Experience 1 by Angshuman
Hongkong Home Delivery
Date: 25-June-2009
Time: 9 to 10 PM
Location: Main Entrance, XLRI, Jamshedpur
Background
I am a foodie and just love good food. But at the same time being a lazy person I despise planning, dressing and going to a restaurant. Simple thought of the high transaction cost of the process puts me off. So, what is my ‘not-so-innovative’ solution to the ‘not-so-complex’ problem? Yes, you got it right – home delivery! Thursday food of the mess being ‘not-my-type’ I have decided to celebrate every Thursday with yummy Hongkong food and my preferred low-efforts-delivery-method is home-delivery.
Prior Expectation
Being a rational person I know that satisfaction and happiness depends on your expectation. So, for very selfish reasons of being satisfied I try to keep my expectations under limits. So, when last Thursday I ordered food from Hongkong my basic expectation was just to get good quality food. Along with that, delivery within time was a secondary expectation.
Actual Experience
25th June, it was another Thursday. As usual I went to the mess to check the food and as usual the food there could not arouse my gastronomical desires. So, as usual around 9 PM, I called up Hongkong and ordered for ‘one mixed fried rice without pork’ and ‘one chilly chicken dry’. I gave my contact details, asked the person to repeat the order and ended the call. Like they always do Hongkong called me back at around 9-30 PM, informed the food is on way and requested me to come to the XLRI main gate to collect the food. Now that my gastronomical desires have reached the peak, I got dressed quickly, took my purse and almost ran to the main gate. The delivery person was already there. I checked the bill, made the payments and took my delivery. But someone from heaven suddenly suggested me to check if the food is as per my order. I just opened the pack and found that everything was perfect except that the ‘chilly chicken dry’ is ‘not-so-dry’. Till date whenever I ordered food from Hongkong, there was never such a mistake. Though it was not of much problem from the gastronomical point-of-view, I informed the same to the delivery person. He took the matter more seriously than I did, immediately called up his restaurant counter-part, informed about the mistake, asked to prepare the right dish soon and send it as quickly as possible using another delivery-person. The suave guy waited with me (he looked more anxious than me, not sure whether it was actual or just perceived but I liked his behavior!) till the second delivery person came. We greeted ‘good night’ to each other and left for our own destinations.
Service Trinity Model
SERVQUAL Ratings
| Dimension | Rating |
| Tangibles | 5 |
| Reliability | 4 |
| Responsiveness | 5 |
| Assurance | 5 |
| Empathy | 5 |
(Rating is given on a scale of 1-5; 1=Very Bad, 2=Bad, 3=Neutral, 4=Good and 5=Very Good)
Brief descriptions of the five SERVQUAL dimensions are as follows:
Tangibles: appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel and communication materials.
Reliability: ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately.
Responsiveness: willingness to help customers and provide prompt service.
Assurance: knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to inspire trust and confidence.
Empathy: caring, individualized attention the firm provides its customers.
[Source: Parasuraman, A., ZeithamI, V., & Berry, L. (Spring, 1988). SERVQUAL: A multiple-item scale for measuring consumer perceptions of service quality. Journal of Retailing, 64, 12-40]
Critical Analysis & Suggestions
· Core product for Hongkong is food and home-delivery is just another delivery mechanism.
· There are three components of service quality: outcome, interactive and physical evidence. As in case of home delivery customer is not physically present in the restaurant physical evidence is not important in this case. But other two i.e. outcome and interactive part are very important.
· Just like waiter in case of restaurant, the delivery person in case of the home-delivery is the key to interactive dimension of service quality. In current experience the employee (the delivery-person) used accommodation to provide right product and I as a customer was highly satisfied.
· This also shows that in a people-driven process mistakes can happen but appropriate behavior by the employee and corrective measures can help in ‘service recovery’.
· I, as a customer, consider this experience as an example of exemplary customer service, though efficiency was hit a little from company perspective, the customer is very satisfied with the experience. I have already discussed the incidence with my friends and this should work as a word-of-mouth marketing for Hongkong. Also, after this I have become more brand-loyal toward Hongkong and would mind less paying the premium price that they charge.
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