Bu1108 Managing Consumer Markets And Assessment Answers

Answer:

Introduction

The report focuses on the analysis of the quality of the services provided by a coffee bar named ‘Being Alive café’ situated in the City Center mall. The report analyzes the current situation of the café along with the critical incident mentioned in the blog posting. The analysis of the quality of the services provided by the café is based on the ‘critical incident’ approach. After the analysis of these critical incidents, the report provides an evaluation of the internal marketing environment of the café. This evaluation is then followed by an overall conclusion of the café and the quality of the service provided to the customers of the café (Rao, 2015).

Situational analysis

The café was opened five years ago. It is located in the centre of the city, in the central hall which is one of the most busiest places in the city. The café have been successful in attracting many customers because of the location  it is situated which happens to be a market place as well, although there are competitors in the same location but the service provided by the company is not matched by any of the competitors, the café is 80s movie themed. The market share of the company is comparatively higher than the competitors, it is mainly because of the product differentiation they have maintained in the market.(Kim, 2017).

Marketing environment

The location of the café makes other business imitate their services, which lately have increased the competition  in the area that the café is situated.  Although the café is giving distinct services and the quality of  coffee beans used for making coffee latte and espresso is better than the competitors who do not provide good quality of service as well as products, like cakes, muffins and pastries. Other factors that affect the business is rent of malls, inflation rate and the economy fluctuations. The supply chain management is very well organized and it is very efficient they use finest coffee beans for the purpose of production and offer fresh cakes and pastries, while the customers often have complaints about the competitors offering sub standard products. This makes the café gain competitive advantage over its customers.(Wirtz, 2016).

Target market, strategy and positioning

The marketing activities of the café emphasizes on behavioral market segmentation so that they can attract more customers to the mall. For that they focus on promotional activities like providing offers, discounts and organizing contest for the customers to participate. The target market of the café are the customers shopping in the mall and looking to spend some time with their family and friends on a cup of coffee. This can be defined to be concentrated marketing strategy, which lets the café to concentrate all of its marketing capabilities on the customers shopping in the mall along with their family and friends. The café is striving to position itself as an upcoming brand which provides a quality products and services to the customers and takes care of every needs of the customers. The café aims to attract young customers by letting them to have high quality products and services at a unique ambience. The café also makes sure that the customers are provided with high quality services along with a soothing classy and high quality ambience to have quality time with their family and friends (Nadiri, 2013).

Reflection on blog postings

The critical incidents mentioned in the blog postings for the ‘Being Alive café’ mentions the faulty air conditioning system in the café, the employees are not efficient enough to provide quality services to their customers. These can be boiled down to two critical issues, which should be focused, by the management of the café to ensure the increase in their performance in the market. The blog postings emphasizes a lot on the positive aspects of the café in relation of the unique ambience and calm environment, which allows the customers to have good time with their family and friends.  So, the sole focus of the management of the café would be the customer relationship management and maintenance of the environment of the café (Srinivasan, 2014).

Evaluation of the internal marketing environment

This section of the report focuses on the analysis of the various internal environmental factors affecting the overall marketing activities of the café along with its overall business (Dabholkar, 2015).

Product/Service

The products and services provided by an organization determines  the performance of the organization in the corresponding market. The products and services provided by the Being Alive café are of high quality, that attracts  more number of customers in the city center mall. The café makes sure  that the customers are satisfied with the services that they are provided  and there are very less complaints. But sometimes, the café fails to maintain high quality of environment in terms of the ambiance, that is due to mismanagement.

People

One of the critical incidents mentioned in the blog states  the inefficiency of the employees in the café on one particular occasion. But generally the people employed by the management of the Being Alive café have capability to maintain a healthy relation with the customers and to provide high quality of service to the customers. The people employed in the café are also capable enough to provide details of the items present in the menu along with being fluent in their interactions to the customers. The employees are well trained for providing the best services to the customers and cater their needs. There are adequate staff members to provide the best quality services though when there is too much of rush during festivals and events there is mismanagement and some customers even complain. The staffs are skillful, they are efficient coffee makers and those at the baking department are highly skilled, they all hold a degree of baking from reputed institutes (Lovelock, 2015).

Process

The business processes of Being Alice café are efficient enough to maintain a smooth and quick delivery of the products with minimum errors to the customers. The waiters in the café ensure that they are clear about the requirements of the customers and also makes sure  that the food reaches the customers as soon as they are prepared and they check the orders carefully before placing it to the customers so that there are less mistakes in placing the orders. There are a couple of shortcomings of the process when there are many customers in the café and the demand of the food is quite high. Coffee is made instantly and served to the customers, it can be customized for which the customers pay a little extra amount. Cakes and bakeries available at the coffee shop is made and delivered freshly at a bakery nearby which works in partnership with the café The staffs of the bakery are also highly skilled, the banana muffin is one of the most demanded desert after the customized coffee of Being Alive café.

Price

The prices of the products sold in the Being Alive café are very important marketing factors, which affect the overall performance of the business. The Being Alive café allows the customers to have high quality products and services at very affordable prices. This is the  reason why  more customers are attracted, the prices of the products of Being Alive café is quite reasonable in comparison to any other coffee bars in the area or the city center mall. The pricing strategy used by the organization is skimming strategy because their product and services are much better than the competitors and hence this strategy has been working well for the organization because the customers get the value for their price. During certain occasions and festivals they are forced to give discounts to their customers, this helps helps the café to attract as much customers as possible (Kim, 2015).

Physical evidence

This is one of the strongest elements of the marketing activities of the Being Alive café. The ambience of the café is of very high quality which lets the customers feel very comfortable in spending long and quality time with family and friends. As mentioned in the blog posting, the café has a very high quality environment with a subtle touch of a theme of the 80’s movies. This in turn attracts more customers as the place looks classy and of high quality. A slow music is always played in the café and the lightings are very exquisite, all this adds to soothing ambience. There is a small library at the back side of the café where newspapers and articles are available for those customers who like to read newspapers or magazines with their coffee. The interior décor of the café, the furniture and curtains gives a classy look. On the wall of the café beautiful wall paintings can be seen giving it a look of 80s movie theme.

Place

The location of the caf e is one of the major reasons why it is so famous among the customers, it is located in the central hall.  It is located in the heart of the city and a large number of customers go the hall for shopping and when they need to spend time with their friends and family or feel like having a good coffee they visit Being Alive café.  The location itself helps in gaining a competitive advantage over other cafes located in the different part of the city. There is always customer flow in the café. (Bowie, 2016).

Promotion

The promotional activities included in the marketing strategy of the Being Alive café cover discounts and offers on various items during special occasions. This in turn allows the customers to enjoy their favorite food with their friends and family at the café at a discounted price. They organize contests and give prizes like coffee mugs  and good quality coffee jars. The café also introduces season and occasion specific food items to attract the customers. These promotional activities are allowing the café to gain more and more customer loyalty as the customers stay satisfied with the addition of the new food items to celebrate special occasions. They believe that Word of Mouth has a very important role to play and so they focus on WOM as their advertising activity (Huang, 2014).

Sustainable marketing

The marketing process of Being Alive café has been utilizing the seven P’s of the marketing mix quite efficiently. This in turn has allowed the café to gain sustainable marketing, which in turn allows the organization to have a strong opportunity of growth and profit in the market. The quality of the products and services provided by Being Alive café helps the business processes of the organization to leverage these growth opportunities for the organization, the organization put a lot emphasis on the quality of services provided to the customers. Their strategies are not for short term gains rather they aim a long lasting growth and profit and hence they focus a lot in the quality because that is the only way to gain the trust of customers and increase their customer base(Armstrong, 2015).

Conclusion

The Being Alive café been uses all the factors of the marketing mix quite appropriately. This lets the café to increase its customer base very rapidly. The customers are loving the products and services provided by the café and are going to the café repeatedly to enjoy the products and to spend some quality time with their friends and family thus there are significant number of loyal customers of the company. This in turn allows the café to have quite significant growth and profit opportunities in the corresponding market of operation. There are a couple of small issues, that the management of the café can focus to increase the business performance even further (Jalil, 2016).

Recommendations

The recommendations to the management of the Being Alive café are mentioned in this part of the report. The management can put more attention  into satisfying all the needs of the customers with much more efficiency and reduce the mismanagement that occurs. The management should also ensure that all the hardware in the café should be at optimal health in order to ensure efficient services provided to the customers. The management should put more effort into managing the customers when the café is crowded a lot. The management should also ensure to increase the skills of the employees in the café continuously to ensure that the business keeps growing.

References

Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M., & Brennan, R. (2015). Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education.

Bowie, D., Buttle, F., Brookes, M., & Mariussen, A. (2016). Hospitality marketing. Taylor & Francis.

Dabholkar, P. A. (2015). How to improve perceived service quality by increasing customer participation. In Proceedings of the 1990 academy of marketing science (AMS) annual conference (pp. 483-487). Springer, Cham.

Huang, H. C., Chang, Y. T., Yeh, C. Y., & Liao, C. W. (2014). Promote the price promotion: The effects of price promotions on customer evaluations in coffee chain stores. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 26(7), 1065-1082.

Jalil, N. A. A., Fikry, A., & Zainuddin, A. (2016). E-atmospheric effects on youth intention to revisit a cafe. Procedia Economics and Finance, 37, 497-503.

Kim, D., & Jang, S. (2017). Symbolic consumption in upscale cafés: Examining Korean gen Y consumers’ materialism, conformity, conspicuous tendencies, and functional qualities. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 41(2), 154-179.

Kim, D., Jang, S., & Adler, H. (2015). What drives café customers to spread eWOM? Examining self-relevant value, quality value, and opinion leadership. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(2), 261-282.

Lovelock, C., & Patterson, P. (2015). Services marketing. Pearson Australia.

Nadiri, H., & Gunay, G. N. (2013). An empirical study to diagnose the outcomes of customers’ experiences in trendy coffee shops. Journal of Business Economics and Management, 14(1), 22-53.

Rao, C. P., & Rosenberg, L. J. (2015). Service Provider and Receiver Perceptual Gap Analysis For Effective Dental Specialist Services Marketing. In Proceedings of the 1989 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 583-587). Springer, Cham.

Srinivasan, R. (2014). Services marketing: the Indian context. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd..

Wirtz, J., & Lovelock, C. (2016). Services marketing: People, technology, strategy. World Scientific Publishing Co Inc.