Services Marketing and Relationship Marketing Analysis Essay

This essay examines the concepts of services marketing and relationship marketing, focusing on the interplay between front-stage and backstage activities within an organization. It emphasizes the significance of these activities in shaping customer satisfaction and overall business success. The essay uses Coles, an Australian retail department store, as a case study to illustrate how front-stage interactions, such as customer service and promotional techniques, and backstage operations, including employee management and strategic planning, contribute to maintaining a competitive edge. The analysis includes a flowchart to conceptualize the impact of different service aspects and highlights the managerial implications of service encounters, emphasizing the need for a customer-centric approach and strategic decision-making to achieve long-term growth and market dominance. The essay concludes that the harmonious functioning of front-stage and backstage activities is essential for achieving organizational goals and gaining a competitive advantage.

Running head: SERVICES MARKETING & RELATIONSHIP MARKETING
Services Marketing & Relationship Marketing
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

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SERVICES MARKETING & RELATIONSHIP MARKETING
The reflective essay sheds light on the marketing services and relationship marketing
of an organisation. The services provided by an organisation determine its relationship and
effectiveness of marketing strategies. The reflective essay focuses on the importance of front-
stage and backstage activities of an organisation. These activities are important in order to
maintain the flexibility of an organisation and ensure that the internal and external threat
factors are mitigated successfully. A description about the significance of the services
encountered by the customers and employees; along with the managerial implications of the
activities are provided in the essay. For the purpose of the essay and a better understanding of
the impact of front stage and backstage activities, Coles has been chosen. A flowchart is
provided in order to conceptualise the effects in a clear manner.
Coles is a famous retail department store in Australia. Set up in 1914, the organisation
is situated in Melbourne. Presently the company owns AUD$22.1 billion assets and accounts
for more than 80% of the Australian market. In 2007, Wesfarmers approached to purchase
Coles for AUD$22 billion. By 2008, the purchase of the company was complete. In the
modern day, the company launched a new website by the name of Coles Online to provide
online shopping services to its customers (Coles.com, 2017). In my opinion, the front-stage
and backstage activities of Coles help it to maintain its dominance in the Australian market.
With a continuous threat coming from Woolworths, the implications of a proper managerial
strategy can help the company to maximise its sales.
According to Markham, (2013), front-stage activities are the interactions that take
place between the customers and the service providers. The interactions include
communication with the customers, receiving feedbacks, providing after sales or before sales
services and so on. These interactions help an organisation to complete itself and work hard
towards achieving its goals of satisfying customers. The backstage activities, on the other
hand, are the type of activities that are not visible to the customers. These include the
strategies, service chain, manufacturing processes that are done within the organisational
boundaries and rules (Liu et al., 2017). In the light of this statement, I can state that both
these activities are important for the success of an organisation. Working harmoniously can
help in the progress of an organisation. I have observed that the more the amount of
interaction with the customers the better it is for the reputation of an organisation. In the case
of Coles, the application of such a concept can help it to gain a competitive edge over its
rivals. Hence, a flowchart of the types of services offered by Coles can be used to analyse its
effectiveness.

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SERVICES MARKETING & RELATIONSHIP MARKETING
Figure: Flowchart of front-stage and backstage facilities of Coles
(Source: Kazemzadeh, Milton & Johnson, 2015)
From the flowchart, it can be seen that several sub-divisions exist under both
categories that help it to distinguish between the services. These categories are unique and
form the foundations of an organisation. For example, the facilities of an organisation, its
contact personnel and the promotional techniques help it to attract and interact with
customers. In the case of Coles, these factors are important to satisfy customers because the
appearance of the company is also analysed by the customers. The back-stage factors include
the number of employees, the strategies taken by the managers and the number of orders that
need to be carried out. La Rocca et al., (2017) stated that these activities are equally
important as the front-stage activities. I am of the same view, as these activities are co-related
to another. I have observed that without a proper strategy and a sufficient number of
employees, an organisation cannot maintain itself. The results from the front-stage activities
prompt the managers to take action at the backstage. For example, if a customer returns a
particular product of Coles, then the managers gave to investigate the cause of the failure of
the product. This is done at the backstage of Coles so that customers or rival companies do
not have access to seek out strategic information (Brockhoff & Hauschildt, 2013).
In this regard, it can be said that the service encounters between customers and
employees of Coles can be determined by the front-stage analysis. It can be seen that Coles
need to maintain its focus on the satisfaction of the customers. This includes providing proper
after sales service, guiding customers inside the store and solving any queries related to
product or price. Proper contact personnel need to be identified that can take care of the needs
of the customers (Sandström, Berglund & Magnusson, 2014). In this way, customers can
remain happy and contribute to the success of the organisation. Apart from employees, it is
also needed that Coles install equipment that is convenient for the use of the customers. This
is mainly because of the fact that customers prefer to handle equipment that is easy to use and
ColesFront-stageoperationsFaciitiesContactpersonnelCustomersPromotionaltechniquesBackstageoperationsOrdersorreplacementsEmployeesStrategies

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SERVICES MARKETING & RELATIONSHIP MARKETING
light to carry. In the case of online purchase, a less complicated payment method may help
Coles to satisfy customers. Based on this analysis I can say that service encounter is
important for Coles. Based on the services provided by the company, the customers can
remain satisfied. Apart from this, the backstage operations of Coles can also fluctuate.
The back-stage operations or activities are the managerial implications of a company.
The managers of every company take strategic decisions that contribute to the profitability
and success of a company (Söderlund, 2017). The first major decision that needs to be made
is the satisfaction of employees. This is mainly because a dissatisfied, employee can misguide
customers and lead to a fall in the reputation of the organisation. This is also important in the
case of Coles. The managers of Coles need to keep the employees satisfied and motivated.
The employees need to be given proper authority to take decisions regarding the welfare of
the organisation. The back-stage activities also involve formulating strategies based on the
orders and/or replacement of the products (Brockhoff & Hauschildt, 2013). The managers
need to ensure that the strategies are communicated with the employees so that mistakes can
be avoided in the organisation. Thus, after analysing the backstage activities, I opine that the
managerial implications of the strategies and the thoughts about the welfare of the companies
need to be made depending upon the level of success of an organisation. In the case of Coles,
the implications made by the managers need to be such that the organisation outgrows its
competitors and improve its reputation in the Australian retail market.
Thus, I can conclude that for an organisation to exist successfully, it is necessary that
the front-stage and backstage work simultaneously. This is important in order to gain a
competitive advantage. The activities involved in these two stages need to be managed well
in the proper departments so that the goals of the organisation can be reached. After analysing
this topic, I can say that the implications of strategies by a manager are based on the service
encounters between the customers. In the case of Coles, the main aim is to maintain the
reputation and work on growth. Hence, the implications of these strategies and techniques are
important for the organisation.

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SERVICES MARKETING & RELATIONSHIP MARKETING
Reference
Brockhoff, K., & Hauschildt, J. (Eds.). (2013). The dynamics of innovation: strategic and
managerial implications. Springer Science & Business Media.
Coles.com (2017). Retrieved 21 August 2017, from https://www.coles.com.au/
Kazemzadeh, Y., Milton, S. K., & Johnson, L. W. (2015). Service blueprinting and process-
chain-network: an ontological comparison. International Journal of Qualitative
Research in Services, 2(1), 1-12.
La Rocca, A., Hoholm, T., & Mørk, B. E. (2017). Practice theory and the study of interaction
in business relationships: Some methodological implications. Industrial Marketing
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Liu, Y. F., Xu, Y., & Ling, I. L. (2017). The impact of backstage cues on service
evaluation. International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences, 9(2).
Markham, S. K. (2013). The Impact of Front‐End Innovation Activities on Product
Performance. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 30(S1), 77-92.
Sandström, C., Berglund, H., & Magnusson, M. (2014). Symmetric assumptions in the theory
of disruptive innovation: Theoretical and managerial implications. Creativity and
Innovation Management, 23(4), 472-483.
Söderlund, M. (2017). Employee display of burnout in the service encounter and its impact
on customer satisfaction. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 37, 168-176.