5.1 Summary
By analyzing service failures at MTC the researcher came to conclusion that definitely there are several problems that language center should take into consideration. After analyzing and reviewing the data, researcher summarized service failures and steps how to reach service recovery as following:
Author advises MTC to focus on solving following service failures: Promptness, Queue, Shifting responsibility and Relevance. However, language institute should not underestimate other problems: out of office, inability to answer, politeness and language barrier. At the present moment these failures do not have a critical impact onto entire customer’s satisfaction, however, it might arise in the future, so it is recommended to recheck the existence of these problems after doing some steps on improving service quality at MTC.
To reach service recovery it is advised to follow 5 steps:
1 step: Guidelines
Provide clear standardized guidelines for every single staff in the office, provided instructions should include the information below based on customer’s journey:
Advised timing of conversation
Each staff’s responsibilities and contact information
List of counseling issues and how to work on them 2 step: Training
Conduct proper training for employees on following topics:
Employees motivation
How to respond student’s questions 3 step: Rewarding
Consider rewarding customer for reaching best customer satisfaction and receiving feedback from every staff in the office by:
Install customer satisfaction survey devices 4 step: Additional signage
Adding necessary tangibles to increase familiarity with the office internal structure:
43
Add signage for every line showing where queue starts and ends for every serving desk working on different issues
Add signage for every table serving: naming the service and staff's name tag 5 step: Rearrangements
The company should consider following actions and imply these changes in the office:
Rearrange spatial arrangements: Entrances should have clear signs for different information desks (and lines) to avoid line interferences
Reallocate responsibilities: at least 2 persons should share similar
responsibilities and be aware whom each of them should substitute in case one of them is out of the office
5.2 Recommendations
This study evaluated what kind of service failures exists at educational institution and how to work on them, therefore, in the future these results might be used mainly in educational spheres or in studies covering front desks service. However, at the present moment, as the main idea was to observe service failure at MTC, it is advised for the management team of MTC to consider obtained results and evaluate possibility of implying them in language center.
Due to the variety of limitations in this study: number of methods used (only one method – observation), time of observation, shortage of respondents, personal factor of
researcher, cultural differences, it is advised for the future researchers to take into considerations problems that author herself faced and to increase the scope of study. It is recommended to work with other institutions and evaluate the service quality at different information centers. Also, as the author covered only core service encounter, for future studies it is advised to consider pre- and post-core encounters too.
44
References
Flanagan , P., & Horowitz, L. R. (2000). Exploring new service models: Can consolidating public service points improve response to customer needs? The Journal of Academic
Librarianship, 329-338. doi:10.1016/s0099-1333(00)00139-7
Kotler, P. (1997). Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, Implementation, and Control (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Module 15: Customer Service Strategies. The Gap Model of Service Quality. (n.d.). Retrieved
from Lumen Learning:https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wmopen-retailmanagement/chapter/the-gap-model-of-service-quality/
Nextiva. (2019). Customer service statisctics. Retrieved from Nextiva:
https://www.nextiva.com/blog/customer-service-statistics.html
Parasuraman, A. P., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L. (1985). A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and its Implication for Future Research (SERVQUAL). Journal of Marketing, 41-50.
Paul, J., & Sahadev, S. (2016). Service failure and problems: Internal marketing solutions for facing the future. Journal of Reatiling and Consumer Services, 304-311.
doi:10.1016/j.jretconser.2016.08.007
Spencer, H., & Mortensen, K. (2014). Moving into interaction---Social practices for initiating encounters at a help desk. Journal of Pragmatics, 46-67.
Sridhar, S., & Srinivasan, R. (2012). Social influence effects in online product ratings. Journal of
Marketing, 70-88.
Sua, Y., & Teng, W. (2018). Contemplating museums’ service failure: Extracting the service quality. Tourism Management, 214-222.
The Customer Service Gap Model. (n.d.). Retrieved from Brainmates :
https://brainmates.com.au/brainrants/the-customer-service-gap-model/
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2020). Service industry. Retrieved from Encyclopaedia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/topic/service-industry Voorhees, C. M., Fombelle, P. W., Gregoire, Y., Bone, S., Gustafsson, A., Sousa, R., &
Walkowiak, T. (2017). Service encounters, experiences and the customer journey:
Defining the field and a call to expand our lens. Journal of Busines Research, 269-280.
45
Walton, A., & Hume, M. (2012). Examining Public Hospital Service Failure: The Influence of Service Failure Type, Service Expectations, and Attribution on Consumer Response.
Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 202-221.
doi:10.1080/10495142.2012.705179
Zeithaml, V. A., Bitner, M. J., & Gremler, D. D. (2010). Service Marketing Strategy. Wiley
International Encyclopedia of Marketing: Marketing Strategy, 1, 208-218.
Zeithaml, V. A., Bitner, M. J., & Gremler, D. D. (2012). Services Marketing (6th ed.). London:
McGraw-Hill Education.
46
• Employee’s name tag Queue’s signs Door bell
Customer journey
Visiting the
information center Finding a desk to ask Standing in queue (only if
necessary) Receiving a solution Leaving the office
Customer
actions Entering the office Looking for a desk being in
charge of his/her question Standing in queue if necessary Setting up a problem Answering related questions Accepting solution /
advice Leavening the office
• Helping to organize students line
• Checking students order of queue
• ** (if needed) Evaluating the answer and repeating
*might be repeated several times with one or several employees
Online queue / queue ticket machine
• Guidance for every staff’s responsibilities
• Quick access to every staff in the office
• Notes / leaflets / printed materials / register lists
Online chat / phone calls / payment process
• Supported materials
• Computer
• Phone