Service Quality

Upon paying bills this month, I stumbled upon Progressive.com's customer survey.  This got me thinking about service quality.  I believe that this is one of the most effective ways to understand what your customers are thinking about.  A surveying provides the means and methods for the consumer to voice their opinion without having to speak directly to the company.

More and more companies are implementing this.  I have seen Cabela's, Northwestern Energy, Optimum and Progressive all provide a quick 20 second survey after calling their customer service hotline.  Most of the questions are asking about, "Was your problem handled in a timely matter?", "How long did you have to wait on hold?", "Would you recommend our services to someone else?"

The problem with these types of surveys is entirely voluntary response.  Which establishes a biased.  Most of the time the people that answer the questions are the extreme cases.  Either annoyed, frustrated, and upset, or extremely happen with the company.  This can provide false accusations about how the company is doing.

Below is a sample survey  from progressive.com.  This survey appears once someone logs out of their website.

Pricing of Services

Upon reading chapter 13, I came across the section talking about pricing services.  The book talked about how services are mostly intangible in nature.  By being intangible, customers focus mainly on the price to determine quality.  Most of us would distinguish between two services and products based on the price.  This is seen throughout our world.  Many products and services are identified by their price.  A higher price quite often means better quality. 

For this explanation of pricing services and goods, there are quite a few examples that come to mind.  Upon typing in “services in Bozeman” into Google, this map appeared of services in and around Bozeman.  Many of which provide a service that has competition.  This completion plays a key role into the price of their service. 

For many people, price is the ultimate decision in selecting a service.  Take for instants buy, tires for a vehicle.  For Bozeman there are over 15 listings in the phonebook.  Many of these locations not only provide installation of the new tires, but continual support for your tire, brakes, and oil changes. 

When shopping for tires recently, I encountered a vast difference between companies with essential the same tire.  I spent about a day driving around a asking various company the price, type, quality, etc of their brand of tire.  When it came down to it I took the price into consideration.  The brand name tires where more expensive than other brands, the quality (ply of the tire) changed the price, as well as where you bought the tire. 

At Costco, you needed to be a member, and if purchasing them on a credit card, it had to be American Express.  On the other hand, some companies were just located in and around Montana.  This proved to be difficult because when I travel if I have a problem I cannot take it to their location to have it serviced at a free or discounted rate.  All of these criteria factored into my decision for selecting the right company for me. 

I ended up going with Tire Rama

Modifications

When I think about modifications to a product, I immediately think of the automotive industry.  It seems like every couple of years car companies modify their existing products to fulfill the customers’ needs and wants. 

The modifications that I am referring to are: quality modifications, functional modifications, and aesthetic modifications.  Take for instance the Dodge Ram 2500 over the past few years.  The second generation had the following engines:

Years	Engine	Power	Torque
1994–2001	3.9 L (239 cu in) Magnum V6	175 hp (130 kW)[1]
1994–2001	5.2 L (318 cu in) Magnum V8	220 hp (160 kW)[1]	295 lb·ft (400 N·m)[1]
1995–1997	5.2 L (318 cu in) Natural Gas V8	200 hp (150 kW)[1]	430 lb·ft (580 N·m)[1]
1994–1997	5.9 L (360 cu in) Magnum V8	230 hp (170 kW)[1]	325 lb·ft (441 N·m)[1]
1998–2002	5.9 L (360 cu in) Magnum V8	245 hp (183 kW)[1]	335 lb·ft (454 N·m)[1]
1994–2002	8.0 L (488 cu in)[5] Magnum V10 engine	300 hp (220 kW) [1]	450 lb·ft (610 N·m)[1]
1994–1995	5,883 cc (5.883 L; 359.0 cu in)[6] Cummins 12-valve Diesel I6	175 hp (130 kW) (manual), 160 hp (120 kW) (auto)[1]	420 lb·ft (570 N·m) (manual), 400 lb·ft (540 N·m) (auto)[1]
1996–1998	5,883 cc (5.883 L; 359.0 cu in)[6] Cummins 12-valve Diesel I6	215 hp (160 kW) (manual), 180 hp (130 kW) (auto)[1]	440 lb·ft (600 N·m) (manual), 420 lb·ft (570 N·m) (auto) [1]
1998–2000	5,883 cc (5.883 L; 359.0 cu in)[6] Cummins ISB 24-valve Diesel I6	235 hp (175 kW) (manual), 215 hp (160 kW) (auto)[1]	460 lb·ft (620 N·m) (manual), 420 lb·ft (570 N·m) (auto)[1]
2001–2002	5,883 cc (5.883 L; 359.0 cu in)[6] Cummins ISB 24-valve Diesel I6	235 hp (175 kW) (5-speed manual or automatic)[1]	460 lb·ft (620 N·m) (5-speed manual or automatic),[1]
2001–2002	5,883 cc (5.883 L; 359.0 cu in)[6] Cummins ISB 24-valve Diesel I6	245 hp (183 kW) (High Output)[1]	505 lb·ft (685 N·m) (High Output)[1]

While the third generation ram had the following engines:

Model	Years	Engine	Power	Torque
2500/3500	2003–2008	5.7 L (345 cu in) Hemi V8	345 hp (257 kW)	375 lb·ft (508 N·m)
	2009	5.7 L (345 cu in) Hemi V8	388 hp (289 kW)[1]	404 lb·ft (548 N·m)
	2003–2004 SO	5.9 L (360 cu in)Cummins diesel I6	250 hp (190 kW)	460 lb·ft (620 N·m)
	2003–2004 SO California Emissions	5.9 L (360 cu in)Cummins diesel I6	235 hp (175 kW)	460 lb·ft (620 N·m)
	2003–2004 HO	5.9 L (360 cu in)Cummins diesel I6	305 hp (227 kW)	555 lb·ft (752 N·m)
	2004.5–2007	5.9 L (360 cu in)Cummins diesel I6	325 hp (242 kW)	610 lb·ft (830 N·m)
	2007.5–2009	6.7 L (408 cu in)Cummins diesel I6	350 hp (260 kW)	650 lb·ft (880 N·m)
	2003	8.0 L (488 cu in) Magnum V10	310 hp (230 kW)	450 lb·ft (610 N·m)

Now there is fourth generation which produces an average of 350hp and 650 lb-ft of torque.  These characteristics fall under the quality modifications.  The designers and technicians at Dodge have listened to the consumers and changed the engines to better suit their needs.  They have changed the ram’s dependability and durability. 

In addition they have changed the functional modification.  They have changed the ram’s versatility and effectiveness of towing a massive payload. 

The aesthetic modifications are quite easy to spot.  Here a few pictures of the various medications: 

Second Generation

Third Generation

Fourth Generation (Current Model)

As you can see the biggest difference over the years has been the styling of the front end.  The progression of a straight vertical grill to a slightly more aggressive style, and now to a fully slanted grill, is a prime example of the aesthetics Dodge has modified.

Dodge has also developed a larger cab to meet the needs of the customer.  Many of their largest 2500 come with what Dodge calls a Mega Cab.  This cab provides a more leg room over the standard crew cab.  

Sources:

http://www.cars-directory.net/history/dodge/ram_250/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Ram

Word of Mouth Marketing

When I think about my decision to purchase a large expensive product or investment, I definitely fall under the five stages of purchasing process explained in chapter 7.  When I reach to second stage: information search, I turn to sales associates, family, friends co-workers, etc.  By having the ability to talk to people about the pros and cons of this purchase, I am able to to move foreword to step 3.  Without having the ability to talk to someone, I would most likely invest into the wrong products.

http://womma.org/main/

WOMMA: Word of Mouth Marketing Associates has implemented this type of marketing into a business.  This was pulled off of their website:  "Welcome to WOMMA, the premier non-profit organization dedicated to advancing and advocating the discipline of credible word of mouth marketing. Through best practices, industry education and member value, WOMMA advocates word of mouth as a solution to business challenges and a key component in the creation of Talkable Brands." 

They have been able to establish a company built on word of mouth marketing.  There website is filled with information about other companies associated with WOMMA, their ethical stand point, membership, resources for companies, and tools to help your company research the consumers you need.  

If only I could have taken this class earlier, I might have thought of this idea, and started this company.  

Product Positioning: Brett Favre,

Upon reading chapter 6, it was evident to me that the marketers at Wrangler have made it very clear to me there product positioning.  Just like in the text, where Dockers "position its product as being comfortable, flexible, and reasonable value" (Pride, Ferrell pg.178), Wrangler has marketed to men that their jeans are "Real comfortable jeans" (Brett Favre).  The video below shows Brett's TV Ad that has been around for many years.

This commercial emphasizes Wrangler's product positioning by creating an image that men identify with.  The created image this ad promotes is the ability for the Five Star Premium Denim jeans to be able to look classy, stay comfortable, and be able to catch footballs in the mud without having to worry about your jeans.  Although it is ironic that Brett would through a football in a way that an amateur would have to lay out for the football.  Not to mention the bad to the bone song playing in the background.

Technology and Marketing

Today I see more and more children with iPhones, iPods, and computer knowledge then every before.  My boss just received his first iPhone and his 6Th grade son, dubbed "The Wizard", showed him everything about it without even having his own phone.  How is this possible?  I believe that this age group should be named the tech babies, to go along with the baby boomers.

Technology is all around us.  It is impossible in today's world not to be a part of it.  Today could make one of the greatest, single most profitable days for a company, Facebook.  Although I do not know much about the market, I know that today Facebook went public and by following the Google financing page, it is currently at $40.56/ share and rising.
https://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:FB

This article talks about how Facebook has decided to start publicly trading its "180,000,000 shares of Class A common stock and selling stockholders are offering 241,233,615 shares of Class A common stock" To me this is unreal how a man created such a simple concept into a multi-million dollar enterprise.  
http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/FB.O/key-developments

All of this has come down to technology.  As I am typing my computer is constantly editing my work.  It recognized facebook is not spelled correctly because I did not capitalize the F.

This video talks about technology and marketing, and how it has changed the world.

Without technology, marketing and the world would be a very different place.  Technology has helped change our world and make it possible for firms like Facebook, to be a leading in the marketing world.  Technology is inevitable, and if your firm is unable to adapt then you will be caste aside.

My only concern is will technology pass us, and The Matrix will become a reality?

Cat Marketing

After surfing the internet trying to figure out my next post idea, I stumbled upon this video talking about cats marketing strategy.  http://www.rooftopcomedy.com/watch/CatMarketingStrategies

Being a dog person, I found this comedy act to sum up my experience with helping my little cousin at the Heart of the Valley Animal Shelter.  She of course is a "cat cuddlier" which means when I have taken her to cuddle cats I was faced with being surrounded by cats.  The video hit the nail on the head, because at the animal shelter, there are cards outlining what type of cat, the name, and other information pertaining to the feline.  It seems to me that the employees at the animal shelter have changed their marketing strategy to make it more appealing to potential adopters.

http://www.heartofthevalleyshelter.org/adoptions/cats.html