Services Marketing and Relationship Marketing

Running Head: SERVICE MARKETING 1
Services Marketing and Relationship
Marketing

SERVICE MARKETING 2
Introduction
In today’s competitive business environment, it is very tough for service organizations to impress
the customers and satisfy their needs and demands at the fullest. The organizations need to meet
the service encounter by effective management of its operations (Grönroos, 2007). Basically, a
service organization executes the functions by managing two departments, i.e. front stage and
back stage departments which help the organizations to provide services by understanding the
demands and needs of potential customers. The purpose of this essay is to make a discussion
about different characteristics and aspects of a hospitality organization. For this paper,
McDonalds is selected as service organization. McDonalds is an American fast food organization
that was established in the year 1940 as food restaurant and it is operated by Maurice and
Richard McDonalds in California, United States (McDonalds, 2018). This essay categorizes its
operations in different departments, i.e. front stage operations and back stage operations.
Considering their functions and operations, two flow charts are created for both front and back
desk operations. Furthermore, there is discussion about the importance of service encounter. At
the end, it includes managerial implications at flow charts’ different stages.
Flow Charts
Flow chart is a visual presentation that displays how a company begins with its functions and
operations to reach its objectives. Service companies develop flow charts by taking the guests’
demands into account. McDonalds is one of the largest fast food chains that offers a variety of
products such as Hamburger, French fries, milkshakes, soft drinks, wraps, breakfast items,
desserts and chicken products. It is largest food outlet in the world in terms of revenues that is
serving more than 69 million customers in over 100 nations across around 36,900 outlets as of
the year 2016. As per a report of 2012, this organization is second largest private employer all
over the world as it has 1.9 million employees, 1.5 million of whom are working for the
franchises (McDonalds, 2018). This essay consists of flow charts front and back office
operations of McDonalds. The organization will help the restaurant to achieve its business and
corporate goals.
For McDonalds, both of the charts are created below:

SERVICE MARKETING 3
Front Stage Flow Chart
A hospitality firm utilizes front desk flow chart to organize all the operations and services and
data on the basis of global level and to meet the needs and expectations of guests at its diverse
locations across the world. The primary aspects of front office responsibilities of a service firm
focus on the contact with the potential customers and gathering of firm’s data from them.
Furthermore, it can be said that front desk operations and roles focus on interaction procedure
with the back desk department of organization to give required information. It assists the
organization to practice its back stage operations and services smoother (Wu, Hsieh and Fang,
2015).
The front office operations of McDonalds include the actions of customers, onstage employee
contact and onstage technology actions. In this restaurant, the customer actions include choosing
the food product from a menu display on the counter and stand in the line for placing the order.
Then the customer pays the money, take the receipt of order and wait for the order to be
prepared. After that, customers receive their food, pick up the straws and napkins and select the
most suitable place to sit (McDonalds, 2018). After finishing their food, they dispose the dishes
in dustbin and leave the restaurant. In the operations of front stage, the major role of customer
service staff is to welcome and interact with the visitors and helps them via a delivery of
information about new offers and combo meals (Rodrigues, Nikhil and Jacob, 2016). They help
the customers in making the choice of food and billing process. The staff need to give the
transaction invoice and consists of the payments via vouchers and coupons. Moreover, onstage
staff is involved in serving the food to customers and in the process of safekeeping and cleaning.
These employees are also trained to take the feedback of customers so that they can meet their
demands and expectations. By looking its front stage flow chart, it can be stated that its back
stage and front stage functions generally occur simultaneously.
The front stage flow chart of McDonalds’ operations is drawn below:

SERVICE MARKETING 4
Is it busy?
If No If Yes
Front stage Flow chart
(Source: By Author)
Customer reaches
to restaurant
In
queue
Provision of data like
menu cards, prices
Place the order
Generation of bills
Payment of bills (cash or
cards)
Preparation of Order Customer receives
the order
Customer eats
food and leaves