Service Marketing Assessment: Evaluating Nicolatte Cafe in Tasmania

This report provides a detailed service marketing analysis of Nicolatte Café, a local café in Hobart, Tasmania. It begins with an introduction to the café, highlighting its strengths such as quality food, hygiene, and a friendly atmosphere. The report then delves into a critical analysis of the café's se...Read More

Running Head: SERVICE MARKETING
Service marketing
May 25
2018
Nicolatte Cafe

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Critical analysis..........................................................................................................................2
Product...................................................................................................................................3
Physical evidence...................................................................................................................6
Recommendations......................................................................................................................8
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................11
Appendices...............................................................................................................................12
Appendix A..........................................................................................................................12
Appendix B..........................................................................................................................13

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Introduction
Nicolatte Café is a local café located at Wellington Ct, Hobart Tasmania, Australia. Café
serve only breakfast and lunch from Monday to Saturday. Café has a seated food service and
has good quality testy food with a high quality of hygiene. It is a small start-up running well
till now. The owner has made enough efforts to make it look better. This café is a nice place
to make meetings for coffee, breakfast, and lunch. The place is quite friendly and has
fantastic combination of surroundings and staff members. Both these elements make the
place quite decent and food enough to spend some good time. It has a wide range of products
mentioned in its menu but the place is famous for its wood fried pizzas. These wood fried
delicious pizzas come along with a reasonable price. This made the café worthy to visit at
least once. Today service market is demanding for improved marketing to make its business
survive in the era of competitive market. Service marketing is completely different from
product marketing (Lovelock & Gummesson, 2004). In product marketing marketers have a
physical product to showcase for its marketing but in case of service marketing they don’t
have an end product. Instead of this end product organizations have to show their quality with
the help of their appearance and impression on the market or customers. This report will
discuss the key findings for the service marketing of the café. For this service marketing
strategy is used to analyse the key weaknesses and strengths of the café. This report also
includes the critical analysis of the personal experience of café visit using the service
marketing theory.

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Critical analysis
Critical analysis includes identifying the key strengths and weaknesses of an experience. In
this report the critical analysis is about the key findings of my personal experience of
Nicolatte Café’s services. There are seven key elements of any service marketing mix that
can be controlled by the organization. These key elements of service marketing mix are
product, place, price, process, physical evidence, promotion, and people (Ivy, 2008). This
particular portion of the report will include the critical analysis of product and physical
evidences of Nicolatte Café on the basis of personal experience using the service marketing
theory.
Product
Any collection of benefits for both receiver and provider and also satisfy needs of customer is
called product (Ivy, 2008). The service product of this market is one core product to be
served but also includes several supplementary services associated with the supply of this
core product. These supplementary services are the major element providing a competitive
advantage in the market. Different market strategies are to be considered while designing
these supplementary services. The “Flower of Service” as shown below describes briefly that
how the value of main core product of the service varies due to the individual supplementary
service and provides marketing advantage or disadvantage at the same time (Lovelock &
Gummesson, 2004). These supplementary services can be split into two major categories as
delivery enhancing services and services providing facilities to the core product.
Consultation, hospitality, safekeeping, and exceptions are counted as the services enhancing
the delivery of main core product, whereas information, order-taking, billing and payment are
counted as the facilitating supplementary services (Bitner, 1992).

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Figure 1 Source by Author
These supplementary services are referred to their individual objectives. The information
service referred to provide complete information including the services, products and
facilities of the restaurant (Bitner, 1992). Nicolatte café has nice surrounding and provides
the information only customers asked for. They should explain different services they have at
their café in order to describe the worthiness of café. Order-taking is a process in which
employees of the café ask their customers for their requirement or products they want. Once
the customer make his order finish or about to leave the place a bill is provides to the
customer encouraging him or her to pay the applicable amount for the product as well as the
services they used (Baron et al., 2014). To make a good impression, bill must be informative
Core Product
Information
Consultatio
n
Order-
Taking
Hospitality
Safekeeping
Exceptions
Billing
Payments

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and clear to the customer’s understanding. In the world of digitalization there are limited
modes to make a payment. Restaurants should provide all possible alternatives to make a
payment. This would make customers easy to make their payment with their convenience.
These facilitating services are quite good. Enhancing services of the café are most important
to achieve market advantage. Consultation refers to the advice given to the customers to get
the best experience of the place. This consultancy or the advice provided to the customers,
make them feel like they should try the new product that the place has as their special one.
This service let people know about the speciality of the business and make them to get
something different which ultimately attract new customers. Hospitality service refers to the
behaviour of employees with their customers and their attitude while interacting with the
customers (Baron et al., 2014). Whereas, safekeeping is the service provided to take care of
the customer’s belongings like, their vehicles and accessories. These enhancing services are
more important to take market advantage than the facilitating services (Lovelock &
Gummesson, 2004).
The supplementary services described in the flower of services could be seen at the Nicolatte
Cafe at the time of my visit. When I visited the café for first time I found some strengths and
weakness of the café. One of the weaknesses of café is customer cannot make a pre-booking
of the table for two therefore they have to wait for a while until they get a vacant table.
Another weakness was we had to make only one payment even after provided with a bill of
separate items. This made me disappointed as they provided me with a nice bill having
separate amounts of different items makes it easy to split it but making one payment made it
worthless. When it comes to the strengths of the café, they have good enhancing services as
we were attended very politely and employees took care of our belongings as well as the
attitude of employees was quite good. After all at the time of leaving we got bacon even

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though we did not order that. While asking about this we were told that it is complementary.
This shows that the café had its strengths of enhancing services only.
Physical evidence
The surroundings or environment influences the behaviour and creates an image of the
organization apparently in service businesses like café, hotel, and restaurant. This effect of
the physical appearance or environment on customers and employees is recognized in
different service businesses by their respective managers (Alfadly, 2012). Effect of physical
environment of the place on the quality and nature of interaction among or between
employees and consumers must be given a special consideration while accounting
interpersonal services-capes (Bitner, 1992). This physical evidence provides a tangible
surrounding which facilitate the communication and performance of the services. Researchers
suggest that the service is not an end product that can be displayed to the consumers but
services cannot be evaluated before using them this makes organizations to use their physical
evidences in order to showcase their quality of service to the customers (Chen & Hu, 2010).
Physical evidence works as an additional enhancing element for the customer expectations. In
order to evaluate the quality of physical evidence and its impact on both the customers as
well as employees, a framework was created. A better quality physical evidence or
environment influences different aspects of the employees like, job satisfaction, productivity,
and motivation. At the same time it also influences the customer attraction and increases their
expectations from the place (Line & Runyan, 2012). This framework splits different elements
of physical evidence into three categories; space and functionality, ambient conditions, and
signs, symbols and artefacts. This framework model is given as below

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Figure 2 Bitner, (1992) Servicescapes framework
The ambient conditions of the frame work refer to the characteristics of the surroundings
which influences the customer perception towards the service quality of organization. This
perception influences by five different senses that senses the temperature, air quality, noise,
colour, lighting, music, and fragrances of the surrounding. In case of Nicolatte Café these
elements of the ambient conditions were quite good. Second category space and functionality
defines the shape and size of the place. In includes the furnishings, equipment, and the order
in this these equipment arranged to make a good impression of the physical appearance on
the customers. The third category, sign, signal and artefacts refers to make an understanding
of the behaviour expected by the management to maintain the harmony of place.
Using this framework model, the thorough analysis of the Nicolatte Café, for ambient
condition is very nice. Although café doesn’t look that much pretty from outside as of it is
inside. Lighting of the café is quite decent making the dining area look like cool i.e. not so
bright or not that much dark. Although the dining space is very wide, at the time it is full

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there is so much noise that can irritate sometimes. Background music is very nice. Customers
can enjoy the music while having their food. In terms of colour of the dining area walls café
has a decent look. Colour of the interior walls is little dark to make the surrounding look like
silent and make an effective lighting. The open area for dining is covered by the glass doors
allowing sunlight to freshen up the environment and make a nice view of the street. Furniture
items of the café are of wooden which look nice and quite formal. All these elements give the
restaurant a decent cool look that attracts most of the people for its simplicity as well as
decency. This look reflects the food quality of restaurant and makes a hidden communication
with its customers about its hygiene. The background wall of the cash counter is painted with
a saying like, “Happiness is having good food with great friends”. This saying is painted in a
very effective way to make a god impression of their food. Nicolatte Café has its uniqueness
in its food and beverage items. Their food quality is very nice but their exterior appearance in
so simple that customers may not find that much cool as it is in real from inside.
Recommendations
The above analysis of the Nicolatte Café about its services there are some weaknesses where
managements has to work on to resolve these issues. As per this analysis this place is quite
good with its food products but marketing strategies are not so good. Service marketing is to
market the services through different elements of the surrounding and supplementary
services. Café is lacking in its services, enhancing the delivery of products, but the
facilitating supplementary services are quite good of the café. One major weakness of the
café is they are not good with taking orders from the tables for two also they do not book
table before arrival of the customers. This makes customers to wait for the table. In case of
customer looking for a quick meal café employees asked them to wait for a while, customer
will prefer to visit another nearby place. This can decrease the business. In order to remove

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this issue management of the café can start pre-booking of tables for two. This will make is
easy for the customers looking for a quick meal to get the food as per their expectations.
Another issue of the café is receiving only one payment from one table. This will make
customers be loyal for the café as they will get what they want in terms of time saving.
Otherwise, making customers wait, will result in disappointing the customers and will make
them unlike to visit next time (Ryu et al., 2012).
For customers visiting in a group sometimes want to split their bill among them all. Although
billing system is quite good the system of receiving only single payment from one table will
surely disappoint such customers. Also they don’t have so many alternatives to make
payments. This system does not allow other people to make payments of their share which
will definitely disappoint the people visiting in groups. Today in the world of digitalization
everyone expects to make an easy and convenient payment (Ryu et al., 2012). In service
market the customer expectations are crucial for the customer satisfaction and as the
customer satisfaction is most crucial element of the success in service marketing management
cannot take it lightly. Café management has to overcome this issue to provide a complete
customer satisfaction. Once customer makes a convenient payment it makes a last impression
of the customer satisfaction as the customer will be leaving the place after making payment.
Therefore, this issues needs to be resolve as soon as possible.
When it comes to the weaknesses of the physical evidence the café is quite good but its
weakness of sufficient space makes it noisy when booked completely. It can disturb other
customers resulting in irritating them and leaving the place. This noise also destroys the
feeling of pleasant music. This will result in reducing the time spent by the customers and
ultimately impact the customer satisfaction as well as the business. Usually people go to the
restaurants for meeting new people or sometime for an important business meeting. In that
case such disturbance will result in choosing another place by the customer. This issue can be

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resolved by introducing limited seats according to the space available at the location. Or
separate cabin system can be introduced to avoid the other interference. This will attract such
people looking for a separate private space to make an important meeting.
Conclusion
From the above critical analysis about the service marketing of Nicolatte Café it is concluded
that the café is lacking in service marketing through some of the supplementary services like
attending the customers and its space utilization. Analysis suggests that the arrangement is
much impressive but it is not good if the café is full. Therefore, we can conclude that the
service marketing needs some changes as per recommendations. The owner would make a
good business if these issues related to service marketing get resolved. Analysis also states
that as per the service marketing theory both the delivery enhancing and facilitating
supplementary services play a critical role in marketing. Although the price, taste, interior,
and hygiene are good enough of the café but this is not enough to make business. To make a
good business marketing of the business is essential and that can be done only by applying
some marketing strategies used for the service marketing. Moreover, critical analysis findings
suggested some strengths of the café like good taste, nice interior and environment therefore
making few changes as per recommendations would make the business stronger and café will
survive better in the market competition.

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References
Alfadly, D.A.A., 2012. Improving the Quality of Services Marketing in Kuwaiti
Organizations. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 2(20), pp.235-43.
Baron, S., Warneby, G. & Hunter-Jones, P., 2014. Service(s) Marketing Research:
Development and Direcctions. International Journal of Management Reviews, 16, pp.150-71.
Bitner, M.J., 1992. Servicescapes: The Impact of Physical Surroundingd on Customer and
Employees. Journal of Marketing, 56(2), pp.57-71.
Chen, P.-T. & Hu, H.-H., 2010. How Determinant Attributes of Service Quality Influence
Customer-Percieved Value: An Empirical Investigation of the Australian Coffee Outlet
Industry. Internationaal Joutnal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 22(4), pp.535-
51.
Ivy, J., 2008. A New highere Education Marketing Mix: The 7Ps for MBA Marketing.
International Journal of Educationa Management, 22(4), pp.288-99.
Line, N.D. & Runyan, R.C., 2012. Hospitality Marketing Research: Recent Trends and
Future Directions. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 31(2), pp.477-503.
Lovelock, C. & Gummesson, E., 2004. Whither Services Marketing? In Search of a New
Paradigm and Fresh Perspectivees. Journal of Service Research, 7(1), pp.20-41.
Ryu, k., Lee, H.-R. & Gon Kim, W., 2012. The Influence of the Quality of the Physical
Environment, Food, and Service on Restaurant image, Customer Percieved Value, Customer
satisfaction, and Behavioural Intensions. International Journal of Comtemporary Hospitality
Management, 24(2), pp.200-23.

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Appendices
Appendix A
Product image

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Appendix B
Physical evidences

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