Service Marketing and Relationship Marketing-Samples for Students

Question: Discuss about the Service Marketing and Relationship Marketing. Answer: For a services organization, it is very important to establish proper and effective interaction among its employees. It is very necessary for managing the activities and operations in effective and professional way. The organization makes efforts to maintain effective communication between its front stage and back stage divisions. For offering quality services to the customers, management of organization has to categorize these two divisions. In this reflective essay, there is a discussion about the front office and back office flow charts of National Health Services. It will analyze the importance of service counter at health service organization. At the end, it will evaluate the managerial implications of designed flow charts and effectiveness of service encounter to achieve the goals of organization. Flow Charts Currently, I am working in well-established health services organization in Australia, i.e. National Health Services (NHS). I am working here as a care taker from 2016. NHS is the biggest health care organization in Australia that is funded by public. It is providing all types of health care services to the patients. It is also giving them support for maintaining their health and life style. At NHS, the senior management has established two departments, i.e. back stage and front stage for evaluating, creating and offering the services to the patients (Armstrong et al, 2014). Each and every product based or service based organization create flow charts for planning, organizing and supervising the operations according to the set quality and standards. For NHS, designing of the flowcharts is necessary for attaining the preset standards and managing the organizational culture of providing the services. An effective balance between back and front stage flow charts will have huge impact on the process used for attaining the objectives of business (Christopher et al, 2013). Front Stage Flow Charts At NHS, there are some specific operations and services, which are assigned to the front stage staff, like; managing the quality and standards, coordination and collection of admitting and discharging patients (Goetsch and Davis, 2014). Front office staff of organization follows a flow chart that is created by the top level management. As I observed at NHS, front office flow chart of the organization includes different activities like; communication with the patients and other visitors, providing data and information about appointment of health care services and required information about the modifications in the health care provision to ignore the chances of conflicts. Back Stage Flow Chart From the flow chart, I have noticed that the changes in scheduling and decision making process are developed as per the information that is provided by front office department (Fisher, 2015). Additionally, by looking at the front office flow chart, back stage department creates its plan to assign the tasks and responsibilities to the health care employees. This approach of front stage staff is assisting the National Health Service organization to meet the requirements of patients in an effective and planned way. Back Stage Flow Charts At NHS, back office operations have a major impact on the process of planning and implementation of plan to offer the quality services and give effective health care services to patients (Kapoor. 2011). As I observed at NHS, the flow chart of NHS back office incudes the activities like; receiving the call of patients, attending the suppliers and staff of NHS, which is necessary for gathering the information and creating changes in the schedule. In addition, the back office flow chart includes the procedure of filling the documents about the employees, evaluation of financial statements and endorsement of funds by taking the permission of senior management positions (Edwards, 2010). Back Stage Flow Chart Furthermore, back stage flow chart of NHS evaluates other activities, like; cleaning the waiting area, making comfort and entertain the patients. With this, they also ensure the quality and standards of services and effective allocation and usage of resources. I realized that back office chart of NHS is effective and assisting health care organization to fulfill its objectives. Significance of Service Encounter For a service industry organization, service encounter plays an important role in understanding the process designing and delivering the services, which include both management and customers to meet the goals. According to my observation at NHS, the service counter involves the satisfaction of patients and efficiency on the basis of perceived behavior between health care professional and customers. For instance, the patients, who visit the health care organization, like; NHS interact with health care executives for getting the data and information about appointment and scheduling of patients with seniors care provider (Zeithaml, 2013). Along with this, it will get the information about the procedure of using the products and services and offer payments options, which assist them in understanding the value of services. Additionally, I realized that NHS always believes to offer standard services to their patient in the form of treatment. It also maintains the interaction and communication by looking at the needs and demands of patients. In this situation, the company is following the direct form of service encounter because this is comparatively good for health care organizations to requirements and understanding the condition of patients. It is considering direct service encounter for effectively managing the resources to offer better services and treatment and interact with the family of patients. By looking at the services encounter at NHS, I can say that services encounter is very important for a service organization. It assists to fix the quality standards of service and needs of patients that assist in managing the business operations. Furthermore, in a successful service encounter, services and people come together to get predetermined goals by behaving nicely and following the rules for maintaining the security and safety of patients and their information (Kapoor. 2011). As I analyzed, it can be said that an effective and successful service encounter with the patients and clients have optimistic impact on the brad reputation and services quality, which is offered to the patients at National Health Service Organization in Australia. Managerial Implications Managerial implications can be defined by proper evaluation and implementation of changes, which have huge effect on the quality and standards of services at NHS (Zeithaml, 2013). As per my observation, service delivery process at NHS includes the stages like communication and collaboration with the clients, providing data about appointments and scheduling of services. According to me, for managerial viewpoint listening to patients, understanding their disease and requirements and providing some additional support have positive impact on the management of service industry organization, i.e. NHS. Lack of service encounter can affect the brand image of the organization (Mok et al, 2013). So, management needs to make efforts to fill the gaps between estimated and actual performance of organization (Samaha et al, 2014). I experienced that management can do this by understanding the needs and expectations of customers. At NHS, the employees, i.e. care workers need to be very helpful to pa tients. I believe that this type of management approach will help the organization in meeting the needs of customers and its organizational objectives. From the above reflective essay, it can be considered that flow charts of a services organization for front and back office assists in managing the products and services, which it offers to its clients. It is found that data about the operations and activities, which are involved in the flow charts of NHS to manage the standards and effectiveness of services. At the end, the essay has described about the importance of the interaction and communication process, which can support the organization in achieving its objectives. References Armstrong, G., Adam, S., Denize, S. and Kotler, P. (2014).Principles of marketing. Pearson Australia. Christopher, M., Payne, A., Ballantyne, D. (2013).Relationship marketing. Taylor Francis. Edwards, M. (2010). Communication skills for nurses. A practical guide on how to achieve successful consultations. London: Quay Books. Fisher, A. (2015).Health and social care. Oxford: Heinemann. Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B. (2014).Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson. Kapoor. (2011). Service Marketing: Concepts Practices. Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Mok, C., Sparks, B., Kadampully, J, (2013). Service quality management in hospitality, tourism, and leisure. Routledge. Samaha, S. A., Beck, J. T., Palmatier, R. W. (2014). The role of culture in international relationship marketing.Journal of Marketing,78(5), 78-98. Zeithaml. (2013). Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm. Tata McGraw-Hill Education