MAR 3341: Services Marketing

Individual Assignment

Name : D D H N Jayathilaka
CPM: 17713

Department of Marketing Management

Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce
University of Sri Jayewardenepura
 Table of Contents

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................... 3

2. Why targeting the right customers is imperative to the success of a relationship

marketing program ................................................................................................................ 4

3. How service organizations managed during the Covid 19 period .................................... 5

Mobitel Sri Lanka .............................................................................................................. 5

Sakya Academy ................................................................................................................. 7

Keels ................................................................................................................................. 8

Pick Me ........................................................................................................................... 11

4. Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 14

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 1. Introduction

Relationship marketing is marketing with a conscious aim to develop and manage long term
and long trysting relationship with customers, distributors, suppliers, or other parties in the
marketing environment
-American Marketing Association-
Accordingly, relationship marketing is focused on customer loyalty and long term customer
engagement rather than shorter-term transactional goals such as customer acquisition and
individual sales.
To buildup relationships with customers, first organizations need to understand with whom
they need to keep relationships. Therefore targeting the right customer is important.

With the Covid 19 pandemic companies faced struggles to maintain relationships with their
customers. Physical distancing, reduction of some non-essential functions, health requirements
have raised challenges to the service companies to reach their customers physically. Hence,
most of the service organizations in Sri Lanka undertaken several strategies and ways in
managing their relationships with customers and deliver their services.

In this report, I have explained why targeting the right customers is important to the success of
customer relationship programs and how the service organizations have managed their service
delivery and customer relationships during the period of crisis.

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 2. Why targeting the right customers is imperative to the success
of a relationship marketing program

Today business organizations try to acquire as many customers as possible and buildup long-
term relationships with them. But every customer is not good for keep a long-term relationship.
Although it might be surprising, sometimes loyal customers can be more unprofitable than
other disloyal customers. Therefore service organizations should determine which customers
should the company acquire and keep. That is why targeting the right customer is important.
We can clearly define why targeting the right customer is important to relationship marketing
through customer relationship groups. It classifies customers based on their potential
profitability for the company and leads to a way to manage the relationships with the different
categories of customers accordingly.

Strangers simply do not fit the company’s offerings and consequently are not profitable at all.
So the company should not invest anything to buildup a relationship with them.
Butterflies have needs that fit the company’s offerings but the company can enjoy them only
for a short time and then they will go. Therefore buildup a long-term relationship might be hard
for them.
Barnacles are highly loyal customers but not profitable. Even though they are very loyal to the
company they may be the most problematic customers of the business. Most of the time
companies just drop them.
True friends are the best customers for the company. The fit between their needs and the
company’s offerings is very strong. The company should focus on acquiring and maintaining
long term relationships with true friends.
Accordingly, based on customer relationship groups a company can choose the right
relationship strategy for each group of customers. As a result, it can build the right relationship
with the right customers. Therefore, targeting the right customers is imperative to the success
of a relationship marketing program.

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 3. How service organizations managed during the Covid 19
period

With the Covid 19 pandemic, every organization is struggling to maintain their day to day
activities and even their survival. Service organizations faced this struggle very deeply because
they are used to associate more with people before. But with the crisis, they could not associate
much with people anymore. That is why they needed to adapt to this environment change very
quickly and successfully. As a result, most of the service organizations transformed their
physical operations into technology-based online activities. They had to do their operations
under the given instructions by the health sector.
Through this section, it is focused on the strategies and ways in which the service organizations
have managed their service delivery and customer relationships during the period of crisis. It
is discussed under a few examples of service organizations in Sri Lanka.

Mobitel Sri Lanka

With the Covid 19 pandemic most of the Sri Lankans stay their homes and some of the
companies were doing their office works on online platforms. As a result of that, the usage of
the internet was increased. Many people use the internet for different activities. Therefore,
people were more concerned about the data packages, and internet speeds are given by their
internet service providers. Mobitel Sri Lanka saw this trend and well managed its service
delivery and customer relationships during the period of crisis.
The followings are the strategies used to manage their service delivery and customer
relationship during Covid 19 pandemic.
• Anytime data packages and other special unlimited data packages
There was a huge resistance from society to get anytime data packages without having a
separation of night time and day time data. Therefore, Mobitel has introduced anytime data
packages for different rates. That Mobitel anytime data plans consisted of data bundles that can
be used at any given time of the day.
Not only that they have given unlimited social networking and YouTube packages too.

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The newest addition to the unlimited product line is the unlimited HD streaming package,
offering unlimited streaming for most popular video streaming platforms such as Netflix,
YouTube, Amazon Prime video, Iflix, Zee5, and Peo TV Go.

There is another special package of Mobitel which is work from home day time data plans.
Most of the people work from home throughout the crisis period. To do their works Mobitel
had introduced a special daytime plan even though people have a router or not. Besides, there
is Office 365, MS Teams, and Zoom packages for the students.

• Other services
Mobitel has introduced a very new service which is wifi devices home delivery. They started
to deliver their 4G Home routers, Mobitel routers, and Mobitel wifi dongles to the customers’
doorstep. Mobitel Internet expert would get in touch to arrange the delivery too.

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 • Humanistic relationship with customers
In addition to their services, they were looking forward to building a humanistic relationship
with their customers. They have informed about the pandemic situation through always their
social media profiles and organize some funny games and quizzes through online platforms to
reduce the loneliness and stress of the people who are in curfew areas and be quarantined.
Basically, through all of these, they were trying to buildup humanistic relationships with their
customers.

Sakya Academy

Sakya Academy is one of the leading educational institutes in Sri Lanka. Mainly it is the most
sought-after brand in the private education sector in Sri Lanka especially for students of GCE
A/L.
The followings are the strategies and ways of Sakya Academy during the crisis.
• Moving to online platforms
With the Covid 19 pandemic as many organizations Sakya
Academy also moving to an online platform. They have
introduced a website called “Learn online by Sakya” to
give their students online education. They teach their
students via Zoom, YouTube, and Facebook.

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 • Doorstep delivery of Tutes and other educational materials.
To deliver Tutes and other materials Sakya Academy partnered with Pick Me and deliver those
essentials to the students’ doorstep.

Keels

Keels operating as Jaykey Marketing Services (Pvt) Ltd. Is a supermarket chain in Sri Lanka
which was the first supermarket in Sri Lanka to launch an online grocery store concept allowing
customers to shop online and collect groceries from the store or have it delivered to their home.
Even they had an e-commerce platform before Covid 19 there were not more than 2000 orders
a month and even they were not focusing on that platform. With the Covid 19 pandemic, Keells
has been able to rapidly shift its business to a mostly digitally and e-commerce driven.
The followings are the strategies and ways they used to manage their service relationships
during the Covid 19 pandemic.
• Online delivery service
They have prioritized their online delivery service when they retail in supermarkets. They are
serving over 400 major towns with close to 75000 total online orders being delivered at the
movement. Feedbacks from customers helped Keells to continue to understand the customer
requirements and all the improvements made were according to the customer feedback.
Accordingly, now 350+ rage of products is for online delivery.
Technological improvements such as improvements to the payment gateway, the ability to view
the delivery grid, and a product catalog were brought to improve user experiences.

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 • Predefined essential packs for their Nexus members
Keells has built a separate digital platform for its loyal customers. They give predefined packs
of essential products which include grocery, household, personal care, snacks, and even freshly
produced fruits & meat/fish for Nexus members.

• Humanistic relationship with customers

Through their Facebook page, they are trying to make a humanized relationship with their
customers. They have informed about the pandemic situation through always their social media
profiles and come up with some videos on cooking recipes and tricks to reduce the stress of the
customers especially women who used to shopping before and now being in their homes.

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Keels always give statements through their social media profiles regarding the current situation
of their outlets. (Ex: if any employees were quarantined or anyone positive from any outlet
they immediately report it through their Facebook page.)

Also, they donate a lot of health materials for the hospitals and the other health sector peoples.
Besides, they provide non-monetary donations for Covid 19 fund.

Even with the indications of curfew being lifted, Keells will continue both platforms to ensure
customers who wish to stay home will have access to goods.

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Pick Me

As we were aware Pick Me is a food delivery and cab/taxi booking company. But nowadays
with the Covid 19 pandemic they looking forward to grocery delivery and other delivery
services which they did not do before Covid 19
• Pick Me, Market
Pick Me has partnered with Sathosa to deliver groceries righto consumers’ doorsteps even
during curfew hours. Consumers can order from 6 grocery pack options via the Pick Me App
and get it delivered home within 24 hours.

Furthermore, customers can get their gas cylinders delivered through Pick Me.

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Now Pick Me has launched “Pick Me Market” to deliver customers their essentials such as
medicine and other grocery items.

• Pick Me Flash
Pick Me Flash was introduced to deliver parcels, home-cooked meals, handmade cards, and
other small gifts to the loved ones of customers. They are looking forward to tight up the
relationship with their customers through all of these.

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 • Other services
They are giving sanitizer facilities to their customers after every ride. They ensure that vehicles
are sanitized before the start of every ride. besides, they are providing constant training to their
drivers on precautionary measures to be followed at all times.

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 4. Conclusion

Today, service organizations mainly looking forward to building long-term relationships with
their customers. It is essential rather doing transactional marketing because of the competition
among service providers. When the services organization looking for a relationship with its
customers they need to identify who are the customers that they need to buildup relationships.
Otherwise, the expense and the effort they put in can be useless. That is why targeting the right
customers is important to the success of a relationship marketing program.

Also, with the Covid 19 pandemic most of the service organizations face difficulties and adopt
new strategies to deliver their service and also maintain their relationships which they have
already buildup with their customers. They cannot lose their loyal customers just for Covid 19.
Even though they could not directly encounter their customers they are trying to manage their
relationships with customers.

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