Service Experience Diary Report
The service experience diary is designed to help you understand customer expectations and why as consumers we are sometimes satisfied or dissatisfied with the service experience. By recording and analysing your own experiences, particularly in reference to the theories, tools and techniques of services marketing, you should begin to discover what is truly needed to satisfy a customer. The approximate length of the report is 2000 words. Use 1.5 spacing and use page numbers.
When you use the chapters attached use this reference it is a must for all of the chapters.
Lovelock, C.H., Patterson, P.G. and Wirtz, J. (2011) Service Marketing: An Asia-Pacific and Australian Perspective, Pearson Australia, Frenchs Forest.
It may be written in first person but you must still ensure that you use correct English; this includes correct spelling, grammar and punctuation.
You are required to:
Diary
1. Visit or experience a service organisation or event. Choose any organisation in Kuwait and talk about my opinion as “i” am personally visited it and experienced their services. (Restaurant, Salon, Telecom Company or any kind of organisation). write as a mystery shopper in a service environment in the first page only then the rest of the pages link a theory- analysis as a third person.
2. Briefly (a couple of sentences) provide some background on yourself (e.g., age, international student, live in the western suburbs etc.) and any situational influences that may be relevant to this service experience. “Skip the background about myself I will write it but please write about the second part the situation influences that may be relevant to this service experience.”
3. Document your pre-purchase stage. This may include the process you undertook to find information on the organisation, how you plan to get there, your expectations of the visit (what you expect to see, time taken, cost, etc.), and any perceived risks.
4. Document your actual visit/experience, (the consumption stage). Indicate the day and time of the visit and the weather conditions (if relevant) on the day. Express what happened during the visit and how you felt (express your emotions). Refer to ‘emotions in service encounters’ power point slide in chapter 10 lecture notes (the power point is attached below) . Include all interaction you had with personnel and the inanimate environment.
5. Conclude this section by providing a satisfaction rating, a value for money rating and whether you would recommend this service to a close friend or family member. It is strongly recommended that you look at the chapter in the power point slides relating to customer satisfaction and service quality. You will find it helpful if you look at the entire chapter and use the criteria they discuss.
6. You may start to refer to theory in this section and then discuss it more fully in the analysis section of the report. This is not a mind dump; the content must be orderly and as an author you must proof read your work. Take pride in your work.
Analysis (in this section you are required to write as a third person (i.e., the organisation, the customers etc.)
7. Consider a more fitting title of this section tailored to your topic, for example if appropriate you may consider the title: ‘Analysis and recommendations for restaurant businesses’.
8. Analyse your overall judgement and feelings about the service providing organisation in terms of services theories and concepts. Based on your experience you may wish to highlight the strengths and weakness of the attraction/organisation. This may be based on theories such as ‘expectations’, ‘satisfaction’, and ‘service quality’ or the 8Ps. You may wish to identify any opportunities and threats that this organisation may encounter. Again you must relate these items you have identified to relevant theories. Do not simply make this a ‘shopping list’ of attributes.
9. The articles provided by your lecturer or tutor may be used but you must use a minimum of 4 academic peer reviewed journal articles that you have sourced. You will find these materials in the recommended reading below.
10. You must use business report format (i.e., headings and sub-headings), including a table of contents, executive summary, recommendations, conclusion and list of references.
11. Wherever possible make reference to the theories, tools and techniques of services marketing to achieve a decent grade. All published materials utilised should be listed in the reference list and cited throughout the body of your report using the Harvard system of referencing. Use a minimum of 4 academic peer reviewed journal articles.
RECOMMENDED READING
Barnes, J.G. (2001) Secrets of Customer Relationship Management: It’s all about how you make them feel, McGraw-Hill, New York
Baron, S., Conway, T. And Warnaby, G., (2010) Relationship Marketing: A Consumer Experience Approach, Sage, London.
Berry, L.L., and Parasuraman, A., (1991) Marketing Services: Competing Through Quality, Free Press, New York.
Bruhn, M. and Georgi, D., (2006) Services Marketing: Managing the Service Value Chain, Prentice-Hall, Harlow.
