At Your Service….

“Service marketing refers to the application of a different set of tactics or strategies to anticipate the consumer’s need for an intangible product. And thus, meet their requirements accordingly, to create maximum value for them from their purchase” – theinvestorsbook.com . Service marketing is all about the customer service experience.

In this blog post, I will be using the example of a phone shop and essentially the ‘soft p’s’ of the marketing mix (people, process and physical evidence) which are essential for products and services in today’s competitive market. The scenario will be looked at through the eyes of the customer in the services a phone shop provides when looking for an upgrade on a phone and also if there is room for improvement for the mobile phone retailer so it can maintain its dominance in telecommunication market.

1. Communicating successfully

Communication is “a totally two-way, interactive, dyadic process, which has major implications for all organizations, not just service providers” (McDonald & Payne, 1996). Over the years, phone shops have evolved from just being a mobile phone retailer into a telecoms service provider. For a customer looking to purchase or upgrade their phone, phone shops would be perceived as an ideal outlet for meeting their expectations as well as the organisations through the customer service it provides which is paramount for it to remain successful and profitable.

2. Service at its best?

The characteristics of a service are that they are intangible – there is no physical form but rather it is dependent on experience and they are inseparable- performed by people for people. In this instance, a customer is at a phone shop looking for the latest upgrade on their mobile phone.  Services can also be variable – “the human, ‘people’, element means that individuals have their own unique ‘style’. While standards can be met and set, human beings by nature are individuals, not machines” (Home Learning, 2009). Customers may visit a phone shop but may not get the same experience or service as before which could be potentially detrimental to the organisation.

Services can also have a lack of ownership which can raise the question of whether or not good customer service is being fulfilled. Due to this the marketing mix has been extended to people, process and physical evidence to counteract any issues the characteristics of services may convey. The ‘experience flow chart’ below hypothetically demonstrates a scenario the service a phone shop provided when a customer was looking to upgrade their mobile phone.

Phone shop visit  

2.1 Meeting Expectations

The American marketing author, consultant and professor  Philip Kotler identified four categories differing from a ‘pure’ product to a ‘pure’ service. Getting an upgrade on a mobile phone from the phone shop is a tangible product which comes with services. The phone is the product but it has built-in services to enhance its appeal to the customer such as free data roaming in the EU.

“Listening to and engaging positively with customers shows you care and reinforces customer loyalty” (Paul & Nilsson, 2011). By the sales assistant in the phone shop conversing with the customer and making eye contact whilst on hold, illustrated they had an interest in the customer and this can be seen as a mechanism in making them more comfortable and gaining their trust. The sales assistant listened and asked how much the customer was willing to spend or if they wanted to stick to the same price plan. When looking at the physical evidence aspect, the sales assistant at the till was dressed smartly in the company uniform and the welcome was warm as they immediately asked how they could help. The store was also tidy and spacious for customers to move around and items were clearing marked by point of sale materials such as posters.

2.2 Expectations too high?

As services are perceived as intangible, the tangible aspects – people, process and physical evidence have to pay dividends. “Service delivery is of great importance to the customer’s overall perception of service quality” (McDonald & Payne, 1996). When the customer arrived in the phone shop, they were not greeted and no form of welcome was initiated by members of staff so the customer had to make the first move to get noticed. The first sales assistant lacked product knowledge and when the customer returned to the store no one was there or seemed interested in meeting their needs.  The physical evidence was clear from the customer’s return that the service they required was poor and highlighted bad customer service in comparison to earlier as the customer left the store unsatisfied.

2.3 Collaborating for Success

“Internal marketing involves creating, developing and maintaining an organisational service culture that will lead to the right service personnel performing the service in the right way” (Harris & Dennis, 2002). When the customer arrived at the phone shop, they should have been welcomed by a sales assistant. It is understandable that the store was busy but this could raise the issue of employing more members of staff even though it could be considered an expense in regards to money and time.  As new members of staff are not experienced, a way to counteract this is to have more experienced sales assistants with them – a buddy who can monitor and help them when they need assistance. Another way to counteract this would be to invest more in training.

By looking at the extended marketing mix, people are essential. When the customer walks in the store they see the sales assistant as the company, they see them as the brand ambassador as they represent the company from the uniform they wear to the service they provide by making things tangible by offering assistance, conversing and making eye-contact. This is why monthly meetings with colleagues could be beneficial to the company and the customers. In the monthly meetings, colleagues could discuss what issues they had that month and could work together with management to find solutions which would equate in providing a better customer service experience

In conclusion, the service provided by the phone shop was a mixture of good and bad and improvements need to be made in providing the right customer service.  More training is paramount and staff should also be trained in different departments of the store. By staff being flexible this can be translated into a service that the customer desires. There also has to be a consistency in the customer service provided. Sales assistants have to be proactive at all times in approaching customers and listen carefully and respond to their needs in a timely manner or risk losing that customer and they could leave with a bad impression of the organisation.

For the phone shop to maintain its dominance in the telecommunication market, it needs to make more contact time with its customers like what the sales assistant did whilst on hold on the phone. This is because it can make the bond stronger with the customer which costs nothing but the payoff could be rewarding in the size of the transaction and showing the customer they care. After all, customers are the lifeblood of a company. “Take care of your customers, and they will take care of you by driving business your way and teaming up with you to improve your business and what you offer” (Paul & Nilsson, 2011).

Until next time….

 

Emmanuel #EKsMarketingViews

Social Media Influencers – Fad or Future?

Influence – “The capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behaviour of someone or something, or the effect itself”- Dictionary.com

As social media continues to grow exponentially, so has influencer marketing and it has been a very lucrative business for all parties involved. Although some marketers question its sustainability while others believe it is the biggest thing in the realm of social media, influencer marketing is not a new ‘trend’ and has been around for quite some time.

An influencer is a person through reputation, expertise in a specific industry, popularity or mixture of some or all the components mentioned, who has the power to sway others into buying a product or service. From a strategic standpoint, marketers would focus more on the influencers ‘power’ than on their target audience as a whole to get their brands message across to a larger audience.

One of the most famous influencers in the world is Santa Claus – yes Santa Claus. Did you know that the depiction of the jolly rotund man with a white beard that we know and love today first came to light in the 1930s by Coca Cola?

Source: The Coca-Cola Company

Since then, Santa Claus has in a sense become a global and cultural influencer that has not just become synonymous with Christmas but with Coca Cola’s brand as demonstrated by their Christmas adverts (I can hear some of you the humming the holidays are coming).

Even in the last decade alone, Coke’s market share has risen from 17.3% to 17.8 %. Now I am not saying that this is just because of Santa Claus but the introduction of him all those years ago has certainly helped the brand grow. As human beings, we are emotionally driven to making purchasing decisions. Who wouldn’t buy into a person that brings joy to the world at the most wonderful time of the year?

Over the years influencer marketing has changed and adapted with the times. One of the most popular influencers of the 80s and dare I say of all time is the basketball legend Michael Jordan. Deemed by many as the greatest basketball player of all time, in 1984 global sports brand Nike created a shoe for the sports star called Air Jordans.

Source: Getty images

Exclusively made for Jordan early on that year then made for public consumption, later on, the sales for the basketball shoe skyrocketed and the synergy between Michael Jordan and Nike was a mutually beneficial and profitable one. The brand also expanded into athletic and casual clothing. 34 years later, Air Jordans are still very popular.

How many UK readers remember the Ronseal adverts from the mid-’90s? The wood stain, paint and preservative manufacturer devised a campaign when it first came out designed for men and DIY. The man in the video  represented ‘the everyday man’ who at home does DIY. The straight-talking forward approach where a man explains what Ronseal does used the iconic strapline which is now etched into popular culture and the British vernacular which is “Does exactly what it says on the tin”, helped the brand’s sales to shoot up and become a recognizable brand leader.

Even though I touched on it in a previously with Michael Jordan, towards the late 90s early 2000s, influencer marketing became more celebrity-centric. Brands used celebrities to fuel their marketing campaigns and one of the celebrity influencers at the forefront of this was sports personality and cultural icon David Beckham. Working with sports brands such as Adidas (made Adidas Predator Boots the most sort after football boots for young footballers and aspiring ones), carbonated soft drink giant Pepsi, fashion brand Police promoting their sunglasses, Beckham’s cross over appeal generated a substantial increase in sales for those brands and others he has worked with.

Source: Adidas

In around 2010 when social media platforms became prominent, so did influencer marketing and there was a change in the landscape. Businesses realised that potential customers could follow the people they liked and admired and felt closer to them than ever. Fans could become followers and ultimately consumers. Even though influencer marketing was not new, the term ‘Social Media Influencer’ was coined.

Brands were paying key figures to promote their products and services because they believed they could reach a larger audience. A retweet, like or share on social media is basically word of mouth marketing but on an online platform. However, there are a number of variables into how influencers are paid and this includes:

• The number of followers and fans the influencer has
• The amount of engagement their posts generally garner
• The fit of the advertisement with their brand and following
• The number of posts you want
• The type of post (image, video, audio, etc.)
• The amount of effort needed from the influencer (do you provide the image/video or do they?)
• Where the ad will be promoted (will it just be on the influencer’s account? Are you cross-posting it? Are you using it in other efforts?) – taken from CPC Strategy

One of the biggest influencers on social media (especially Instagram) at the moment is reality star, Kylie Jenner. With a following of 125 million people and her posts getting over one million likes whether she is promoting a beauty product or is sponsored by a sports brand such as Adidas, Kylie Jenner reaches a large audience where the majority of her demographic are teenage girls and women in their 20’s.

Source: @kyliejenner

However, some influencers have also come under scrutiny by advertising watchdogs as there has to be transparency in them specifying that their social posts are an ad using the #ad or sponsored ad/ paid partnership.

Source: @georgiakousoulou

This also makes it clear to their followers if the influencer actually uses the product or service or are just being paid to promote it. This brings me onto how there now seems to be a slight paradigm shift with influencers on social media.

Celebrity endorsements and adverts will always be popular to a certain degree. However, Millennials and Generation Z  have disrupted the influencer market as consumers want social proof before they buy a product or service. This has paved a way for new types of influencers known as micro and macro influencers. These influencers may only have a following of a couple of thousands or even a million but they come across more authentic to their followers as they are ‘normal’ people; they are niche market but their content gives followers an insight into their interests and passions.

Micro and macro influencers have two things in common; with their aesthetic posts, whether they are pictures or video demonstrations of them using a product or service, they provide content that comes authentic and relatable. These influencers recommendations come across real and they can range from health enthusiasts talking about a product or equipment they use, makeup artists, bloggers, food vloggers just to name a few and as shown in the example below.

Source: @veganpixie_

For brands, these new type of influencers can also be cost-effective and some can even be free with an incentive such as offering them free products.

The scepticism that some marketers have is that even though social media influencers can reach a larger audience and keep followers engaged, what impact do they have on brands bottom line – their  ROI and is it converting into sales. This is a fair observation and something that has to be considered and continuously looked at.

With social media continuing to grow and being a highly saturated market where brands are competing for attention, influencers can break through the noise and make brands more noticeable but at what cost.

So my question to you is this – “Social media influencers – fad or future?” Let me know your thoughts and leave a comment and or like.  Until next time…

Emmanuel #EKsMarketingViews

The Art of Story-selling

Over the last few years, content marketing has become more prominent and has been at the forefront for businesses and their overall marketing strategy. With platforms and mediums such as video and social media continuing to be utilised, more content is being produced. However, what lies at the heart of making content resonate with people is story-telling and story-selling.

To be a good story-teller, you have to be a good story -seller and that helps makes content more appealing to consumers – old, new and potential. Allow me to explain.

As human beings, our brains function in a specific way. The left side of the brain is responsible for controlling the right side of the body and vice versa.  However what the left side also does is performs tasks to do with logic, analysis, maths and reasoning while the right side of the brain is home to emotions and is used to perform tasks to do with creativity, art, intuition and music.

According to a global study in 2017 titled “Meaningful Brands” from  Havas Group  which links brand performance  to our everyday lives, 84% of people expect brands to provide content that:

• Entertains
• Tells stories
• Provide solutions
• Creates experiences and events

When telling a story, people want content that provides emotive context. However, when companies are trying to sell a product or service,  they cannot just be storytellers, they need to become story-sellers.  A story cannot just be told when something in business needs to be sold. This is where information, data, statistics come into place as it will connect to the left side of the brain to help justify making decisions. Statistics from the Content Marketing Institute has shown that  91% of UK marketers ensure that their content is fact-based and/or credible. This can help instil trust and brand loyalty.

To be story-seller, it is about using a combination of emotive and logical content to make people buy a product or service. Here is a hypothetical example.

“Jonathan has been saving up from the last year to try to do an advertising course (already I am providing emotional content and setting the story up) but prices were still expensive so it seemed unattainable. This year, courses currently online are offering a 40% discount (using data and taping into the logical side i.e. the intellectual side of the brain). Jonathan finds an international accredited course in advertising and is currently working towards his qualification. To find an accredited course with a 40% discount contact X”.

That is just a very rough example of using story selling and using a mixture of emotion, logic and intellect to deliver a message straight to a potential consumer to create a demand for a product or service. Story-selling is not an easy thing to do and can take time to master using information, data and creating a detailed story which comprises of the left and right hemisphere of the brain.

As the year is about to draw to a close and new one about to begin, more content will be produced and businesses should continue to tell stories but also sell them too.

Emmmanuel #EKsMarketingViews