Apr-Jun 2016 edition of Masterpiece Magazine @ Masterpiece-ng.com
The rebased Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) provided further validity that service contribution to GDP gradually displaces the relative importance of agriculture as countries transition from underdevelopment to emerging economies. Service now constitutes over 50% of Nigeria’s GDP rising from 20%+ in the last decade. Service sectors have foot print and integrated into nearly all facet of national economy including activities in the infrastructural service (communication, transportation, et al), financial service (banking, insurance, et al), distribution service (wholesale, retail, et al), Personal service (health care, entertainment, et al), Government service (education, police, judiciary, et al), and business service (auditing, legal, et al). Service has become the fulcrum upon which the economy revolves and constitutes the foundational lever for institutional framework maturity to drive economic development
Effective performance of the service sector drives integrated growth in both the service and product market sectors. Marketing literature has distinguished packaged goods marketing from service marketing on the pillars of tangibility, participation, simultaneity, et al. Service industry products in this sense represent the performance of an act that confers concrete value to the customer rather than delivery of an object. It is an encounter where the customer and service provider participate in real time. Effective service delivery possesses dimensions of timeliness, reliability, assurance, responsiveness, consistency, and empathy. Again, marketing research tend to indicate that these dimensions are as applicable to service as the packaged goods marketing. Modern marketing, whether of service or packaged goods simply requires customer management. Knowing what the customer want and delivering on them.
Delivering what the customer wants is as elusive as it is real. From the service encounter at the hospital, the salon, the Government ministry, the police station, the bank, to the retail store; are the customers getting what they really want. A frustrated bank manager once asked a civil servant complaining about bank service quality if he was any better stating that after all, he had his certificate of occupancy in process with the ministry for over two years with no end in sight. Service delivery issues cuts across private and public sectors and our expectations must not be discriminating. We must insist on the best and service providers must attempt to be a step ahead always. The other day I walked into a furniture showroom and was quite pleased with the politeness of the attendants but on settling in I had wished the attendant would offer a glass of cold water. The temperature outside was raging at over 30 Degree Centigrade+. This simple gesture could have enhanced my purchase intention attributable to the positive valence coming from a simple polite gesture as ofering a bottle of cold water.
Indeed, in an increasingly sophisticated world with high exposure and awareness, customers’ needs are very unpredictable and so service providers must strive to understand the changing needs, taste, and expectations of customers through customer engagement behavior and customer relationship management initiatives. It’s all about the customer and what they want as posited by Peter F. Drucker “Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. A product is not quality because it is hard to make and cost a fortune…. Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value. Nothing else constitutes quality.” The examples of Apple whose product and service innovation and packaging have virtually arrested its faithful and Coca Cola whose latest product delivery is wrapped around name personalization of products are brilliant marketing initiatives. The leaders of tomorrow are those who are able to envision the needs of the customer and execute activities that satisfy those needs seamlessly.
Without a doubt service delivery concerns are a major issue for service providers and customers alike especially in developing countries like Nigeria presumably because of legacy and antiquated practices bordering on monopolistic and oligopolistic controls prevalent in many service sectors; the market existed, demand outstripped supply and so typically a seller’s market. Luckily, the situation has changed in the last decade or so and the level of competition is responding to the privatization initiatives. Indeed, the level of entrepreneurial initiatives spurning directly and indirectly out of the various privatization initiatives have stepped up the competition level in the various service sectors. Even Government has opened up to concessioning in its traditional areas of higher education, road infrastructure et al. Competition has become fiercer and effective service delivery remains the only panacea to relevance in the service industry and even in the packaged product market.
The recognition of the imperative of effective service delivery to gaining market share now cuts across both the service industry and the product markets as effective marketing planning requires wrapping appropriate service components in the delivery of the product themselves. In any case, can we safely assume that all service providers pay similar attention to the design of the service delivery architecture to deliver seamless quality service? At a personal level, I would probably affirm that the financial service sector more than any other has paid more attention to service quality performance. Whether the desired result has been achieved is another issue entirely. Be that as it may, the relevant issue is that all service providers should pay attention to the design of their service platform to ensure that the service platform performs as it ought to in meeting the needs of customers.
Effective service delivery must start with a service delivery framework that recognizes, order, and up the internal capabilities of the service provider to meet the needs of the customer. It includes resources such as policies, human capital, and the culture component and how these resources are used to guide the design, development, operation and retirement of the service delivered by the service provider. As William Foster said “Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skilful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.” Service delivery paradigm is planned for within the service delivery framework, the leaders live the paradigm as a way of ingraining the habit into the organizational culture so that what Henry Ford asserted as “doing it right when no one is looking” becomes a way of life and constituting the very fabric of the organization. Importantly, the assumption that only the frontline staff who encounter the customers need be assimilated into this cultural context may be unwise. The back and front office staff workflow are interdependent and so all staff must be equally assimilated into this culturally crafted way of life if seamless flow of service quality delivery is to be achieved