Service Marketing: Managing Service Provision for Customer Satisfaction

This article discusses the importance of managing service provision for customer satisfaction in the medical industry. It includes a service flow description, front stage and back stage operations, service flow chart, and the significance of service encounter. The article also provides managerial implications for businesses to improve their service delivery and increase customer loyalty.

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SERVICE MARKETING
Name of student
Name of institution
Name of instructor
Date

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Introduction
The service industry depends on the customer’s experience to ensure the strength and
survival of a brand in the market. The customers judge a service based on the encounters with
the service providers or the service points. The moment of truth for the service comes up
when the customer contacts with the service at the designated points. Therefore, the service
providers should ensure that the customers get the expected quality and satisfaction to ensure
a positive image of the service brand. The service improvements could take place through the
training of employees and the introduction of technological systems that increase efficiency
and effectiveness. Moreover, the service provision presents a good chance for a company to
create a good impression on the customers.
The assignment checks on the service provision in a real medical centre to establish the
relationship between the service provision and customer satisfaction. Additionally, the
assignment focuses on the management of services to ensure customer satisfaction and brand
strength. The service provision at the medical centre reveals moments of truth that determine
whether the customers will continue using the services. The satisfaction of customers
increases the number of visits due to the word of mouth marketing done when recommending
the services to friends and family. Service encounter refers to a mixture of emotions where
the consumers rate the quality of the services offered with the amounts paid with respect to
the experiences at the service points.
Service flow description
The customers arrive at the medical centre, and a receptionist checks the details in the
system, which leads to either asking the customer to fill in details or see a nurse. The nurse
checks the patient’s weight, pulse and blood sugar levels before seeing the doctor. In the case
that the doctor has another patient, the clients seat in the waiting room waiting. The doctor
attends to the customers by diagnosing the illnesses and giving medicine. The customer could
require a follow-up appointment for further treatment. In the case that the customer does not
require an appointment, then the medical centre allows the customer to leave. On the other
hand, the customer passes through the chemist to collect medicine before leaving the medical
centre.
Front stage and back stage operations
The front stage services refers to the services that involve the customer and the service giver
interactions. In the case of the medical centre, the front stage services include reception,
weight, pulse and blood sugar level checks, patient meeting the doctor and collection of
medicine. On the other hand, the backstage operations include checking the patients’ record
at reception, slotting appointments and availing doctors and nurses to attend to the patients.
Generally, the backstage activities include the services that do not involve the customer.

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Service flow chart
YES YES YES
NO NO
YES
NO
NO
YES
Patient
arrival
Availability
of nurses
Checking
the patient
in the
system
Patient
completes
paperwork
Patient
waiting
room
Check weight,
pulse,
pressure and
sugar levels.
Availability
of a doctor
Waiting
room
The patient
sees a doctor
Follow-up
appointm
ent
required?
Book
appointment
Patient visits
the chemist
Patient gets
medication
Medicati
on
needed?
The patient
leaves the
medical centre.

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The significance of service encounter
The flowchart shows the different services experienced by the customers at a medical centre.
Some of the services include the conducting of tests by the nurses and clinical officers while
other services include the booking of appointments. Other services include the collection of
medicines and attendance of appointments or routine health check-ups. The services differ
regarding customer involvement since some require the direct participation while others do
not require the customer’s participation (Boag, 2018). The services that require the direct
participation of the customers include such as consultancy, injections, surgeries and
laboratory tests.
On the other hand, the services that do not require the direct participation of the customers
include such as slotting for appointments in the master calendar and preparation of
medication to treat diseases. The medical centre has to plan and organise the services in a
manner that leads to customer satisfaction (Olsen, 2018). The services should ensure that the
customers do not spend much time before receiving attention by having adequate medical
officers to accommodate the customers. The medical centre should design the service points
to ensure comfort and matching the customer perception with the customer service
expectations (Dobes, 2016).
Moreover, the medical centre concentrates on converting the neutral customer emotional
expectations to positive experiences (Mark, 2018). The focus on emotional experiences aid in
identifying the specific customer needs, which leads to the delivery of specific attention to
ensure satisfaction. For example, from the flowchart, the customers still get attention even
when the nurses or doctors attend to other customers. The customers read newspapers,
magazines and health brochures in the waiting room while waiting for attendance in the
waiting room. The clinical officers also perform various basic tests on the customers such as
weight checks, blood-sugar levels and blood pressure levels. The involvement of the
customers in various activities ensures that the customers do not get frustrated or leave to get
medical attention in other places (Gjoko, 2015).
Furthermore, the duration also affects the customer perception of the services delivered
(Mandviwalla, 2015). The management should ensure that the customers fully understand the
significant activities that will take place. The customers should also understand the time that
each activity will take and the moments of achievement of major milestones in the activities.
The medical centre should ensure that the customers do not pass through many steps at the
health centre to avoid confusion and fatigue (Krishnan, 2018). The customers should also
have more control over the duration of the services given. For example, the medical centre
allows the customers to attend appointments at the times of choice. The medical centre
receptionists book doctors to attend to the customers during the times specified by the patient.
The customers get medical services when free without having to stop other activities to attend
doctor appointments. The hospital achieves the booking method by reducing internal
procedures that reduce the customer’s influence on the services (Nigel, 2013).
Furthermore, managing the perceived control affects businesses ability to meet customer
expectation to a great extent (Olsen, 2018). The number of service interactions gives an
opportunity to the business to offer high-quality services that ensure customer satisfaction.
The offering of high-quality services that match customer perceptions improves the brand
image of the business. The medical centre should ensure that the service design meets the
demanded quality by employing qualified staff who understand the need for customer
satisfaction. The medical centre should meet the customer perception by administering the
right treatment for diseases and charging affordably. The medical centre should also seek the
customer’s feedback to establish the levels of satisfaction to allow service improvement.
Managerial implications

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Business should make use of service encounters in the current competitive markets to win
customers and ensure usage of products (Perks, 2017). Unlike other elements in the service
industry, one cannot judge service encounters based on the mathematical functions since
many qualitative factors need consideration. The managerial implications of the services
result in a direct impact on the return on investment and the market share. The level of
satisfaction achieved from the service encounter by the customer determines the attitude
towards the brand. Thus a service encounter that results in customer satisfaction will lead to
more usage of the services offered, which increases the revenues and units of sale (Rebecca,
2018). The use of service encounter holds in the case of the medical centre where the
customers focus on trust and word of mouth. The level of trust that the customers hold
towards the medical centre determines the number of customers using the services and the
market share. Medical centres should work on improving the services offered to customers by
improving the facilities and training employees to attend to customers in a way that meets the
expectations.
Moreover, the medical centre should focus on the psychological aspect of service
management by identifying the factors that negatively influence satisfaction (Russell, 2014).
The medical centre should eliminate the negative factors and ensure that the customers
understand the completeness of the activities to avoid confusion. The process assists in
reducing cost and effort put in customer satisfaction due to the elimination of unnecessary
activities and steps taken in the service delivery. The process of eliminating the many
unnecessary steps and activities required in the service delivery will also enable the medical
centre to upscale the services rendered. Therefore, the medical centre does not experience
many reworks and ambiguity when determining the exact services to offer to the customers.
The medical centre should focus more attention on the psychological aspect and reduce the
checks and systems in the management of demand and supply of services (Smet, 2018). The
psychological attention will improve service delivery since the customers look for activities
that match the perceptions. Failure to match the perception held by the customers about the
service could lead to a reduction in the market share. The psychological management plays a
huge role in the medical services since the customers require assurance that the services given
will ease the pain, reduce the effects of an illness or diagnose the correct illness. The
customers require a value for the money paid for the services and failure to meet the need
could cause a fallout with the clients.
The delivery of services that meet expectations increases the market share enjoyed by a
company since the customers do word-of-mouth referrals to friends (Smith, 2018). The
referrals increase the market size of the company since the customers trust the words of
friends. The same applies to the medical centre when customers get the right attention and
refer friends to use the services in the case of illnesses or medical check-ups. The medical
referrals increase the number of customers visiting the medical centre, which enables to beat
the competition in the market (Suzanne de Treville, 2018).
On the other hand, the referrals result in a strong market brand due to the high loyalty from
satisfied customers (Wagner, 2018). The achievement of brand strength and customer loyalty
will require the medical centre to streamline both the internal and external processes involved
in the delivery of services. The major improvement in the internal and external processes
includes increasing the visibility of procedures. The customers should have the opportunity to
see and experience how the internal services go about to reduce the mystery and ambiguity.
The visibility creates a friendly relationship between the medical centre and the customers
due to the feeling of inclusion in the service delivery. The customers should also fully take
part in the external services to ensure the development of a service that fulfils both customer
and the medical centre needs (Juneja, 2018).
Conclusion

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The delivery of high-quality services increases the revenues earned by a business since the
customers do referrals that increase the size of market share. In the case of the medical centre,
the customers evaluate the services based on the level of relief from illnesses or health
improvements. The failure to deliver services that meet customer expectations result in
negative comments from the customers leading to fewer customers visiting the centre. The
medical centre should uphold high levels of customer services especially with the increased
use of social media. The social sites could lead to the downfall of a service centre when a
group of unsatisfied customers complain about the services.
Furthermore, the service activities should include modern technology to increase uniformity
and reduce the errors involved. The technology includes such as computers and teller
machines that offer services in place of human labour. The technology advances increase the
speed and urgency of service delivery. The medical centre could introduce machines such as
MRI scanners and X-ray machines that reduce the effort incurred when diagnosing illnesses.
The machines could also enable the delivery of quick services to the customers. The medical
centre should also focus on the important aspect of error reduction. The failure to eliminate
errors from medical services could lead to death from the administration of wrong drugs,
overdoses and not treating the right illnesses.

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