Goods Dominated Logic in Marketing

Doyle (1998), explains as follows “Customers can choose from whom they buy, and unless the firm satisfies them at least as well as competitors, sales and profit will quickly erode. More companies are putting at the top of their agenda winning and retaining customers via increasing customer satisfaction.” In the statement of Whitbread it is additionally mentioned that they listen to their customers. Murray and O’Driscoll (1996) outline that it is a challenge to the producer to respond to customers’ needs, and competition between producers is based on their success in understanding and fulfilling those customers’ needs.

As discussed in the case study, according to Cadieux, “QuikTrip’s success is due to providing customers with high quality products and excellent service.” He emphasizes the importance of the employees and the ‘human touch’ in QuikTrip’s success. He says, “[we’ve] been able to compete successfully because of our people. We hire better people, train them better [,] and pay them more. We are obsessed with keeping the stores clean and well-merchandised and with providing a rewarding customer experience overall.” QuikTrip stresses excellence in customer-employee interactions. QT considers its employees to be a “living brand and the company devotes a great deal of time and energy to training and developing them so that they can reflect core values.” Employees help retain customers and convert them into loyal customers – which in the long run increases market share and generates revenue. By understanding that happy and satisfied employees are a pillar for success of a company, Cadieux’s focus on making sure his employees were well trained, friendly, kind, ambitious, hardworking individuals with strong work ethics, he was able to create a ‘living

Tangible goods, or rather manufactured goods, have been the dominant medium of exchange for centuries. However, recent decades have proved that it is no longer the case as there has been a prevalence of being service oriented (Vargo and Lusch, 2004:1-2). Services, as defined by Vargo and Lusch (2004), are  “the application of specialized competences (knowledge and skills) through deeds, processes, and performances for the benefit of another entity or the entity itself (p.2).” Utilizing services gives businesses an edge, a competitive advantage, particularly in an evolving competitive market, something which Metalfrio is definitely part of (Vargo and Lusch, 2004:9).  Those businesses that learn to adapt tend to do well. In addition, Vargo and Lusch (2004) write this shift to services is also a shift from producer perspective to a customer perspective (p.2). Thus, it leads to more of a collaborative effort where co-creation leads to adding value to the service rather than a product having value (Vargo and Lusch, 2004:6). Also, customers rather develop relationships with those that can provide a range of related services over an extended period of time, thus allowing businesses retain their clients for the long term (Vargo and Lusch, 2004:13). Overall, service oriented marketing is a direction that businesses should be headed towards to ensure that they can remain relevant and competitive in the

Which results in better performance, greater efficiency, improved customer satisfaction, and lower costs, turnover, and absenteeism. In the current business and organization literature, employee satisfaction, respect, loyalty, and an atmosphere of feeling valued is imperative to the success of a business. The feeling that an employer sincerely cares for its employees is remarkable. In line with Gupta & Agarwal (2012), it is imperative that employees understand the worth of their lives in the workplace. Companies that express a genuine mutual care towards its employees gets better results. They are motivated to work harder and smarter. Many employers are only interested in the bottom line and performance, not their employees’ well-being and their

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the son of two poor touring actors, Elizabeth Arnold Poe and David Poe Jr. The Poes traveled around to many different theaters, playing many different roles. While his mother was a well-known actor, his father was not, and was usually drunk during performances. David Poe abandoned his family when Edgar was about two and the rest of the Poe family left for Richmond, Virginia. Edgar’s mother died of tuberculosis there in Richmond. Edgar was only three at the time but apparently he remembered the traumatizing event later in life.

It would have been good if this fundamental vision was in place right at the very beginning of the company’s formation. In the end it is the customers that make the company, so it makes sense to work towards satisfying this customer relationship. To become profitable and achieve market share are secondary objective that can be measured on a annual basis and overall company well being targets can be rewarded with incentives that link into the company’s performance as opposed to individual contribution to the company’s success.

The contemporary school of thought in service science is currently dominated by the notion of service-centric services (Lusch & Vargo, 2008), whereby it is believed that the end users are the determinant of value of a given service and co-producing a service with the end users would enhance the value of the service. A main assumption made by this school of thought is that all aspect of services, from creation to delivery process, is the domain of the service providers. However, the emergence of disruptive technologies such as the internet, social media, etc has reduced the operational barriers, empowering the end users to become services provider themselves. This empowerment has led to the creation of what is known as

Service firms are increasingly using customer service to develop sustainable competitive advantage – through value generation as well as differentiation. This

“Value is the customer’s assessments of the benefits of the service weighted against all the cost involved.” (Johnston and Clark, 2008, pg. 44). In a service organisation, operations determine the balance between minimising organisational cost and maximising customer’s value. The service value of BA includes the following:

Hershey’s responsibility to its customers involve faith and trust that Hershey’s will continue to provide the highest quality product while continuously striving to develop new and exciting products while maintaining the highest ethical standards in marketing ventures and operational practices. This area of responsibility demonstrates an acknowledgment of consequence based ethics system as neglecting the area of responsibility to customers initiates certain progression to business failure. Consequence-based Ethics is defined by, (Matravers, Matt, 2000, p.12), “Ethics or Consequentialism as” Consequentialism (of which utilitarianism is a particular variety) holds that the justification of any action is to be found in its consequences. A straightforwardly utilitarian theory holds that an act is right only if its consequences are as good as or better than those that would have resulted from any alternative action (including doing nothing)” If a company does not do what success demands failure is the consequence.

He grabs the readers emotions by talking about how other companies take advantage of their customers. The book tells us the only thing companies care about is how much money they make. Chouinard states, “We are a product-driven company. That means the product comes first and the company exists to create and support our products.” Chouinard believes that although profiting is important he does not cut corners giving customers the best quality that also does not harm the environment.

Within every company there is a customer, regardless of what your line of business is it is being done for the consumer albeit an external consumer or the internal consumer. The customer’s needs and expectations should be the driving force behind the decisions we make and the problems we solve…the customer, not our own personal or monetary gain. As quality improves we have to make sure that we are improving what matters to our customers not want we want to improve upon for own sake.

If the workforce is well-trained, developed and able to perform each task effectively this will lead to attracting more customers and more customers means more profit for the company.

P. Tailor of the www.learnmarketing.net see that: 'Marketing is not about providing products or services it is essentially about providing changing benefits to the changing needs and demands of the customers.

We have learnt from Servicer Strategy that service means to provide guidance on design, and how to implement them according to the needs of the customer. From the service lifecycle Service Design comes after the service strategy (Annexure A). The service design is not limited to new services, but also to old services which are need to improve the service design which are necessary to maintain the value to customers. The main objective of service design is designing an innovative idea or to change an existing design into a live environment. To change a design or to implement there are several requirements. These requirements are taken from the service portfolios and they are analyzed. There are teams which will indulge in this process and