Process and Value in Salon Business Essay

Introduction

Service marketers use the marketing mix to satisfy their broad customer and client base. The Ps include; product and place, people and promotion, and process. There are unique processes for different businesses, and hence the business should use different strategies to deliver quality goods or services depending on the specialization (Bharati 2005, p. 27). Salon and hairdressers could benefit if they invested in the benefits of better mechanics, processes, and strategies to add value to their everyday activities. The process involves procedures for attracting customers, retention of customers, assigning tasks, schedules, and even seeking feedback from customers.

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Service is an activity or benefit that one party can offer to another that is essentially tangible (Kotler & Gertner 2002, p. 249). Services cannot be owned, because the customer is buying a process rather than a tangible outcome such as health care service and internet service provider. There are four categories have been identified in the prototypical characteristics as distinguishing services from goods- intangibility, inseparability, variability, and perishability. However, many debates have provided that these characteristics could not categorize services from goods. Therefore Marketing Mix has been evolved by McCarthy (Goi 2009, p. 2) from 4P to 7 Ps because the original 4P approach is mainly marketing a product. This essay will focus on process in the service marketing mix, discussing how process delivers value through indirect activities and direct activities. Process in marketing refers to how business deliver their service towards customer through customer experience, step by step because the customer always involves in production value.

The Process

The first crucial step is to attract customers and more clients into the Hairdresser enterprise. You can do that directly or do it through a referral program. Many Hairdressers accomplish this first step of the process by rewarding their customers for bringing some more friends, family members, and even strangers into their service. The process also involves consultations, product provision, and discount-giving as a means to add value to the business (Allee 2008, p. 5). The process will also involve inviting a different clientele such as children and men. The process will involve offering standard haircuts. In this stage of the business, dedicate a part of the salon to children. Most of the customers find comfort in such a hairdresser enterprise, where the children's area is away from the view of the senior and regular clientele.

The process is one of the elements in the services marketing mix. It involved in delivering a service to a customer. It can be related to the marketing of activities and process rather than objects such as the procedures, tasks, schedules and mechanisms activities. It also involved in planning and carrying out a service. This is an essential element of the whole service marketing mix strategy. As mentioned that service is made up of a group of activities (Armstrong et al. 2015, p 21). It is important that marketer should take care of the feasible waiting period between the activities. During the process, services marketing researcher should define how to effectively communicate the services process, benefits and deliverables to build customers trust and satisfy them. Service value comes from personal interaction through different platforms such as clear communication, processes followed and pricing. The physical environment in which the business operates could affect customer's trust level as well, for example, Hair salon.

The process at this stage adds value to your services by offering an opportunity to identify marketing gaps. Maine is a salon entrepreneur and a salon owner in Bangor. She writes in her weekly column that it is important for the owner of such a business to offer a unique service such as washing of hair, application of oil, and even to scrub. Such simple steps in filling the gap go a long way in customer retention. Your existing salon customers are a great buck since you do not have to convince them to come to your salon anymore. Upsell them to higher services, better products, and pricey services. Mine the market, earn more money from your clients and let them spend more on you for your improved and valuable services. Practice to moderate your speech, play a little gossip, and pitch for short periods of time. That is what gets the client interested in getting back to you next time.

Vargo and Lusch gave attention to a universal discussion of what the perspective of services can be applied to the business marketing field (Vargo & Lusch 2008, p. 10). Marketing was originally built on a foundation of goods marketing, a manufacturing-based model of economic exchange developed during the industrial revolution. However, there are more perspectives on value creating that demonstrated the need for a change is required because services are intangible and inseparable which may be perceived as riskier than goods.

Service-dominant logic is a theoretical framework for explaining value creation. (Vargo and Lusch 2008, p. 10) Stated that service is more likely a value-supporting process, but goods are value-supporting resources. The intangibility of services can be explained by a clear comparison between holiday and soups. Soup has a fixed amount of 500g that customer can feel and touch, they know exactly the cost of the product and why it has to be priced at. However, a service like a holiday provider is always varying because you only pay for the service you received. The customer could not try the hotel or other facilities before they pay for it. Therefore, this can be unsettling for the client if they did not experience the promised service quality as they thought. In this case, activities aim to assist the customer's everyday practices. The travel company's activities are interacting with customer and peoples, goods and other physical resources, an environment that represents the service provider. Vargo and Lusch were first viewed customers as co-producer and later changed this perspective into customers as co-creators of value. Continuously. (Bakker et al. 2004, p. 83) Demonstrated service as a process or performance rather than a thing. Consumer become the voice of the market

Inseparability is also used to distinguish the quality of services from goods. The meaning of inseparability is a service distinctive that could make the business impossible to divorce the supply or production of the service it provides. Service marketing is combined by people, process, and physical evidence, they are unique to the marketing of service, and therefore, it is hard to separate the service from the service supplier (Flint & Woodruff 2014, p. 201). For example, marketing the menu, location and ambiance could attract more consumer, but the consumer could not separate the association between the food and the waiter. People are a characterizing factor in the service delivery process as the consumer is served by its staff. Also, a good marketing plan includes customer service training for new and existing employees, improve their service skills, how to handle customer complaints and work as a team. People who work in the kitchen requires ongoing training in cooking methods or preparation to keep the customers. Many companies viewed customer service training as a top priority to add value nowadays.

Invest in New Services and Products

At this stage, revise your products and services. Counter-check what you are currently earning to the services you offer. The process at this stage may demand that you bring in a masseuse or an aesthetician. These are new lines of products. The secret is to maintain a constant supply of client's demands (Lee 2004, p. 102). Market research may do the trick at this stage, as the hairdresser identifies what the people want as well as the costs that needed.

It is not counterintuitive to charge more since the salon clientele expect that you shall have attained a certain level of service provision. It could be a level of luxury. You should strive to attain this level or else they will find some other barber or hairdresser. Set a good price, but different from the low-cost competition. Your business should have attained exclusivity. Never burst the client's budget and never forget to charge for only those services that you offer (Charters et al. 2009, p. 122). A salon's asset is its staff. They are the ones with the experience and know your clients by their tastes and names. Your staff is the one selling your name, your services, and your goods. Invest in it so well that when they rise, you also rise. Cultivate your staff and reward excellence.

Flexible scheduling is important at this stage. Ensure that your process incorporates competitive pay and secures the jobs for your employees. The schedule at this point should be responsive. The stylist should strike a balance between life and work. They have hobbies to pursue, friendships to keep, families, to provide for, and soulmates to keep company. They deserve this time so that they can dedicate more time, hard work, and loyalty to your business because you also care (Xu et al. 2014, p. 369). Build on the best. Improve on the best aspects of your salon. That is what it will take to get you to the next level. Some of the best aspects to build on include discounts, product offerings, types of services, and market. Build on your market share and do away with that which is not working, such as obsolete products and broken equipment.

Conclusion

Feedback from the clients is an integral part of the entire process of value addition for the customer in the salon business. Develop means to get feedback. You may ask directly from the clients though ensure that you do not discomfort them. Create a contest to get the nitty-gritty. You may use a hidden comment box or use a free day to pamper your customers and have the feedback just flowing out from them. These processes add value to the business and ensure customer satisfaction.

Bibliography

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Vargo, S.L., and Lusch, R.F., 2008. Service-dominant logic: continuing the evolution. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 36(1), pp.1-10.

Xu, Y., Marshall, R., Edvardsson, B. and Tronvoll, B., 2014. Show you care: initiating co-creation in service recovery. Journal of Service Management, 25(3), pp.369-387.