Service Marketing and Relationship Marketing

This article discusses the service marketing and relationship marketing strategies of Dominos, a leading fast food chain. It covers the service encounter model, RATER model, and service recovery areas.

Running Head: SERVICE MARKETING 0
Service marketing
SEPTEMBER 25, 2018
Dominos

SERVICE MARKETING AND RELATIONSHIP MARKETING 1
Fast Food is the term provided for a food that can be prepared and served very quickly. The
concept of fast food pops up during the 1920s. Currently, there is a continuous increase in the
international fast food chains, as they all know the potential of this industry (Paik and Choi,
2007). Many giants in this industry like Dominos, Pizza Hut, McDonald and Burger King
have their own core competencies and competitive advantage. All these players are fighting
for a small pie in the industry as a market share.
Domino’s Pizza is an international fast food chain founded by James and Tom Monaghan.
The major products in the menu item of Dominos include Pizza, Pasta, Chicken wings and
Dessert. With the time, Dominos continuously goes to evolve and with the period of
digitalization, the company also successfully launch online and mobile ordering in 2007
(Bamburry, 2015). It is also the second largest pizza chain in the United States.
Todays, the company are having their operations in around 85 countries having stores in
around 5,701 cities worldwide. In most cases, their growth can be seen in the form of
franchising agreements. This shows the effectiveness of their supply chain on an international
level.
The major strength of Dominos constitutes customer satisfaction, lower price strategy and
adequate promotion. In addition to this, the promise of 30 min home delivery also helps
Dominos in their expansion and positive brand building. They have huge opportunities in
various aspects like introduction of more varieties, bigger outlets and the continuous evolving
fast-food market (Anitharaj, 2018).
In Dominos, there is a structured process in the delivery of service model which includes
various elements like customers, staff and the management. For executing these services in
an effective manner, it is important that all these elements be integrated with each other so
that the respective service can be prioritised.
The blueprint of Dominos includes its service encounter model related to various aspects of
service actions like Physical evidence, customer actions, onstage actions, backstage actions
and support processes (Bitner, Ostrom and Morgan, 2008). As mentioned above, all these
services are related with one another for the completion of process and make the customer
satisfies.

SERVICE MARKETING AND RELATIONSHIP MARKETING 2
LINE OF INTERACTION
LINE OF VISIBILITY
LINE OF INTERNAL INTERACTION
Physical
Evidence
Customer
Actions
Back- Stage
Employee
Contact
On-Stage
Employee
Contact
Support
Processes
Parking
Bike Waiting
at Cafe
Entering
and
Ordering
Pizza
and Pasta
Leaving
Pizza Hut
CAFE
Eating
Pizza
and
Pasta
Collecting
Order
SOUCE
BOTTLE
Water
Cooler
Menu Card,
Discount deals
Dominos
Pizza
Logo
Greeted by
attendant and the
order were taken
Serving
Order
Cook started
making Pizza
Cook started
making fries
Customer
details entered
into the system
Vegetables and
Dough, Cheese
Inventory, Bread.

SERVICE MARKETING AND RELATIONSHIP MARKETING 3
 Customer Actions – In respect with the customer actions, the process starts with the
entering in the Dominos premises and experiencing several physical evidence service
like the parking space for the vehicles, blue colour walls and employee uniform,
distinct ambience with music and television and menu items. The consumer actions
include all those collective activities performed by me during the course of the service
delivery (Aspray, Ocepek and Royer, 2014).
In the next phase, the consumer actions relate with the service provided by the
Dominos which comprises of various set of actions. This process starts with various
actions like receiving the menu item lists, confirmation of the order, felling the
ambience, receiving the bill and filling of feedback forms. For more effective service
delivery, it is important that the customer and staff of Dominos interact with full
space.
 Front Stage Interaction – The front stage interaction in the service delivery includes
the face-to-face interaction between me and the staff. In this route of interaction, the
staff will listen and respond to my queries. These queries can be related to the
ordering of pizza, help in choosing a respective product for consumption, getting of
the order to eat and paying the bill by completing the whole process of service
delivery. This line of interaction plays a crtical role in the whole service delivery
model which needs to be handled carefully by the management with full efficacy
(Zomerdijk and Voss, 2010).
 Back Stage Interaction – This is a backline process in the service delivery model
which is also called as invisible interaction. This type of interaction made between the
internal department of the branch which includes of the staff, management and the
operations (Systems). The check in and check out registration is also a part of the
process in service delivery model. This line of interaction comprises various order and
customer support activities like taking personal record of the customer including the
needed menu item or product, baking of the food and managing various other
activities (Payne, Storbacka and Frow, 2008). The whole process and every activity of
the system is handled by the internal staff working in Dominos and this is why there is
no face to face interaction between the customers and staff.

SERVICE MARKETING AND RELATIONSHIP MARKETING 4
 Physical Evidence – The physical evidence is related to the customer perception
which leads to the resemblance of the store or its nearby elements in the mind of
customer even if the customer is far away from the store. This includes the
environment at the Dominos store, physical elements like wall colour, table and
furniture, menu checklists, staff dress or uniform, parking facilities near the store and
the waiting area (Ryu and Han, 2010).
The service encounter blueprint provides an overall pictre of the serice provision to perceive
an entire service process and its integrated structure (Noone and Mattila, 2010). The blueprint
is used for analysing the service process techinique including fail point, employment
engagement and customer wait.
The end point of the servic encounter will always be measured in terms of customer
satisfaction. This satisfaction model will be derived from the key determinants including
market share, profitbaility, customer feedback and customer referrals.
 Market Share – Fast food is a growing industry and many businesses perceive stong
potential in the market. In addition, there are already many big competitors present in
the market and giving tough competition to Dominos in terms of price, product and
competitive advantage. Some of these competitiors are McDonald, Piza Hut and
Burger King.
For gaining the market share, Dominos can use their service delivery model in an
effective manner and make the customer satisified.
 Higher Profit – For any organization whether service based or any other from the
industry, making profit is the primary concern (Weerawardena, McDonald and Mort,
2010). If the customer is satisfied, sales and profitability of the organization will
automatically increase. On the other hand, it may go to negative also and leads to the
loss if the customer were dissastisfied.
 Customer repitition and retention – This aspect of the determinant is also diretly
related to the customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The number of customer

SERVICE MARKETING AND RELATIONSHIP MARKETING 5
repetition in the Dominos store will show that the company is successful in making
the customer satisfied. Hence, they will also be loyal to the brand.
 Customer Feedback – During the last stage of service delivery when I had
completed the food given by Dominos, the company always make fill the customer
feedbck form with the help of mobile messaging link. The reason behind this policy
of the company is simple as they want to improve each and every aspect of their
service delivery model. Higher or five star average rating shows that the customer is
satisfied with the brand whereas low rating i.e. below three stars, shows that the
customr needs to impove a lot in delivery effective service.
 Customer Referral – This also plays an important role in the growth of the Dominos.
After fully eating the Pizza delivered by Dominos, it upon me that wheher should I
refer their pizza to someone or not. It is directly related with my satifaction and
disatisfaction. I will refer if satisfied and will not refer if dissastified.
During the service delivery model, the gap between the management, staff and operational
process need to evaluate crtitically so that the service encounter can be positively
eastablished. This can be done by using the RATER model which stands for Reliability,
Assurance, Tangibility, Empathy and Responsiveness. This model help to evaluate the
customer expectations (Larson and Steinman, 2009). Dominos needs to fulfill all aspects of
RATER model so that to find out the respective gap. For filling the gap of relaibility,
Dominos need to ensure that their Pizza is maintained with an optimum level of quality and
should be delievered as per the promise. Dominos should also ensure their customers that
their concern and issue will be solved by their experienced staff who are well knowlwegable
and skilled to tackle any problem. The tangible elements of the Dominos are very simliar
irrespective of countries and branch. In terms of Empathy, Dominos should always make
their customer happy by delivering quality pizza and beverages. The last aspect of Rater
model is also important which states the staff responsiveness towards the queseris of
customers. If they are solving queris on an immediate basis, the customer will feel more
delightfull.
The manager of the Dominos plays an important role in the positive service encounter. For an
effective service delivery model, they need to understand and evaluate every element of the

SERVICE MARKETING AND RELATIONSHIP MARKETING 6
service model including the operational processes, customers and the staff. The negative
service encounter can lead the organization to bear a high amount of cost and as customer
may also be dissatisfied due to the poor performance of the management and staff of the
Dominos. This makes Dominos compensate for the loss in various parts like process,
customer retention and marketing.
The management of Dominos also needs to ensure the significance of the positive encounter
with both lines of interaction i.e. Line of visibility and line of internal interaction. They also
need to emphasis on the three important service recovery areas (Patrício, Fisk and Falcao,
2008). This service area includes the interaction with customers, processes and systems and
planning of the staff.
In the first recovery area with relation to the customer, it is important to convert the failure
encounter into the peaceful encounter. For achieving this strategic goal, the management of
Dominos needs to train their employees and staff so that to improve the perception of the
customers towards the brand. The management also treats their customer on the priority
basis. If any error committed by the staff in Dominos, the management needs to make
immediate apology and make feel the customers that they are feeling sorry for what happens
from their side. This will make the brand value rise in the eyes of the customers and help in
the customer retention and referrals.
Considering the process and system used in the service delivery model, the management
should ensure that they are well integrated to deliver the effective service. They also need to
evaluate every aspect related to the service encounter. Therefore, an effectiveness in the
process is also directly related with the customer satisfaction.
The manager should also train their staff and management according to the changing market
environment (Wang, Chen and Chen, 2012). All staff and managers should be techno friendly
and know how to target their prospective customer and convert them into the consumer.
The reason why Dominos is playing under market leadership is due to its offering of best
services, their high standard set of policies regarding the employee behaviour, menu
localization, cost leadership strategy and pricing strategy. One of the major factors that lead
to the success of the Dominos is the aggressive and mega advertising. This help the company
in getting consumer awareness. In addition, the company also optimise their delivery channel
by reinforcing their slogan – “Dominos Pizza: You Got 30 MinutesTM”. This shows that every

SERVICE MARKETING AND RELATIONSHIP MARKETING 7
activity in their supply chain is integrated to provide optimum value to the customers and also
provide a competitive edge to the company in the fast food industry.
In addition, as long as Dominos continues to listen to their customers, they can stay in the
competitive environment, which is full of advancement in the tech world. They also have a
growth potential due to the continuous development of the fast-food industry.

SERVICE MARKETING AND RELATIONSHIP MARKETING 8
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