Experience 3 by Angshuman
Late for Lunch
Date: 28-June-2009
Time: 2-30 PM
Location: TSTMR Mess, XLRI, Jamshedpur
Background
The fact that I’m a foodie is proved with this second food experience among the three service encounters of this week. But this one is little different. Sometimes I really wonder how we XLers have become kind of nocturnal animals that somehow we always mange to go late to bed in the night (read morning) even if we did not have anything special to do in the night. And, last night was no exception. Today as I had only one lecture that too at 3-45 PM – woke up very late at 1-30 PM. Fearing that I might miss the lunch - quickly finished morning (or afternoon?) exigencies. Every action has equal and opposite reaction. And how can we explain no monsoon till now without mentioning about global warming and climatic changes owing to ‘not-so-environment-friendly’ human acts over the years. Whatever it is, last night (and also today morning) was very hot and hence I had to take bath before going for lunch. It took me another costly half an hour.
Prior Expectation
I finally managed to reach the far-away (read 100 meters) TSTMR mess at around 2-30 PM. I did not expect that I will get lunch today. But, just wanted to give my luck a try!
Actual Experience
As expected, I was greeted by an empty mess. Only 2-3 people were there and they were to just finish their lunch. Lunch time was over and as expected no food for my kind perusal! Anyway, I went inside the kitchen and found one mess-worker. Asked him if any food is left? He was a very cordial guy. He requested me to wait a little, took a plate, filled with rice, dal and sabji and handed it over to me. I was very happy and thanked him. But it was not still over. He requested me to wait again and got salad and curd for me. I thanked him once again. Emotionally happy I went from the kitchen to the mess to satisfy my physical needs.
Service Trinity Model
SERVQUAL Ratings
| Dimension | Rating |
| Tangibles | 3 |
| Reliability | 3 |
| Responsiveness | 4 |
| Assurance | 4 |
| Empathy | 4 |
(Rating is given on a scale of 1-5; 1=Very Bad, 2=Bad, 3=Neutral, 4=Good and 5=Very Good)
Critical Analysis & Suggestions
· That I went late for lunch was an example of ‘arrival variability’ of customers in case of services.
· Food is the core service of the mess. But customer service is another important component. Sometimes excellent customer service can compensate for ‘not-so-excellent’ core product is proved by the fact that I was very satisfied even though I did not find the food very yummy.
· ‘Accommodation’ or adjusting for customer variability is the best choice from customer perspective.
· People or employee plays a very important role in customer service. Employees should have a customer-orientation and try to ‘accommodate’ especially when it does not cost much to the company or does not adversely impact efficiency or productivity.
· Normative control or employee’s humane feeling towards the customer played the major role in this service experience. This was cost-effective from company perspective and satisfying from customer perspective. If such humane employees are selected or if employees can be trained to exhibit such behaviors this will act as an effective ‘low-cost-accommodation’ strategy for the company.
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