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Introduction
To seize more market share, personalized customer service has become popular in all industries. Personalized customer service makes the voice of customers heard by inviting them to come up with novel ideas, which would be materialized by service providers. This practice can make customers better served for their specific needs, abilities, and expectations. Different from the traditional model in that businesses decide what kind of products and services to supply, companies now aspire to tailor offerings to meet the diverse and specific needs of customers. In this research paper, the researcher, using personalized customer service in the local catering industry as an example, will discuss what personalized customer service is, how it is offered, its profitability and weaknesses, and its prospects with recommendations.
Main body
Personalized customer service
The quality of service cannot be emphasized too much when it comes to the factors affecting the competitiveness of businesses (figure 1). Currently, many businesses go to extremes by inviting their customers to voice out their particular needs and expectations to win customer retention, customer loyalty, and then market share (Viviani, Bennani, & Egyedzsigmond, 2012). Thats the background for the origination of personalized customer service. Simply speaking, personalized customer service means the efforts made to tailor products and services to meet the specific needs, expectations, and underlying aspirations of customers (Shamdasani, & Balakrishnan, 2000). It is a feat because it can make customers perceive their importance and values and be treated humanely.
Personalized customer service aspires to be tailored to customers specific needs, abilities, and expectations. Instead of forcing customers to accept their established service model, businesses tend to be responsive to the capricious and diverse needs of customers (Ding, et al., 2017). The foremost objective that personalized customer service can help businesses achieve is customer loyalty. Being satisfied and cared for, customers will repeatedly choose certain products and services even at higher prices (figure 2). Thats because personalized service adds value to their professional or personal lives. Whats more, loyal customers can be free brand ambassadors by sharing their fantastic experience with a brand among their circle of contacts (Kasiri, et al., 2017). Compared with ad campaigns, their genuine endorsement rings truer and can bring many followers with WOM.
Delivering personalized customer service means adding a familiar and human touch to every transaction. Customers should be served in an atmosphere of respect and cordiality beyond mere utilitarianism (Franke, Schreier & Kaiser, 2010). Their concerns should be addressed, and all their seemingly unrealistic dreams should be satisfied to the greatest extent. This requires businesses to be constantly personalized to earn customer retention, customer loyalty, and market share. However, the more personalized the businesses, the higher the risk will be. To be specific, some customers will likely put up many obstacles to service providers with their capricious ideas, and then defame the company for failing to meet their needs. In addition, they refuse to pay the price on the pretext that they are not well-served. Therefore, rules and regulations should be developed accordingly to protect the rights and interests of both sides.
Personalized customer service in the local catering industry
The catering industry is highly competitive and providing personalized customer service can help small businesses shine. The personalized service popular these days is cooks preparing meals for customers at their homes in case they are unwilling to dine out because of illness and handicap, bad weather, traffic congestion, or for a relaxing and comfortable atmosphere at home. There is also a group of people who miss the meal prepared by their long-past relatives and are suddenly seized by the impulse to relish it again. The ingredients can be prepared either by the cook and his restaurant or by the customers themselves.
The following aspects are the reasons for the development of this personalized service. First, meals in restaurants are usually prepared by following formulas with minor changes in the amount of ingredients and seasoning to cater to customers specific needs. This is personalized but to a little extent. In addition, it is often the case that cooks fail to bring out the genuine taste and flavor of cuisine for time limit and lacking ingredients and seasoning. Therefore, they want cooks to spare due time for a complex dish. Second, customers have become far more demanding with their improved financial conditions. They have their unique requirements in flavor, smell, and taste, and want cooks to teach them how to prepare some dishes at home. Third, there is also a segment that relies on the magic power of cooks to revive the taste in their memory. Due to the high mobility of working people, they have to change their dietary habits, but hometown food is the thing they constantly long for. All these demands contribute to the development of this personalized service in the local catering industry.
Critical analysis of this personalized customer service
Strengths
This kind of personalized customer service can add competitiveness to restaurants in terms of customer retention, customer loyalty, and retention rate because it aims to meet the specific needs and expectations of customers. The reasons are presented below.
First, it can save the trouble of customers dining out caused to distance, bad weather, traffic congestion, and handicaps. It enables customers to enjoy both a delicious meal and a harmonious domestic atmosphere. Preparing at customers homes ensures the time required for a complex dish and can better satisfy the specific needs of customers in taste, smell, and flavor. Consequently, this type of service can help expand market share. It is frequently seen that cooks in uniforms drive motor to go to serve customers. It is said that a cook can serve 3-5 customers per day with a price much higher than the retail price, including an out-visit fee, fuel cost, processing charge, and cost of possible ingredients and seasoning.
Second, the novel ideas developed by customers can give birth to popular dishes. R&D has become a major concern of restaurants in recent years, and a large share of restaurant expenses has been allocated to developing new dishes, formulas, and recipes and finding the right menu mix. It is argued that restaurants even do not need a research team in place, and customers are the best R&D personnel restaurants can ever put together. They are always on time; they pay the price by inviting cooks to do experiments at home; and most importantly they know exactly what customers want (Ottenbacher, & Harrington, 2017). Small restaurants cannot afford a research chef who may work as a chef, head cook, or food scientist, analyzing and experimenting with cuisine to find ways to improve it and make customers like it. Therefore, to reduce costs from R&D activities and personnel, the optimal choice for small restaurants is to mobilize customers to come up with novel ideas. The newly developed products and recipes can be named after customers after they have become popular in the market.
Third, small restaurants are very cautious in controlling their scale because of the highly risky market. To be specific, new entrants are always successful in attracting customers because they are ready to try something new at an affordable price. Economic depression can weaken consumers purchasing power and make many employees redundant. This personalized customer service can give flexibility to restaurant owners by allowing them to maintain their current business areas and developing a team dedicated to such personalized customer service.
Shortcomings
Despite the strengths this kind of personalized customer service brings to small restaurants, its shortcomings are also inevitable and have to be considered.
First, since cooks can prepare meals at customers houses, the market demand would be huge since many customers are ready to try something new. And the huge demand for this personalized service can challenge the business at physical stores. Consequently, their newly expanded market can be offset by the lost customers.
The risk of extreme customization can be high because customers would be reluctant or even refuse to pay the price if the experiment turns out to be a failure even if an agreement between two sides has been signed in advance. The participation and decision-making of two sides in the preparation can make them shuffle responsibility to each other, and there is no third party to determine the cause of failure.
Some customers tend to consume wildlife for nutrition and rarity, which goes contrary to the Law of Wildlife Protection. Due to strict legal restrictions, restaurants are afraid of cooking endangered, vulnerable, and near-threatened species for fear of severe punishment. However, offering such personalized customer service may give opportunities to people who possess such food either from a hunt or from a gift or trade. This may put the cook in a dilemma because refusing customers can arouse their dissatisfaction, poor ratings, and defamation of the restaurant on the pretext of poor service while satisfying their capricious needs can result in the violation of the law. It is also likely that cooks are bribed to conduct illegal activities at consumers homes.
In addition, theft, violence, harassment, and other criminal activities may come together because of seclusion. These threaten the life and property of customers and restrict the popularity of this personalized service.
Its prospect and recommendations for better development
Despite the shortcomings of this personalized customer service, it is still safe to predict its bright prospects because people always have specific dietary needs to be met. The frequent visits of cooks seen on the streets can prove its popularity and profitability. However, to ensure sustainable popularity and healthy development, proper measures should be taken.
First, all cooks should be trained in terms of, in addition to culinary skills, professional ethics. They should be good at communication to avoid conflicts with customers. They should not covet customers property, accept customers offerings irrelevant to the assigned task, and accept bribes for illegal activities (Akabanda, Hlortsi, & Owusukwarteng, 2017). To prove innocence, a camera should be installed temporarily to record the whole process.
Second, to protect the wildlife that might be endangered by this personalized customer service, cooks have to register at a local wildlife protection agency in terms of the detailed address of the customer, phone no., the assigned task, and the main ingredients covered. It is feasible for the agency to pay random visits to customers for a DNA study for the possible use of protected wildlife (Stern, et al., 2017 ).
Third, policies should be in place stipulating the rights interests, and responsibilities of both sides. Particularly, the cook should be dressed in uniform, and produce a certificate and Letter of Authorization signed by the restaurant owner. An agreement should be signed before the assignment is conducted.
Fourth, to ensure the popularity of small restaurants and thus win the favor of more customers, social media marketing can be used for promotion, building and maintaining customer relationships, and receiving orders (Naylor, Lamberton & West, 2012).
Conclusion
Based on the critical analysis of the personalized customer service that is currently popular in the catering industry, it is concluded that it is highly feasible for its profitability and popularity. It is profitable because it mainly aims at the middle and upper class and can charge much higher than the retail price. It is popular because it can meet the specific needs and expectations of customers. In addition, it can save the cost of small restaurants in R&D in terms of culinary skills, the use of ingredients and seasoning, and cooking techniques. As for the shortcomings, policies, and regulations should be stipulated to ensure the rights and interests of both sides and to protect stakeholders.
References
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- Stern, D. B., Nallar, E. F., Rathod, J., & Crandall, K. A. (2017). DNA Barcoding analysis of seafood accuracy in Washington, D.C. restaurants. PeerJ, 5(4).
- Viviani, M., Bennani, N., & Egyedzsigmond, E. (2012). G-Profile: A Hybrid Solution for Extended Identity Management in the Field of Personalized Service Provision. Information Resources Management Journal, 25(3), 61-77.
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