Enhancing Supplementary Services
These add extra value for the customer while using a product.
customers.
1. Consultation. Consists of advice from a
knowledegeable service person in
response to the request: “What do you
suggest?”. Effective consultation requires
an understanding of each customer’s
current situation before suggesting a
suitable course of action.
2. Hospitality. Hospitality-related services
should ideally reflect pleasure at meeting
new customers and getting old one when
they return. Well-managed businesses try
to ensure that their employees treat
customers as guests. Courtesy and
consideration for customers’ needs apply
to both face-to-face encounters and
telephone interactions.
3. Safekeeping. When customers are
visiting a service site, they often want
assistance with their personal
possessions. In fact, unless certain
safekeeping services are provided, some
customers may not visit at all.
4. Exceptions. Involve supplementary
services that fall outside the routine of
normal service delivery. Astute
businesses anticipate such exceptions and
develop contingency plans and guidelines
in advance, Well-defined procedures
make it easier for employees to respond
promptly and effectively.
Special Request-A customer may
request services that require a departure from
normal operating procedures. Common
requests relate to personal needs, including
care of children, dietary requirements,
medical needs, religious observance, and
personal disabilities.
Problem Solving- Sometimes, normal
service delivery (or product performance)
fails to run smoothly due to accidents, delay,
equipment failure, or difficulty faced by a
Handling of
complaints/suggestions/compliments- Th is
activity requires well-defined procedures. It
should be easy for customers to express
dissatisfaction, offer suggestions for
improvement, or pass on compliments.
Likewise, service providers should be able to
make an appropriate response quickly.
Restitution- Many customers expect to
be compensated for serious performance
failures. Compensation may take the form of
repairs under warranty, legal settlements,
refunds, an off er of free service, or any other
form of payment-in-kind.
Managerial Implications
- Most supplementary services do (or
should) represent responses to customer
needs.
- Any badly handled element may negatively
affect customers' perception of service
quality.
- Not every core product is surrounded by
supplementary elements from all eight
petals of the Flower of Service.
- A company's market positioning strategy
helps to determine which supplementary
services should be included.
- The flower of service serves as a checklist
in the search for new ways to augment
existing core products and to design new
offerings.
- All of the elements in each petal should
receive the care and attention needed to
meet defined service standard.
Branding Service Products and
Experiences
Branding can be employed at both the
corporate and product levels by almost any
service business. In a well-managed firm,
corporate brand is not easily recognized but
also has meaning for customers as it stands
for a particular way of doing business.
Applying brand names to individual products
enables the firm to communicate to the target
market the distinctive experience and benefits
associated with a specific service concept.
Branding Strategies for Services
Branded House. Used to describe a company,
that applies its brand name to multiple
offerings in often unrelated fields. The danger
of such strategy is that the brand gets
overstretched and weakend.
Sub-Brands. The corporate or the master
brand is the main reference point, but each
product has a disctinctive name as well.
Endorsed Brands. The product brand
dominates but the corporate name is still
featured. Hotel companies use this approach.
Each brand must promise a distinctive value
proposition targeted at a different customer
segment. Loyalty programs are often used to
encourage this.
House of Brands. Home to numerous brands,
each independent of one antoher, and each
with its own audience, marketing, look and
feel.
Building Brand Equity. To build a strong
brand, we need to understand what
contributes to brand equity. Brand equity is
the value premium that comes with a brand. It
is the additional amount that customers are
willing to pay for a branded service over a
similar service that has no brand.
Company’s presented brand—mainly through
advertising, service facilities, and personnel.
External brand communications—from word-
of-mouth and publicity. These are outside of
the firm’s control.
Customer experience with the company—
what the customer goes through when hey
patronize the company.
Brand awareness—the ability to recognize
and recall a brand when provided with a cue.
Brand meaning—what comes to the
customer’s mind when a brand is mentioned.
Brand equity—the degree of marketing
advantage that a brand has over its
competitors.
New Service Development
A Hierarchy of New Service Categories
Style Changes. Represent the simplest type of
innovation. Typically involving no changes in
either process or performance. They are often
highly visible, create excitement, and may
serve to motivate employees.
Service Improvements. Most common type of
innvoation. Involves modest changes in the
performances of current products, including
improvements to either the core product or to
existing supplementary services. Unique
improvement that can enhance customer’s
experience.
Supplementary Service Innovations. Take
the form of adding new facilitating or
enhancing service elements to an existing
core service or of significantly improving an
existing supplementary service.
Process Line Extensions. These are less
innovative but often represent distinctive new
ways of delivering existing products. The
intention is either to offer a different and
more convenient experience for existing
customers, or to attract new customers who
find the traditional approach unappealing.
Product Line Extensions. These are additions
to company’s current product lines. These
new services may be targeted at existing
customers to serve a broader variety of needs,
or designed to attratc new customers with
different needs (or both).

Major Process Innovations. Consist and

involve of the use of new processes to deliver
existing core product with additional benefits.

Major Service Innovations. These are new

core products for markets that have not been
previously defined. They usually include new
service characteristics as well as radical new
processes.

Reengineering Service Processes.

Reengineering involves analyzing and
redesigning processes to achieve faster and
better performance. Examination of processes
may also lead to alternative delivery methods.
Examination of procesess may also lead to
creation of alternative delivery methods that
are radically different as to constitute
entireley new service concepts.

Physical Goods as a Source of New Service

Ideas. Any new physical product has the
potentital to create a need for related
possession-processing services.