The Significance of Service Encounters for Telstra

This report delves into the critical role of service encounters for Telstra, a major telecommunications company in Australia. It defines service encounters as interactions between sales representatives and customers, emphasizing their importance in generating business and revenue. The report highlights how these encounters involve the interplay of culture, environment, activity, and interface. It examines the managerial implications of service encounters, including their impact on decision-making and business generation. The report discusses the competitive landscape of the Australian telecommunications market and the pressure on sales teams. It emphasizes the significance of service encounters in facilitating customer interactions, optimizing customer behavior, and bridging the gap between advertisements and market penetration. The report also references various academic sources to support its claims, providing a comprehensive analysis of service encounters in the context of Telstra's business operations.

Running head: SERVICE ENCOUNTER OF TELSTRA
Service Encounter of Telstra
Name of the Student
Student ID:
Name of University
Author Note

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Interface (Product, Tool,
Device etc)
Activity (Operation call
centre etc)
Environment (Policy,
structure etc)
Culture (Regulations,
governance etc)
Interface (Device, media, channel
etc)
Activity (Walking, eating, etc
Environment (Place of living,
family etc)
Culture (Religion, politics,
language etc)
Customer
Service
Provider

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Figure 1. Figure showing backstage activities (left) and front activities (right)
(Source: Author)
Service encounters are very important to service industries because it gives opportunities
to service companies to generate business from customers and earn profits. Service counters can
be defined as interactions which allow the sales representatives of the companies to interact with
the customers (Lovelock and Patterson 2015). They are interactions between the culture,
environment, activity and interface of the company and the customers (figure 1). The backstage
attributes or offerings of the companies like organisational culture and services of the company
flow to end customers to meet their demands. These flows take place according to their lifestyle,
culture and usage of devices like smart phones and tablets. This interaction allows the
representatives to suggest or offer products for sale to the customers. These service interactions
therefore result in sale of products which generate revenue for the service providing companies
like Telstra. The success of service encounters and business generations depend on a variety of
factors like body language of the representatives and his communication skills (Yoo and Arnold
2016). The service encounters have serious managerial implications and business generation.
Managerial implications are the practical decision making actions by the managers which
involves deciding whether to proceed with appointments with customers to lead it towards
business generation. Thus success of managerial implications and their proceeds towards
business generations are dependent on service encounters (Pantano and Viassone 2014).
Service encounters impact business generation and inflow of revenue impacts which in
turn impact competitive advantages companies enjoy in the market. The telecommunication
market in Australia is worth over 40 billion dollars. The market has powerful multinational

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telecommunication companies like Telstra, Vodafone and Optus (Businessreviewaustralia.com.
2017). This unforgiving competition has put a lot of pressure on the sales teams of the companies
to interact with maximum number of consumers to generate maximum possible volume of
business by selling as many products as possible. Their attitude, presentation and knowledge
have a very important role to play in the success of these encounters and the managerial
implications. This makes service encounters of great significance to the company for business
generation and profit (Sundbo, Sundbo and Henten 2015).
The first significant role service encounter is that it facilitates interaction between the
service provides company and customers. Nguyen et al. (2014) state that service encounters are
often planned and directed by companies by training their employees. This is because service
encounters allow the companies to meet new clients through their sales representatives. These
interactions can happen over the telephone, email or face to face with the consumers. They are
very important because they allow the companies to promote their products to the new customers
for the first time. It creates demand among the customers about the new products (Knittel, Beurer
and Berndt 2016). The sales persons of multinational companies like Telstra can showcase the
products of the companies employing them the customers upon encountering with them. The
sales representatives can inform the customers about the Telstra products like mobile phones,
tablets, data plans and product bundles (Telstrahealth.com. 2017). The companies manufactures
and markets products for personal use, small business use, usage by large enterprises, health
related issues and for entertainment purpose. Service encounters enable the sales representatives
to meet both business users and personal users(Rauch et al. 2015). This allows them to present
ideal products according to the needs of the customers, for example, they can showcase small
business plan before a small store owner. Thus, service encounters over here enable Telstra to

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reach out to new prospective customers which creates possibilities of creating new customers
(Dong et al. 2015).
The second importance of service encounter is it optimises customer behaviour to
facilitate sale of products. Jaakkola and Alexander (2014) state in their work customer
engagement is very important for successful business transactions between the customer and the
firms. They also said that blurring the differences between the companies and their customers are
extremely important for more sales of products. Service encounters engage the customers know
the companies and its products better which creates demand (Borgh and Schepers 2014). The
sales representatives during a service encounter get the opportunities of optimising these
demands and persuading the customers to buy the products (Sengupta, Balaji and Krishnan
2015). The Telstra representatives to speak to the customers directly to know about their
lifestyle, needs and so on. This helps them to choose appropriate products for the customers and
offer them. Positive feedbacks from the customers results in positive managerial implications
whereas negative feedbacks from customers results in negative managerial implication. Negative
service implication inhibits the customers from availing the service, develops a negative image
about the company and result in business losses. The Telstra sales person in case of positive
managerial implication can proceed towards selling the products to the customers and accept
payments in return in forms of cheque or cash. Thus, this shows that analysis of service
implications that service encounters have long term impacts on firms like Telstra than one time
revenue generation by sale of products. They help the company to acquire new customers, create
relationship and generate continuous business by offering solutions to their ever changing needs
(Yurova et al. 2017). Service encounters in other words have become synonymous to market
penetration and business growth.

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The third significance of service encounter is that it helps the service provider firms to fill
the gap of their advertisements and achieve deeper market penetration. Services by nature are
intangible and advertisements always do not succeed in making the customers perceive their
benefits (Mazaheri et al. 2014). These limitations of advertisements result in slow customer
demand optimisation towards purchase of services which effects the revenue generation of the
service providing companies like Telstra. Sales encounter allow the sales representatives to
interact with the customers, get to promote the products of the company and highlight their
benefits. The customers are able to perceive the benefits of the products and in turn results in
positive managerial implications(Kastalli, Van Looy and Neely 2013). The sales representative
of service providing companies like Telstra can draw a comparison between the products of the
company in question and its competitors. This helps to create a stronger image of the products of
the company (Telstra) which encourages the customer to perceive its superiority over the similar
products and the benefits of consuming these products. The managerial implication of these
positive effects of the service encounters on the customer is that it leads to sale of products
(Pantano and Viasson 2015). Thus, service encounter help the service companies to create and
enforce stronger image of the products which complements the promotional powers of the
advertisements. Thus service encounters mobilise faster and more permanent customer opinion
about the products which result in sale. It must that it results in revenue generation and gaining
of competitive advantage in the market (Kumar and Kim 2014).
Service encounters are of tremendous importance to the present competitive firms. They
help the firms to sell products and generate revenue. Thus, service encounters in other words are
crucial for the very sustenance and retention of competitive advantages of the service provider
firms.

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References:
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Businessreviewaustralia.com. (2017). Australia’s Telecom Giants: The Future of Competition in
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Jaakkola, E. and Alexander, M., 2014. The role of customer engagement behavior in value co-
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Mazaheri, E., Richard, M.O., Laroche, M. and Ueltschy, L.C., 2014. The influence of culture,
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