Submitted to: Mrs.

Deepti Submitted by : Richa

Bhawna
Anubhav
Amit
Rajshekhar
Vipin
1. Tangibility Spectrum :

The hospitality industry is thus at the very core of the globalization of international
business. Hospitality companies therefore need to consider the implications of the
global context in which they operate and must be prepared to address the questions
that arise from this changing environment.
The globalization of business and lifestyles
is characterized by communicating over vast distances in foreign languages, frequent
travel to overseas countries, dealing in many currencies, and coping with a variety of
political and social systems, regulatory environments, cultures and customs. While
these aspects of globalization are easy to identify, understanding the underlying
current and future trends can be problematic. Analysis, however, reveals that a
number of issues are reshaping the global hospitality industry, although there are
clearly some complex questions that are still to be resolved:

• International expansion with common product and brand position;

• Sales and marketing programs that fully capture global economies of scale;

•Organizational structures that allow global delivery of services with local operational
control;

•Cross-border employee training to support operations; and

•Use of the world capital markets as sources of funding.

Those hospitality companies that believe that they can grow and retain a niche
position without acknowledging the imperatives of globalization need to take another
look. Put another way, most hospitality businesses will need to think "globally" if
they are to survive. That goes for organizations competing in the mature European
and U.S. markets, which are now seeing stiff competition from other parts of the
world, especially Asia. The sheer size of the vast U.S. market, in particular, can
promote an insular point of view, but hotel companies that concern themselves only
with the dynamics of this domestic arena also need to hear the "wake up" call.
Globalization will ultimately touch virtually
all aspects of the hospitality industry. Increasingly, customers, management
processes, employees, products, and sources of capital will be competed for and will
move across national boundaries. Companies which are unprepared for this will be
left behind. Local or regional entities may believe that globalization is not their
concern. But that view is in error -- competition in the future will come from global
entities with the advantages that globalization brings.
Hospitality customers
increasingly seek predictable services that support their ability to move quickly and
easily around the world. Indeed, the businesses and lifestyles of these multi-cultural
travelers have themselves been shaped by globalization. The concept of projecting
single brands globally is thus alluring, as well as being fully within the grasp of many
hospitality companies. Nevertheless, there continues to be uncertainty about the
benefits of establishing a single- brand presence in a global marketplace, in contrast to
responding to the unique conditions at the local level.
As hospitality companies grow into the global economy, they will need to look to
global capital markets for support. Investment capital, however, continues to be in
short supply and this situation will continue for some time. Companies that wish to
attract investors will need to demonstrate that they can offer better returns and
performance than in the past. And, at least in the eyes of the world¹s financial
markets, they will need to demonstrate their viability as companies in a global
marketplace.

2. Classify of Services :

Generally, after registering, members have the option of providing very detailed
information and pictures of themselves and of the sleeping accommodation being
offered, if any. The more information provided by a member improves the chances
that someone will find the member trustworthy enough to be their host or guest.
Names and addresses may be verified by volunteers. Members looking for
accommodation can search for hosts using several parameters such as age, location,
sex, and activity level. Home stays are entirely consensual between the host and guest,
and the duration, nature, and terms of the guest's stay are generally worked out in
advance to the convenience of both parties. No monetary exchange takes place except
under certain circumstances (e.g. the guest may compensate the host for food). After
using the service, members can leave a noticeable reference about their host or guest.

Instead of or in addition to accommodation, members also offer to provide guide

services or travel-related advice. The websites of the networks also provide editable
travel guides and forums where members may seek travel partners or advice. Many
such organizations are also focused on "social networking" and members organize
activities such as camping trips, bar crawls, meetings, and sporting events.

Some networks cater to specific niche markets such as students, activists, religious
pilgrims, and even occupational groups like police officers.

Benefits

Monetary savings

As these networks provide accommodation at no charge, monetary savings can be

significant.
Local contact

Hospitality exchange gives travelers the chance to experience what life is like for
people living in other places. In addition, making interpersonal connections and
fostering understanding of different cultures may in the long run also be important to
international relations. During hospitality exchanges, hosts may show off their local
knowledge and exciting places “off the tourist map”. Not only may travelers get a
distinct experience, but they will also get a feel for the everyday lives of local
residents.

Reciprocity

The concept behind Hospitality services is based on the pay it forward philosophy,
gift economy, and reciprocal altruism.

3. Search Experience and Credence Quality :

4. Zone of Tolerance :
During and after service performance, customers compare their expectations to
their perceptions of the service they have received. However, the special
characteristics of service in the hospitality industry mean that the quality of service
delivery fluctuates. Customers who are knowledgeable about the variability in
hospitality service can have greater tolerance for the variations in a service
performance . On the other hand, there are customers who are much less sympathetic
and therefore have a lower tolerance to service fluctuations. This range of tolerance
represents a customer’s propensity to accept variable service standards and still be
satisfied with the service offered. A number of factors influence the customer’s level
of tolerance, including the customer’s personality and current circumstances, the
importance of the purchase occasion, and the characteristics of the product and the
price paid. The levels of perceived risk and involvement can explain variations in the
zone of tolerance. Clearly, customers have different levels of tolerance at different
times. As individuals we can all have mood swings, and so sometimes we feel more
tolerant and relaxed about service quality whilst on other occasions (for reasons we do
not always understand) we can be less tolerant and become more easily upset by
service quality failings. Customers who have a time constraint will be intolerant of
service failure.

5. Customer Expectation :

The hospital market has today changed from a sellers' market to a buyers' market,
where the patient is all-important. Therefore to achieve patient satisfaction, the
hospital has to develop itself technologically, as well as become more service-
oriented.

It is essential for a hospital to reach out to its customers (patients), if it wants to

survive the competition. This can be achieved only by building a bridge of trust
between the hospital and the community, so that the community can crossover to the
hospital. One needs to understand the fact that patients do not flock to a hospital just
because its services are cheap, but because of its good name and good image.

The second differentiating factor is that the customer of the hospital, unlike other
industries, gets a close look at all the rungs of the hospital. He gets a chance to
interact with practically everybody from the receptionists, admission staff, doctors,
nurses, ward boys, ayahs, ambulance, personnel, billing staff, among others.

The workings of the hospital are laid bare to the patient and every interaction the
patient has with any staff member is a crucial factor in determining whether he would
choose the same hospital again.

A marketing orientation is therefore the need of the hour for the image upliftment of
the hospital. The main task of a marketing orientation is to determine the needs and
wants of their customers/patients and satisfy them through design, communication,
pricing and delivery of appropriate and competitively viable products and services.
A hospital's primary objectives are usually humanitarian, philosophical or regulatory
and based on some perceived need. However, a problem may arise when what the
patient 'needs' is different from what the patient 'wants'. For instance, what a patient
needs from a hospital is reasonable good quality medical care. Yet market research
over the past few years has shown that hospitalised patients want a variety of
amenities not associated with their need for reasonable good quality medical care.
They want smiling, empathetic nurses and staff, a wide selection of foods for their
meals and a quick response to their calls.

To stay ahead of the competition, it is essential to keep the customer happy. Only
satisfying the customer needs and wants and delighting the customer by exceeding his
expectations with unanticipated benefits can achieve this.

Customer satisfaction is a person's feeling of pleasure or disappointment resulting for

comparing a product/service's perceived performance or outcome in relation to his or
her expectations. As this definition makes clear, satisfaction is a function of perceived
performance and expectations. If the performance falls short of expectations, the
customer is dissatisfied. If the performance matches the expectations, the customer is
satisfied. If the performance exceeds expectations, the customer is highly satisfied or
delighted.

Therefore on applying this concept to the hospital sector, "Customer satisfaction in a

hospital is basically a state of mind of the patient. It is the ability of your hospital
service to meet the expectations of the patient. Customer delight is all about
exceeding the expectations of the patients to make him highly satisfied with the
hospital".
The customer should aim for high satisfaction or customer delight because customers
have no qualms in shifting when a better offer comes along from a different hospital.
Those who are highly satisfied or delighted with the hospital are much less ready to
shift. High satisfaction or delight creates an emotional bond with the hospital in the
mind of the patient, not just rational preference. The result is high patient loyalty,
which is what every hospital is looking at, to cut the competition.

The need to achieve patient satisfaction has made hospitals realise the importance of
healthcare marketing. Hospitals are therefore today making efforts to determine what
healthcare customers need, tailoring their services to meet those needs and then
attracting patients to use these services.

6. Customer Perception :

The value proposition consists of the whole cluster of benefits the company promises
to deliver; it is more than the core positioning of the offering. Whether the promise is
kept depends on the company’s ability to manage its value delivery system. The value
delivery system includes all the experiences the customer will have on the way to
obtaining and using the offering.

Customer satisfaction is a feeling of pleasure or disappointment on the offers

perceived performance in relation to buyers’ expectations. Expectation is defined as
what the customer wants/requires from the product/service and perceived
performance is the perception of the customer about the product/service i.e.
evaluation of the product/service after using it. So perception is what the customer
actually receives/gets from the product/service. The evaluation is done by comparing
the expectations with the perceived performance of the product/service. Therefore
customer satisfaction is a function of perceived performance and customer
expectations. Customers who are just satisfied find it easy to switch over when a
better offer comes than those who are highly satisfied. For customer focused
companies satisfaction is both a goal as well as a marketing tool. What a consumer
thinks about the product or services offered by a firm can have a marked effect on the
purchase of its products or services. So one of the tasks before the management is to
know what the consumer expect and what they are getting in return.

Satisfaction is a judgment that a product or service feature, or the product or

service itself, provided (or is providing) a pleasurable level of consumption- related
fulfillment, including levels of under- or over fulfillment. The expectations-
disconfirmation paradigm provides the most popular explanation of consumer
satisfaction.

To study the perceptions of patients from the behaviour of doctors, patients were
asked to rate their perceptions in the scale of 1 to 9 for the various attributes given
below.
Attributes Perceptions
(Mean Value)
Availability 7.78
Knowledge 7.11
Handling of
Queries 6.60
Cooperation 6.75
Politeness 6.86
Impartial attitude 7.46
Examination Comfort 7.76
Thorough Check-Up 7.88
Empathy 5.85
Individual Consideration 6.10
Experience 6.80
Average 6.99

Table shows that attribute thorough check-up has the maximum mean score 7.88. It is
quiet high score which means that patients’ perception about this feature is good.
Then this followed by attributes availability of doctors, examination comfort and
impartial attitude of the doctors. The mean scores for these attributes are 7.78, 7.76
and 7.46 respectively. Knowledge has the average score 7.11 which shows that
patients’ perception about this factor also tends to be quiet good. Mean scores for the
politeness, experience, cooperation with the patients and handling of queries are 6.86,
6.80, 6.75 and 6.60 respectively which means that perception of the patients of the
attributes are not so good. Individual consideration and empathy has moderate scores
6.10 and 5.85 respectively among all the attributes. So it means that perception of the
patients’ regarding these attributes is neither good nor bad. The overall mean score for
all these attributes is 6.99 which means that perception of the patients for the factor
behaviour of doctors is not very good but it is mildly good.

7. Service Research :

At Fortis Healthcare, we believe in continuous learning, innovation and improvement.

We encourage medical practitioners and healthcare experts for medical research and
studies. For years, Fortis Healthcare has been involved in several healthcare and
medicinal study projects and offers societal rewards and benefits to researchers.

Escorts Heart Institute & Research Centre (Fortis) Head Office , Company
Details, Financial Details
Escorts Heart Institute & Research Centre (Fortis) Head Office Address :
Okhla Road
New delhi : 110025
Delhi ,India .

Escorts Heart Institute & Research Centre (Fortis) Phone Number : (11)
26825000
Escorts Heart Institute & Research Centre (Fortis) Website : www.ehirc.com

Escorts Heart Institute & Research Centre (Fortis) Financial Details :

No of Employees – 251-500
Turnover in Crs – 100-250 Crs

Fortis Clinical Research Ltd (FCRL) was created in 2005 as a professional clinical
research organization at Faridabad, India.

FCRL’s vision is to be a leading provider of quality clinical research services from

India to support the drug development efforts of the global pharmaceutical industry.

Conforms to international standards of clinical research as laid down by ICH-GCP,

good laboratory practices and other international regulatory guidelines.

Staffed with a team of over 100 professionals with background in medicine,

nursing, phlebotomy, pharmaceutics, bioanalytics, biochemistry, nutrition and
statistics.

Our sophisticated infrastructure combined with our technical expertise and

commitment to quality makes FCRL

8. Relationship Strategy :

Fortis Commercial Finance offers both standardized as well as tailor-made

commercial finance solutions and we are dedicated to provide a strong, homogeneous
international approach and customized local services.
Most international commercial finance companies are made up of a number of
independent entities. Practically speaking, this implies that you have to explain your
activities and requirements to both your domestic branch and your branches over the
border. We appoint one single point of contact instead, the Global Relationship
Manager, who will streamline all communication internationaly and takes care of the
centralised follow-up.

Mr. Shivinder Mohan Singh is a young entrepreneur who aims to change the way
Healthcare is delivered in the world. He is the Managing Director of Fortis Healthcare
Limited. He is also one of the principal promoters and Director on the boards of
Religare Enterprises Limited, Super Religare
Laboratories Limited and Fortis Clinical Research Limited. Mr. Shivinder Mohan
Singh was, till recently, one of the key promoters of Ranbaxy Laboratories and served
as Director on the Board of the pharma major. He played a strategic role in the sale of
Ranbaxy, thereby taking the company to the next level and creating significant long
term value for all stakeholders.

An alumnus of Doon School and an Honours Graduate in Mathematics from St.

Stephens College, Delhi, Mr. Shivinder Mohan Singh has done his MBA with
specialization in health sector management from the Duke University Business
School, USA.

Mr. Shivinder Mohan Singh’s significant contribution in Indian Healthcare is widely

acknowledged. His strategy for Fortis and its execution has been recognized by
Harvard Business School in the form of a case study. Mr. Shivinder Mohan Singh has
been playing an important and active role in shaping the private healthcare space in
India. He is the Chairperson of Health Services Committee of Federation of Indian
Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Board member of Indo British
Partnership Network (IBPN), Board Member of National Accreditation Board for
Hospital and Healthcare Providers (NABH) and chair of the healthcare committee of
UKTI (UK Trade & Investment). He is also on the National Board of Advisors of
AIESEC, a global, non-political, independent, not-for-profit organization run by
students and recent graduates of institutions of higher education.

9. Service Failure and Recovery :

Although specifics vary, there is wide consensus in marketing circles that the cost of
acquiring a new customer is relatively much higher than retaining an existing one.
This is especially problematic for services, which are process- driven phenomena
performed with human participation at both employee and customer ends. 'Zero
defects' are near to impossible in human interaction-based service delivery and the
negative impact of service failures on customer satisfaction, re-patronage intentions
and customer advocacy are a matter of concern for most firms. One predominant
countermeasure taken to alleviate concern over service failures is to implement a
service recovery strategy.

Service recovery is an imperative when it comes to hospitality-based services.

Hospitality-based services have stronger personal and emotional characteristics
embedded in them and service failure tends to draw greater customer ire.

• The first imperative is that firms should aim towards consistently reducing
service failure rates. Using diagnostics such as service blueprints that help
identify potential weak points of service delivery, firms can develop effective
recovery mechanisms. In addition to this, firms also need to continuously
analyse service performance across all potential weak points and readjust
strategies. For example, the time taken to approach a customer for drinks
 orders after "greet and seat" can be repeatedly inconsistent in a restaurant.
Identifying such issues through continuous observation and also adjusting
service delivery to reduce failures is vital.
• The second imperative to get service recovery right. As such, it's the second
chance and there is no room for a third. Effective service recovery requires an
operating service philosophy that visibly warns employees about the pitfalls of
poor service recovery. Poor service recovery has an adverse impact on how
customers perceive commitment of a firm towards good service. Firms need to
actively empower employees to own complaints and resolve them. Recovery
guidelines should be consistent and commensurate with the seriousness of the
service failure. Remember, empowerment without controls is like keeping a
tiger for a pet without rules and procedures on how it is tamed.
• The third imperative is to have mechanisms and procedures in place to
effectively reach out to customers so that they bring to hotel manager's
attention, cases of service failures. These mechanisms should encourage
customers to talk about problems experienced during the stay as well as after
the stay. There are several mechanisms that can enable firms to reach out
proactively. Service guarantees, empowered frontline staff equipped with
adequate resources and a highly visible communications strategy aimed at
reaching guests are some of them. Post consumption, hotels can use
mechanisms such as e-mail surveys to encourage those customers to give
feedback, who hitherto did not do so during their hotel stay. As evidenced in
this study, nearly 25 per cent of responses were people who experienced a
problem but did not complain during their stay.

• Reliability: Put differently, if either (reducing failures or recovering

effectively) of these falter, it will have a direct impact on the reliability of a
service's offering. The alignment and coordination of these two components
should be smooth. Over time, not only will customers be assured to greater
consistency in service delivery, they will also get a sense of comfort that
recovery will be positively commensurate with the nature of service failure if
and when it happens. Note that although we put greater importance on getting
service right the first time, we emphasise the need for an effective recovery
platform as a second line of defense.
• Commitment: Again, the co-ordinated effort of recovering effectively and
reaching out proactively enhances the commitment to service excellence of a
firm. Customers want to alleviate concerns that recovery is a one-time
incident. Therefore when customers are guaranteed of effective service
recovery in the event of failure and also observe proactive efforts to seek
customer feedback, their belief in a firm's commitment towards good service
is strengthened.
• Focus: The lack of reaching out to customers proactively and eliciting
feedback will significantly diminish a firm's understanding of innate customer
needs, even if service failures are kept to a minimum. This means that a
service delivered with perfection in process loses its effectiveness if customer
needs have evolved far and beyond what is being delivered. Conversely,
 merely reaching out and not progressively reducing service failures indicates
that the firm's customer orientation is suspect. Therefore, the co-ordination or
alignment of progressive service failure reduction and reaching out proactively
enhances the focus of a firm to meet the needs of its customers.

Hospitality managers face significant customer driven challenges because of the wide
range of reviews and social networking websites prevail on the Internet. We
recommend that hospitality-based service firms work towards crafting balanced
customer retention strategies that are driven by a culture of service excellence
(progressively reducing service failure rates), empowering the front-line to solve
customer problems in case of service failures and deploying customer feedback
systems such as guarantees, email surveys etc where customers feel encouraged to
bring their problems to the attention of management. Most importantly, the processes
need to be aligned to meet the broader goals of service-oriented customer retention.

10. New Service Development Process:

11. Analysis of 7’Ps:

Simply stated, the 7 Ps of the marketing mix are:

1. Product

Product is usually defined as either a physical object or an intangible service that is

mass- produced on a large scale with a specific volume of units. Intangible products
are service based and include hospitality, tourism and the hotel industry. In
contemporary lodging, the Product has become segmented by location and segment –
luxury, upscale, mid-range, economy, budget, etc. In addition, the massive
introduction of branding and sub-branding to many properties has brought the
industry to a point where the danger of becoming an indiscernible entity is very real.
The thinking from an earlier time was that a good product should sell itself, but there
are not really many “ bad “ products in today's extremely competitive markets. In
addition, all the brands have extensive customer “something” service programs and
departments created to try to reduce complaints and build repeat visits.

2. Price

As in the Product category, segmentation has defined some of the price points. The
global recession of the last two years has clouded some of the traditional differences,
as some resort and upscale brands have discounted heavily to the point where the
lower priced properties cannot effectively compete. Price (the amount a customer
pays) is determined by market share, competition, operational costs, brand or product
identity and the customer's perceived value of the product. Pricing may increase or
decrease with frequency and pricing strategies must be planned and worked daily.
Hotels should have learned the lessons of the airlines and not just compete based on
being the lowest cost. The anger of flyers today for being charged extra for almost
everything has opened the way for certain carriers to expand and others to enter what
were previously lucrative and exclusive markets.

3. Place

This is the P that may have changed the most in the past 10- 15 years, as Place
represents the locations where a Product or in the case of lodging, accommodations
can be purchased. Technology has changed the distribution channels via the internet
and third party resellers and the changing role of travel agents and instant
communication has clearly changed the location of reservations and guest access.

4. Promotion

Marketing includes many faces to reach out to the targeted guests or groups, including
advertising, direct sales, sales promotions, public relations, publicity, branding,
media, etc. Promotion has evolved through technology to become what is perhaps the
most visible P, requiring a significant focus to bring the Product (lodging experience)
to the Place (distribution channels) at a reasonable and competitive Price. While all
four P’s still link to each other, Promotion has become the one many hoteliers have
concentrated as their point of difference as the other three P's have become somewhat
eroded in their significance in today's markets.

5. Professionalism

Many contracts give performers an option to cancel or reschedule a show if a certain

number of tickets are not sold. Raye and the Celebrity Theatre management and
ownership made the decision to show their professionalism and appreciation for those
who had booked by performing, even with low numbers.

6. Passion
This performer has been singing some of the same songs for almost 20 years, yet he
and his band shared their passion for the work as if this were their first tour.

7. Pride

When an entertainer takes the time to speak with and interact with the audience, their
sense of connection and pride shows.

12. International Marketing :

It only seems natural at the onset to dismiss the concept of health care marketing as
the invasion of crass commercialism into some of the most sensitive areas that are
relevant in people's lives.

However, this approach is too simplistic, because health care marketing is one of the
ways that advancements in medicine and in health-protecting services like insurance
are made widely known.

Of course, there is no denying that using health information in order for healthcare
marketing does run the risk of invading privacy. The inappropriate health care
marketing can very well communicate to people that their sensitive information has
been handled indiscreetly. In fact, sometimes health care marketing might cause
mortifying offenses to a person's sense of autonomy and dignity.

However, to impose a blanket prohibition on marketing that uses health care

information would be unsatisfactory, even harmful in many instances, however. There
are still many types of health information that are not considered by most people as
particularly private.

Therefore, there is a tremendous potential value of allowing health-marketing

communications to communicate the existence of new medicines, procedures, and
programs to the public.

In India, especially health care marketing is a central part of delivering health care to
Indian as well as International patients. Therefore it becomes all the more important to
implement protection for privacy in the context of health care marketing.

13. Balance between Demand and Capacity :

Nearly all service and hospitality experiences require customers to wait at some point
in the service process. Unless the provider of the service has unlimited capacity or can
precisely match customer demand to available capacity, customers will be forced to
wait for the experience they seek. Although waiting is an expected part of many
services (say, gracious dining), for most customers waiting is an annoyance to be
minimized or avoided. Waiting can also cause customer dissatisfaction that can
greatly influence the intent to return whenever that service experience is sought again.
To minimize the negative aspects of waiting, managers have available the following
three strategies. The first is to manage the reality of the actual wait through the use of
techniques that can help better match capacity with customer demand. The second is
to manage the perception of the wait by responding to how customers perceive the
wait. The third, and most innovative, is to make the wait invisible through developing
virtual queues, which allow customers to participate in other activities while they wait
for an appointed time at their desired activity.

Balancing customer demand with an organization's ability to serve those customers

has long been a challenge in the hospitality industry, as it is with all services. In that
regard, there are few customer service operations that do not ask guests to wait during
peak times. Regardless of how hard the planners plan, how many early bird specials
the marketers offer, or the technological solutions offered by technology wizards to
spread out the pattern of customer arrivals, it seems inevitable that at lunch a
restaurant will be crowded, at check-in time the hotel lobby will be full, or the best
amusement park rides will have the longest lines. If demand is so great or so
concentrated in a short period of time that it creates long waits, customers will
become dissatisfied, leave, or even pass by the company to go somewhere else. If
there is too much capacity, on the other hand, the company saddles itself with an
uncompetitive cost structure in the form of idle capacity. In addition, the firm risks
sending a negative message to its customers that this cannot be a good business
because it is so underutilized. The challenge for organizations, then, is to find the
optimal point where the costs of service and the costs of waiting are minimized. Many
writers have spent much time trying to help managers meet that challenge.

(1) Waits are an important topic, as customer wait time is a frequently monitored
indicator of service performance and has been identified as a key predictor of
customer satisfaction.

(2) Managing customer waits is the focus of this article. Our purpose is to identify
three approaches that hospitality and service organizations can use singly or in
combination to manage the inevitable waits. To begin, we give a brief overview of
some of the traditional quantitative strategies for managing a wait. We then shift
attention to the strategies and techniques for managing customers' perceptions of wait
times. Finally, we discuss a relatively new concept for managing wait times, called a
"virtual wait" or "virtual queue," and offer some practical applications of this concept.
The virtual-queue waiting strategy recognizes that guests can be freed from physically
standing in line by being placed in a virtual queue, which eliminates both the actuality
and perception of waiting by allowing guests to engage in other productive and
enjoyable activities until their time to be served has arrived.

In an ideal world, hospitality and service organizations would find that point where
they minimize both their costs of providing a service and the costs incurred by having
people wait. One would hope that this point would also be where the operation has the
exact capacity available to serve each customer at the moment that the customer
wanted the service. If this ideal were reached, no customer would ever have to wait
for service, no capacity would ever sit idle, and the company would minimize its
costs. The ideal world is seldom seen, though, as service providers are hard-pressed to
cost-effectively match their capacity to customer-arrival patterns. Because service
providers do not typically possess "peak demand" levels of capacity, and because
customers rarely arrive at service operations in perfectly predictable patterns, queues
are inevitable in service operations.

14. Supplementary Service :

This definition underscores the concept that the service offering comprises of a bundle
of activities consisting of the core product, e.g., transporting packages and delivering
them to the addressee before a predetermined time, plus a cluster of supplementary
services like offering information, supplying labels and packaging materials, taking
phone orders, resolving occasional problems, and tracing missing packages.
Christopher Lovelock, a services marketing guru--suggests that managers in the
service industry need to first identify the various service actions and interactions,
classify them into core and supplementary service elements, and then determine how
well their organization is performing on each one--so as to get a better understanding
of their competitive advantage.
Such a classification of service offerings is of immense benefit to casino operators.
With maturing of the industry as a whole, gambling entertainment, the core product of
casinos, has become a commodity. With riverboat gaming, gaming on reservations,
and restricted gaming in parts of almost every state in the Union, Americans can now
gain access to the core gaming product with unprecedented ease. In order to gain and
preserve competitive advantage, casinos urgently need to emphasize performance on
supplementary aspects of the service offering. As Ted Levitt, another marketing guru,
observed almost three decades ago, "It is not so much the basic, generic central thing
we are selling that counts, but the whole cluster of satisfactions with which we
surround it."

Classification of Supplementary Services

Offering Consultation
Hospitality
Safekeeping of Customer Belongings
Providing Information to Customers
Taking Orders from Customers
Payment
Billing
Special Services

Implications of Supplementary Services

Designing Special Packages

Outsourcing Non-core Services
Converting Supplementary Services into Core Services
The additional services offered by organizations to augment the core product/service
are called supplementary services. The kind of supplementary services offered by
organizations differs from one service industry to another. According to Lovelock,
different supplementary services can be clustered under eight heads.

The eight heads are consultation, hospitality, safe-keeping, information, order-taking,

exceptions, billing and payment. Some supplementary services like information and
order-taking facilitate effective utilization of the core-service by customers while
some supplementary services like hospitality and safe-keeping augment the core
product/service.

The use of supplementary services in organizations requires managers to make

difficult choices and decisions. Some of the implications of supplementary services
for managers are designing special packages, outsourcing of non-core services and
converting supplementary services into core services.