HC2112 Reflective Essay Assignment Sample
Here’s the best sample of HC2112 Reflective Essay Assignment, written by the expert.
Background
Customer interactions are an inevitable part of any business despite types of products or services. In a service organization, dealings between customers and business form an important part of the service encounter. This reflective essay will elucidate the significance of service encounter and related managerial implication in service organization considering its front and backstage operations. The chosen service organization is Pari Passu, which is a leading financial service organization. This organization is UK based that offers financial and management consulting services in the field of banking and finance, payments services, e-commerce, m-commerce, retail, supply chain management and much more. It involves both contracting and permanent staffing solutions. This service organization helps other organization in strategic transformation, new technology implementation and business acquisition and mergers. The primary market for the service organization includes small and medium business enterprises in the UK, but it is expanding its services to Thailand and United States (Pari Passu, 2017).
Flow Chart of Back stage operations
Considering the backstage operation of the service organization, these operations are the foundation of the business. The operational skills and technical knowhow of the staff in terms of IT processes and banking and finances concepts are the dependent factors to fulfill the request of the customers. Thus, important operations of the backstage operations include maintenance of the online website to receive customer’s requests. Additionally, the back stage personnel set the standards that are required to fulfill customers request along with approvals and determine budget and key activities to support the front processes.
Flow Chart of Front stage Operations
The front stage operations of the customers include both online and offline user interface. The online interface is through the website to reach a wide range of customers. Another interface is direct interaction with the customers to understand the requirements and provide services accordingly.
Importance of Service Counters
The service encounter hold significance as the future of such service organization depends on the customer experience. Service encounters are majorly responsible for customer service experience and satisfaction. Service encounters are also important to create a positive image of the organization and can gain advantage from word-of-mouth publicity.
According to Jaakkola et al. (2015), every single interaction between business and its customers is an opportunity to create a positive customer experience and to strengthen the service marketing. The service encounters are vital to understanding the customer requirements and expectations from the business. This is also helpful for the service organization to develop activities, budget, approvals, etc. and design the service offering as per the customers. Service encounters for such organization can be considered as an opportunity platform to get feedback from its customers to make necessary changes in the service offerings and other required services to achieve a high level of customer service experience.
Thus, the front stage operations staff of a service organization should make a continuous effort to increase the no. of service encounters to engage potential customers and during service delivery to achieve customer goals. Sometimes, service encounters become fruitful in up selling other services offered by the business. However, there has been a little effort by the organization to distinguish the service psychology dimension of customers (Lam and Mayer, 2014). The service psychology can be significant to understand the demands of the services offered by the organization as well as in the way of service delivery for different customers.
Managerial Implications
Services encounters can also have managerial implications which can affect the market share of the service organization as it is influenced by the customer’s experience and interaction with the business. Moreover, the poor or reduced interactions with customers influence its choice of services with any organization which in turn can impact the return on investments of a service organization (Wilder et al., 2014).
This holds relevant for service organizations as the business is based on its positive image in the operating market. The manner in which business personnel interacts also give an insight on the way the service would be delivered by the organization. A good service encounter with the potential customer is helpful in creating the trust of the customer in service being offered (Söderlund, 2013). Moreover, these service encounters are effective means to determine what factors can lead to negativity and customer dissatisfaction during the final service delivery. Therefore, service encounters in the service organization require a different kind of interactions to take place with the customers to make certain that customers are well aware of the service delivery process, costs and time duration to avoid any confusion that can affect the service experience.
This kind of interaction can help the business to reduce time, money and efforts in re-structuring the steps in actual service delivery and helps to gain customer trust and satisfaction. The service organization, as a result, can keep in mind the factors that are responsible to negatively affect its customers experience during the dealings and thus can gain a positive impression of the business for its repeat business and future productivity and growth.
From the above flowchart and by an understanding of the relevance of service encounter in the service organization, it can be understood that the service experience is influenced by the service encounter with the customers during the front stage business operations. It can be said that effective service encounters can be useful to develop customer loyalty and positive business image in the market. Customers with a positive service experience are likely to repeat business and can refer the organization services to other potential customers. This contributes to developing the customer base for the organization.
It is seen that the flow chart operations, some process involves direct customer whereas other do not demand customer involvement. However, the organization needs to balance both the operations to provide a better service experience. Apart from service encounter as front stage operations, the internal business operations of backstage with no direct customer involvement also contributes to the overall service experience.
Hence, it is required that the internal operations are streamlined with the front operations to make overall customer experience satisfying. The backstage operations contributed to the service value chain by providing necessary information and support to the front stage operations of the business (Chen et al., 2012). Back stage operations are equally important to front line operations in persuading the customer’s online requests and also ensure that the customers receive services with quality through front stage operations. Thus, it can be said that this service organization is well organized in its front and back stage business operations to connect with its potential customers and cater required services effectively and efficiently.
References
Chen, H. G., Yu-Chih Liu, J., Shin Sheu, T. and Yang, M. H. (2012) The impact of financial services quality and fairness on customer satisfaction. Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, 22(4), pp. 399-421.
Jaakkola, E., Helkkula, A. and Aarikka-Stenroos, L. (2015) Service experience co-creation: conceptualization, implications, and future research directions. Journal of Service Management, 26(2), pp.182-205.
Lam, C. F. and Mayer, D. M. (2014) When do employees speak up for their customers? A model of voice in a customer service context. Personnel Psychology, 67(3), pp. 637-666.
Pari Passu. (2017) Home. [Online] Available at: http://www.pari-passu.co.uk/ (Accessed: 16th August 2017)
Söderlund, M. (2013) Positive social behaviors and suggestive selling in the same service encounter. Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, 23(4), pp. 305-320.
Wilder, K. M., Collier, J. E. and Barnes, D. C. (2014) Tailoring to customers’ needs: Understanding how to promote an adaptive service experience with frontline employees. Journal of Service Research, 17(4), pp. 446-459.
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