There is more than just the need for good communication between the marketing and operations departments to satisfy the customer by delivering on what is promised. Service marketing has a strong relational component, and requires operations personnel to perform a critical marketing role. What is this decisive function?
Conflicts between the marketing and operations departments are a classic. Operations staff complain that marketers promise things impossible to keep. For their part, those of marketing say that the personnel of operations is not able to satisfy the clients, and this requires greater efforts to attract new clients, due to the loss of reputation that is generated.
The truth is that, if these two departments do not work in coordination and with the same objective, the internal conflict will only lead to the failure of the company.
A while ago I was talking to a former manager of a hotel company, and he was telling me about a case where this short circuit is evident. He told me that the marketing staff, in their communication with the client, carried out special promotions, which did not communicate within the organization. When those clients arrived at the hotel, they found that no one was aware of the special service they were supposed to deliver, and this situation had no other result than their dissatisfaction.
But there is more than just the need for good communication between the marketing and operations departments. In service management, operations staff have a critical marketing role.
Service marketing has a strong relational component, and this causes the marketing function to overstep the bounds of the subject matter "experts" department, and flood the rest of the organization, even when they are unaware of this.
A definition of service marketing
Dr. Christian Grönroos, Professor of Relational Marketing and Service at the Finnish School of Economics, offers us a relational definition of marketing:
"Marketing means establishing, maintaining and improving relationships with customers and other associates and related, which imply a benefit, in order to achieve the objectives of the parties involved. This is achieved through mutual exchange and the fulfillment of promises. ”
Two points that I would like to highlight:
1. "Maintain and improve" customer relationships
Because "establishing" relationships is generally where the emphasis is. Establishing this relationship is a marketing and sales task, because they attract customers, make them interested in the organization's proposal, and start the relationship with a transaction.
But what happens next? Then comes the reality of service. Hardly a client maintains the relationship with an organization that has not satisfied him. So after the first step, attraction, which is in the hands of the marketing experts, we have a fundamental step, which is part of relationship marketing: maintaining the relationship.
And the relationship is maintained (and improved) by those who provide the service, that is, the operations personnel. They are those who are face to face with the client, and they get (or not) that client to be satisfied to return. And here we go to the second point:
2. This is accomplished through "mutual exchange and the keeping of promises."
To fulfill the promises, we must work on the communication we were talking about at the beginning, between the marketing department and the operations department, to align the delivery of the service with the promises made. But also, it is the exchange with the client that maintains the relationship, in every moment of interaction with him.
Have you noticed that, once the relationship is established, it remains in the hands of "non-marketing experts"? However, they are fulfilling the most important marketing functions! What happens after the purchase, which is the delivery of the service, is the most decisive factor in maintaining the customer relationship.
Therefore, as Grönroos says, operations employees are "part-time marketing employees." Discovering this is crucial to train staff in this role, and achieve the goal of maintaining and improving customer relationships, which are what will increase the return on all marketing and sales efforts.
Are your employees aware of this very important function that the employees who provide the service for relationship marketing have on a daily basis, which will bring recurring and cross sales and long-term profitability?
