their
customer experience.
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One major breakthrough is segmenting your customers and create personas and or customer
profiles to give each persona a name and personality.
For instance, Tafadzwa is 29 years old, she is interested in exploring new technologies such
as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and is conscious of technology aspects such as following a video
tutorial on her own, whereas Nobuhle who is just 19 years old needs a set of instructions so she
can be able to follow through to understand what is expected of her on a web page. Creating
personas, helps the customer support team to recognize and better understand who they are.
This is very important aspect of ensuring a customer centric approach is guaranteed.
Create an emotional connection with your customers
Emotional contact with customers is so important to establish a lasting bond .In this case there
are phrases such as “it’s not what you say; it’s how you say it” should come to your mind
because the way you express yourself has a bearing on the outcomes of your initiative as an
organization. Presenting yourself well to the customer creates a long lasting impression,
beneficial to business growth. For one to establish the best customer experience, it is ideal to
capacitate your team members so as to build an emotional connection with a customer.
For instance creating an emotional connection comes from public library, in circumstances
where a customer is late on returning a text book due to her mother getting very sick. When
the librarian finds out what had really transpired, they take care of the situation, to the surprise
of the customer, the next day, he arrives home to find out a bouquet of flowers with a note from
the public library customer service team who sent their condolences, after hearing of the sad
news on the passing of the customer’s mother. Retaining such an emotional experience will
leave a lasting affection in the mind of the customer.
Emotions and attitudes drive decisions.
In most circumstances customers become loyal because they are emotionally devoted to the
company .This will make them remember their general attachment whenever they use your
product or service. A business that settle for an emotional connection is bound to outperform
its competitors, thus guaranteeing a competitive advantage in the service market.
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Nowadays positive customer experiences means a lot to the business continuity and studies
have proven this assertion from time to time such as that , a number of loyal customers are
more likely to recommend a brand to their peers if it offers seamless experience through a
well-defined communications channel.
In most cases customers recommend a product or service based on their previous experience
and how they might have received a great and memorable service experience. A sizable number
of customers find a positive experience with a brand to be more influential than the company’s
advertisement initiative.
Capture customer feedback in real time
Customer feedback is one of the pillars of developing a vibrant customer service market. So
many times, organizations lose a lot of customers because they don’t include customer inputs
in formulating business policies and processes. Feedback gives direction of where the
organization is going in terms of understanding the experiences of customers as customers
drive business success in a number of ways. It should come to sense of any organization that it
find ways of delivering a WOW customer experience as it cement a vibrant customer
relationship. Getting to know what the customer thinks about your services helps the
organization re-align efforts in its product and service improvement.
Externally ask so as to internally understand the position of your service offering in the market.
Ideally as a service manager you do this by capturing feedback in real time. The use of live
chat tools like real time conversations with customers, as well as assembling them to come up
with the real picture will improve customer engagements. A follow up and update on
customers’ opinions need to be send through email reaching out to all company customers. At
this stage use of post-interaction surveys and similarly customer experience tools will do
wonders for the organization’s customer base growth. For example online based SuperOffice
Service helps individual customers to collect feedback in real time, through email-based
support, live chats and a self-service knowledge base.
A number of organizations find it so important to make outbound sale calls to customers so as
to gather more insightful feedbacks that would direct decision making process with regard to
customer service experience. Another initiative is to link customer feedback to a specific
customer support agent, as they help show every team member the difference they are making
to the business.
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Use quality framework for team development
By following the steps above, you now know what customers think about the quality of your
service compared to the customer experience principles you might have defined. The next step
is to identify the training needs for each individual member of your customer support team.
Many organizations assess the quality of cell phone and email communication system in which
a quality framework takes this assessment one step further by scheduling and tracking your
team’s development through coaching, eLearning and group training methods.
Act upon regular employee feedback
Most organizations have an annual survey process where they capture the overall feedback of
your team and how engaged they are. It also include the business ability to deliver an
exceptional service to customers. A continuous employee feedback can play a role using tools
that allow staff to share ideas on how to improve the customer experience and for managers to
see how staff is feeling towards the business. For example, using project management software
or social media tools help create a closed environment where your organization can post
continuous feedback.
Measure the return on Investment
Businesses exist for the purposes of getting something out of their investments. In this case it
is vital for the firm to know if such investments in manpower (service teams), technology,
processes and procedures are yielding any positive results. This comes after delivering quality
service to drive up customer experience which helps encourage customers to come for more
services in future.
Measuring customer experience is one of the biggest challenges faced by organizations today.
As a result a substantial number of companies collects valuable information from customers
by asking a single open ended question such as "How best can you rate our services?” This
helps firms improve on service offering and correct mistakes they do in trying to deliver a
service.
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Personalize experiences
Personalization help a service company differentiate itself from competitors by creating unique
customer experiences, and offering more personalized services. This is a trend which has
increasingly become important for customers today. This is so, because in one way or the other,
customer service experience has become completely sophisticated than ever before. Thus,
personalized experiences enables service providers to understand their customers better and
respond to their needs more quickly, Kotler, (1994). This entails service companies to keep up
with the latest trends and technologies that enhance personalized experiences as it helps an
organization remain competitive in the market. For example a number of customers prefer ads
that are customized based on their interests. To enhance customer satisfaction rates,
organizations have to tailor-make experiences based on customers’ specific needs and choices.
Through creation of health customer experience, developing innovation, and continuously
improving service performance, an organization gains a significant competitive edge over its
rivals. Also, by partnering with some service providers in multiple locations or areas, business
organizations can benefit from economies of scale and further optimize customer experience
through a wider service delivery method.
Making use of customer data analytics helps organizations collect insights from past
interactions and preferences. A wise use of this vital information impacts personalization of
target offers, communication and recommendation from stakeholders such as sales person,
service marketing team.
Creating a seamless channel experience.
Technological advancements has brought about seamless experiences across a number of touch
points and services channels. In view of the above, a number of online shoppers prefer multiple
channels to satisfy their shopping needs. This gives them a bargain power over existing
distributors. Helping customers to consistently connect and engage with the company through
multiple channels and platforms, such as electronic mail helps them enjoy effortless service
experience. It’s also vital to implement strategies that provide smooth transitions between
platforms, such as synchronized communication system, a unified customer database and
customer service wall chat.
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Optimising customer journey maps
Creation of a great customer experience, through their entire customer journey map can be of
great importance because, McKinsey’s research suggests that customer journey maps are
significantly strongly interconnected with business outcomes than with touchpoints. This
means that an organization would need a clear and thoughtful end-to-end experience with the
customer interaction at each point.
An emphasis on customer’s journey, and identifying their grieving problems, offers new
opportunities to create a great customer experience for the organization. As a result, it enables
service teams to brainstorm on ideas that would reduce resistance, improve customer
relationship, and subsequently increase business growth. When it comes to performance, a
customer journey is more strongly correlated with customer satisfaction than with performance
on touchpoints as it strongly correlate with business outcomes.
Dimensions of Service Quality that influence customer experience
Service quality dimensions as stated by some scholars like Juwaheer and Parasuraman
highlight that assurance, tangibility, empathy, reliability, and responsiveness are among the
paramount features of service quality, Johnson, (2006). The first of the five dimensions of
service quality include assurance which refers to competence, credibility, and security of
services, Ross, (2003). Secondly, tangibility is viewed as the attractive appearance of
equipment, personnel, facilities, and communication materials (Sentosa, 2013). Raza, (2012)
indicate that, empathy is the care, understanding, and attention towards the customer. Applying
these dimensions will help an organization refine its service quality to satisfy customer needs.
The fourth service quality dimension is reliability which outlines ability and a realised promise
from the service providers to deliver dependably and accurately as emphasised by Osman,
(2013). The last service quality dimension is responsiveness which is a continuous willingness
to provide services in various situations of the customer journey.
The key to success and sustenance for any organization lies in delivering quality services to
the target market. Provision of quality services is critical to ensure companies achieve
customer’s satisfaction which plays a pivotal role in customer retention within an organization.
In addition, it help minimize customer switching behavior, Mohammad et al, (2018).The
service market is of the view that the fittest ones survive.
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Resultantly firms that offer high quality services tend to increase and improve their efficiency
in delivering services because it enhance realization of high profit margins over its competitors
and in the process building a positive customer experience. Service quality as defined by
Newman, (2001) is the degree and direction between customer service expectations and
perceptions. Service quality helps an organization understand how critically customers get
satisfied with services rendered. Arasli et al, (2001) reiterates that service quality directly
impacts customer satisfaction and for the company, it helps maintain and retain loyal
customers. Meeting the expectations and perceptions of customers is what puts the organization
on the right path to business and market growth. It is because of this assertion that, customers
always seek to obtain actual experiences that exceed their expectations.
Organizations gain an edge in a competitive market as long as it offer quality services to
customers. In a stiff market competition, products may be so similar but what differentiate your
organization from the rest is the way it delivers customer service. As a result delivering services
of high quality directly impacts customer experience in that it influences their perceptions on
services rendered to them. Service quality with its dimensions greatly impacts the customer
experience in many ways. To understand this assertion, companies always ensure that they
make use of these dimensions to achieve customers’ satisfaction.
Through experiences, customers are prepared to pledge their allegiance to the organization and
as a result one finds out that, service quality dimensions greatly influence customer
experiences. Service dimensions as indicated in Zeithaml, et al, (2006), include tangibles,
reliability, assurance, empathy and responsiveness. In outlining service quality dimensions, we
need to consider, its impact on customer experience and expectations from services rendered.
Reliability
Reliability is one major service quality dimension that ensure companies fulfill what they have
promised to deliver to their customers. O'Neil &Palmer (2003) gives an in-depth approach to
customer service quality. He indicates that a service provider is compelled to fulfill promises
made to their customers. In circumstances where customers fill frustrated due to delays in
delivering a service, they end up giving up on their much hyped experience from the
organization. For example, Tawanda sends his BMW for servicing at Crocco motors. The
service provider assures Tawanda that the vehicle will be ready for collection in five hours’
time.
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When Tawanda calls to confirm if all is done, the receptionist assures him that, the vehicle
servicing is almost complete and that he can proceed and collect it. To his surprise, Tawanda
finds out that the car is not yet finished and it would require him to wait for hours. As a result,
Tawanda is not happy with the service delivery, as what he expected is different from reality.
As a result the service provider has failed to offer reliable services to this customer and it is
likely that Tawanda will possibly next time look for the service elsewhere to save on the delay
costs. Such poor service delivery will definitely affect customer experience as the customer
won’t be able to enjoy poor services given to him.
Assurance
An offer of assurance is significant in service quality as it instills a degree of confidence and
trust that the service provider would engrave in a customer’s mindset. Based on the interactions
between the customer and the service marketer, assurance guarantees security of services
provided in that they are of high quality. Customers expect and perceive high service provision
that gives them much needed satisfaction. Many service providers fail to give a valid assurance
and as such, customers tend to lose trust in them. This results in no guarantee that customers
will come back for more services in future and for a company losing loyal customers is a big
blow to their status in a competitive market as this subsequently hurts the organization’s
business.
For any service provider, assurance boost confidence and when customers are offered the
service, their experiences won’t be far away from their expectations. In that regard, dimension
of service quality such as assurance plays an integral part on both parties in that, customers
obtain satisfaction which arouse their experiences. O’Neil &Palmer, (2003) support this claim
by concurring that interactions between both parties build confidence and trust.
The knowhow and manner of interaction with the customer stimulates credibility and trust
because customers can better know you through service experiences that appeals to their need.
Customer experience is such that perceptions and expectations towards the organization is
driven by the way in which an organization render its services to customers. When there is no
traits of quality in service provision, customers won’t enjoy experiences in them and it is
probable that they won’t come again in future. This happens so because those experiences of
poor service will paint a bad picture about the organization.
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The organization should exhibit reliableness so as to retain existing customers and attract new
ones. This shows a direct relationship between the provision of quality service and customer
experience.
The dimension of service quality play a critical role as it influences the way by which customers
view the organization based on service offerings in a competitive market. One thing that guides
this point is that, products are the same in most circumstances and to be competitive, the
organization should offer services of quality much better than rivals. Assurance alone cannot
do it all for the customer’s expectations, hence delivery of quality services does the wonders.
Tangibles
Zeithaml et al., (2006), and O’Neill &Palmer, (2003), postulate that tangibles are physical cues
that are part of the service delivery process. Tangibles help facilitate smooth interaction process
between the customer and the sales representative of the company on what service customers
would expect .These come in the form of signage , leadership hierarchy layout , parking’s and
so forth . In view of the intangibility of services, tangibles help customers have a clue of what
they would expect be it inside the shop or a hotel. For example Cresta hotel, Victoria Falls has
raised one of the most decorated and attractive signage that help market services they offer at
the hotel .This gives customers a sense of great expectations and perceptions of what they
would enjoy when they finally reach the hotel and book for those services as advertised on the
signage.
As we see, tangibles help customers visualize and as a result they are eager to experience those
services as shown through tangibles. Service quality has an effect on customer loyalty and
according to Heskett, (2002), loyalty is experienced by an organization when the perceived
service quality experienced by customers exceeds that which offered by its rivals.
Empathy
According to Zeithaml, (2006), service quality impacts on relationship marketing as customers
are willing to build strong relationships with organizations that provide service quality.
In this case we explore how empathy contributes to a realized customer experience as a
dimension of service quality. Empathy entails treating the customer in such a way that they feel
honored and respected by the organization. This happens when their needs are taken care of
through receiving care and personalized attention, (Zeithaml, (2006).
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Empathy as a an integral dimension to service quality builds a strong affection of the company
and their customers because drawing customers so close to the heart of the company gives them
a dignified state of importance to the organization .Customers who continuously interact with
the organization are so close in that their experiences are a priority to the company and as such
the organization won’t lose grip of them.
At the same time, customers are prepared to offer whatever vital feedback that can help the
company improve on aspects where it is lagging behind or maintain where it is doing quite
well. From empathy to customer experience, it is the duty of organizations to ensure they walk
the talk in quality service provision.
Responsiveness
According to Zeithaml, et al, (2006), responsiveness is the willingness on the part of the service
provider to deliver assistance to the customer. A service provider is a key player to
responsiveness because customers always expect to get a positive response that would solve
their problems even in dire circumstances. Service provision involves response to customer
needs and attending these needs entails providing a befitting quality service to customers to
enhance their experience.
One would ask why customers always expect more from service providers, this is because their
taste is dynamic and as such to satisfy customer needs, organization has to prove beyond
reasonable doubt that they can provide services which are far much better than that of their
competitors. Customer’s expectations is that they should obtain services that offset their
monetary value. Responsiveness helps organization widen their customer base because
customers go where they are taken care of. Responsiveness encourages organizations to put the
needs of the customer first and as a result the company is indebted to give customers a lasting
experience on services of high quality.
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CONCLUSION
Customers have greater expectations, more than ever before and the word of mouth travels fast
than we thought. When the customer becomes more empowered, it increases the importance of
customer experience. As we all know, customer experience is an important area that needs
constant nurturing and care from all interested parties. With the greater focus on customer
experience strategy, companies will realize customer loyalty, higher retention and increased
revenue growth. The customer service concept has the potential ability to change the way
people see business. This can be achieved by incorporating strategies and dimensions to service
quality as they impact the organization’s customer relationship in an ever-changing service
market.
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