a. A Household Name.

Our stylists are widely known for their expertise and experience in the industry. With
affordable pricing, professional service, house calls for special events, kiddie corners,
make-up, professional hairstyling tools and products, manicures and pedicures, A Cut
Above is your one stop beauty and style salon.

b. Hairstyling Excellence.
At its core, A Cut Above is all about a drive to excel, and to be the best. Step into our
salon and you’ll enjoy the best we have to offer in professionalism, skills, products and
equipment. It’s combination of services that’s been carefully crafted over 30 years, set to high
standards and even higher ideals.

c. Setting the Bar

As the premier salon in Malaysia, our standards are widely regarded as a benchmark.
Till today, our founder Winnie Loo remains the only Malaysian to be honoured with the
World Master of the Craft Title, awarded by the Arts & Fashion Group of New York, for
excellence and effort in upgrading standards in the hair industry.

d. Refining the Cut.

True to its namesake, A Cut Above is capable of providing the latest style and
excellent services through education, training and innovation. Our stylist constantly go
through training in hair styling, colour techniques and the latest in breakthrough technologies
for hair. They also participate in trade shows to keep abreast of latest style.

e. The Talk of the Town.

You can find a branch at the hotspots where beauty, fashion and lifestyle converage.
Bangsar Shopping Centre, bangsar Village ll, Mid-Valley megamall, Sunway Pyramid
Shopping Centre and Parkson pavilion just to name a few to the long list.

f. Keeping it up.
Having helped shape the local hairdressing scene, you can be sure that we constantly
strive to maintain excellent standards. For many, a visit to A Cut Above enables them to
retreat into a cozy and pampering environment, away from the hustle and bustle of their daily
lives. Visit us today to experience our quality treatment and indulge in a feel-good session.

2. Describe the FIVE (5) distinctive characteristics of service and illustrate how ‘A Cut Above’
manage the characteristics. (20 Marks)

a. Intangibility:
(1). Services cannot generally be seen, tasted, felt, heard or smelt before
being bought. The potential customer is unable to perceive the service before
(and sometimes during and after) the service delivery. For many customers of
car repair, for example the service is totally intangible – they often cannot
see what is being done and many indeed are unable to evaluate what has been done.

(2). Physical products in the store are widely displayed for customers to see, feel,
touch, weigh or sniff at before deciding whether or not to buy.Comparing this with the
choice of the service of say, an insurance policy. You cannot touch, see or smell the
products before choosing, although clearly you can make some assessment based on
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 past experience, word of mouth, or even the location and decor of the insurance
office. The intangible nature of most services gives rise to special problems both for
suppliers and consumers.

b. Variability
(1). In the production and marketing of physical products, companies have
increasingly paid special attention to ensuring consistency in quality, feature,
packaging, and so on. More often than not all customers can be sure that every bottle
of Coke he/she buys, even in a life-time of purchases, will not vary. The provision of
services, however, invariably includes a large measure of the “human element”.

(2). Indeed, with many services, we are purchasing nothing else but the skills of
the suppliers. Because of this, it is often very difficult for both supplier and
consumer to ensure a consistent “product” or quality of service.

c. Inseparability
(1). A key distinguishing feature of service marketing is that the service provision
and provider are inseparable from the service consumption and consumer.
For example, we cannot take a hotel room home for consumption; we must “consume”
this service at the point of provision. Similarly, the hairdresser needs to be physically
present for this service to be consumed.

(2). This has implications both for channels of distribution and scale of operations.

d. Non-ownership
(1). The final distinguishing feature of a service is that, unlike a physical
product, the consumer does not secure ownership of the service. Rather the
customer pays only to secure access to or use of the service. Again the hotel
room is a good example.

(2). Similarly, with banking services, although the customer may be given
a Cheque book, credit cards, etc, they serve only to allow the customer to
make use of what he or she is actually buying, namely, bank services.

e. Perishability
(1). Perhaps of all the suggested special characteristics of service products or
classification of services, this is one of the most difficult to appreciate. Services
are highly perishable compared to physical products. But how could, for example, the
services of say, an airline be considered to be more perishable than, say, fresh food
and vegetable products?

(2). The reason is that unlike most physical products, many services cannot be
stored. For example, if an airline does not sell all the seats on a particular flight, then
those seats or rather the sales revenue of filling of them would have carried, has
immediately and irreversibly gone.

3. Recommend at least TWO (2) marketing mix (4 P’s) strategies that can be implemented by
‘A Cut Above’ during fluctuations in demand below:

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The marketing mix is a crucial tool to help understand what the product or service can offer and how
to plan for a successful product offering. The marketing mix is most commonly executed through
the 4 P's of marketing: Price, Product, Promotion, and Place.

a. During peak demand period. (4 marks)

(1). Public Relations & Sponsorship.

(a). Publicity tries to increase positive mention of the product or brand in
influential media outlets. These could include newspapers, magazines, talk
shows and new media such as social networks and blogs. This could also
mean allowing super users, or influencers to test the product and speak
positively about it to their peers.

(b). This type of advertisement may or may not be paid. For example,
sponsoring a major event and increasing brand visibility is a paid action.
Sending free samples to a blogger then depends on their discretion and
opinion and is not usually swayed by payment.

(2). Personal Selling.

(a). Opposite of the one directional promotional method, direct selling
connects company representatives with the consumer. These interactions
can be in person, over the phone and over email or chat.

(b). This personal contact aims to create a personal relationship

between the client and the brand or product.

b. During low demand period. (4 marks)

(1). Advertising.
(a). This mode of promotion is usually paid, with little or no personal
message. Mass media such as television, radio or newspapers and
magazines is most often the carrier of these messages. Apart from these,
billboards, posters, web pages, brochures and direct mail also fall in the
same category. While this method has traditionally been one sided,
advertisement over new media such as the internet may allow for quick
feedback.

(2). Direct Marketing.

(a). This channel targets specific influential potential users through
telemarketing, customized letters, emails and text messages.

(3). Sales Promotions.

(a). These are usually short term strategic activities which aim to
encourage a surge in sales. These could be ‘buy one get one free’ options,
seasonal discounts, contests, samples or even special coupons with
expiration dates.

(Total: 8 Marks)

4. Identify examples of ‘Nature of service act’ and explain which are performed by ‘A Cut
Above’. (Total: 8 Marks)

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 Direct Recipient of the Service

Nature of the Service Act People Things

People’s bodies Physical Possessions

Tangible actions 1. Beauty Salons 1. Personal Hygiene Care

2. Health Care 2. Grooming

People’s Minds Intangible Assets:

Intangible Actions 1. Information Service 1. Health Services

2. Publicity 2. Hair Care Products

5. A customer walks into X-Cut but need to wait more than 30 minutes to get his hair cut.

X-Cut, which stands for express cut, caters to fast-paced lifestyles. Customers can
walk in and have their hair styled in 15 minutes at only RM16

a. What are service recovery strategies that you can recommend to A Cut Above hair
salon? (4 marks)

(1). Make Customer Understood.

Try to explain what happen, why it happens and how to overcome the situation
to the customer in order to make the customer understood with the current situation.

(2). Provide Special rate for unpredictable situation.

The company must be provide some financial allocation for unpredictable
situation that will happens when the operational of the company started. It is very
compulsory because from the allocation, it can cover the fees that come out from the
providing a special rate when unpredictable situation occurs. The trustworthy of the
customer to the company very sensitive, so that, in order to avoid the company losses
a few of the customers, the allocation will be a savior to the company.

b. Draw a fish bone diagram showing causes of a delay in hair cut. (10 marks)
Material People

Poor Quality Lack of training

of materials and motivated

Outdated Insufficient number of

Equipment Skilled Workers
Hair Cut
Delayed
No standards Lack of maintenance
procedure of hair cut

Frequent energy
No systematic breakdowns effect
system of payment operations

Methods Machinery
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 (Total: 14 Marks)