Service Encounter - Significance and Implications

Service Encounter - Significance and Implications

Company Profile

Coles supermarket is one of the largest retailer stores in Australia who is operating more than 90 years. Chain of Coles supermarkets are spread all over Australia and the number of Coles employees is more than 100,000. The average number of customer per week is more than 18 million customers. Such a huge amount of customers required high level of satisfaction so that customer can keep shopping at Coles supermarket.

Back Stage Flowchart of Operation

Front Stage Flow Chart of Operation

Significance of the Service Encounter

Service encounter in simple words can be defined as the transactional interaction with customers of the representative of an organization who provides service or product. The representative of the organization may be the office clerk, vendor and travel agent. When the nature of the work is retailer industry and interacting more than 18 million customers, then it becomes difficult to satisfy all the customers. Service encounter is not limited to the transactional interaction with the customer but it is about establishing a transactional relationship with customer which extends beyond the one transactional interaction. The moment of customer interaction is very significant to make an impression on the customer and it represents the actual and real face of the organization. This is the reason it is called as the moment of truth. The moment of truth can make the customer satisfy or dissatisfy. Another important aspect of service encounter is service recovery where dissatisfied customer are provided with quality of service to make them the loyal customer.

Service quality has significant impact on the quality perception of the customers. When customer feels satisfied and happy with the interaction of the representative he/she feels satisfied and happy with the organization. Putting this thing in other way, it depends on the interaction of representative, vendor or agent to portray the organization at the level of satisfaction among the costumers. This is the reason organization pay much attention on customer interaction of employees (Pugh, 2001).

Customer interaction at Coles supermarket is an essential and difference making attribute of the organization and satisfying each customer is considered key to success for the organization. According to the study conducted by Roy Morgan Online Stores, Coles has maintained the highest level of service quality among its competitors. Comparing the customer satisfaction level of Coles (87.5 percent) with Woolworths (85 percent), the high level of customer satisfaction is attributed to the quality of service encounter of Coles. Though the Aldi remained as the benchmark for retailers store for customer satisfaction but back stage and front stage flow of operation of Coles supermarket is more effective and efficient than others among the industry, which suggests that in near future the customer satisfaction level will exceed to that of Aldi.

Customer interaction is very critical for the organization and no one can underestimate the significance of the customer interaction. Failure to provide the desired and optimum level of customer interaction, the customer dissatisfaction can destroy the reputation of the organization ...