When companies expand does service quality contract?

What's with marketing case studies that brings out the creative juices in the students? I guess, it's the feel of that breath of fresh air after the didactic monologues that pass off as instructions in conventional classrooms.

Been through a case study on the famed 'Dell Service'. What caught the attention is its startling resemblance to the "Starbucks" case study (one that we did in the services marketing class earlier on). Viewing the negative 'word of mouth' that both the firms garnered (during a particularly unforgettable period in their lives), one is prone to contemplate on the fact that both started out selling great customer experiences. Starbucks came with its concept of the 'third place' - a place where one congregated to hit it out with friends, a place that was distinctly different from the workplace and home; a place where one could unwind and catch up with 'my types'. Dell, on the other hand, shocked the world with its impossibly insane proposal of selling computers directly to the consumer, thereby cocking a snook at distribution channels, that entrenched agglomeration of entities that get the goods from the factory gate to the end user.

In both the cases, the customers enjoyed it thoroughly. However, somewhere down the line, both got it wrong. Was it their expansive plans of growth that send them down the slippery slope of self damnation? Search me! One fact is certain. Both shifted their 'position' from 'delighting' their customers, to taking on the challenge of amassing more customers. Was the cost worth it? No clear answers there. What is apparent though, is the fact that there is no silver bullet that lets you expand your business and retain the customer experience. Does it mean that expansion will always penalise the existing customer at the cost of the new additions? If so, should companies attempt it? Also, how do some firms come out the experience unscathed? Lots of questions that beget answers!

The tyranny of melancholy

Its a well known fact that depiction of disasters, misfortunes, catastrophes, squalor etc. elicit more oohs and aahs than refined portrayals. Slumdog Millionaire is a case in point. Guess it has to do with the human primordial instinct (the id) of helping out the 'down-in-the-dumps' guy. The well-off can, in any case, take care of themselves!

It is also an accepted maxim that the 3Ds - death, debt and divorce offer the most fertile breeding ground for art to germinate and consequentially prosper. No wonder then, that most of the exorbitantly expensive (and, therefore logically, fashionable!) art would radiate pessimism than optimism.

It seems the 'tyranny of the melancholy' has another votary in the Prize committee that selects the Economist(s) for the honour of the Nobel Prize. With a slim variance, the winners in this category for the last several years have all been social economists who have theorised about concepts varying from economic governance (this years winners) to trade patterns (Paul Krugman-2008) to welfare economics (our very own Amartya Sen - 1998). One of the few exception has been Joe Stiglitz ( who alongwith his co-researchers won the prize in 2001 for the study on markets with asymmetric information). I guess, with that attitude wired into the psyche of the deciders, guys like Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Berry, who postulated the stunningly simple concept of Service Quality that determines the level of appreciation that a customer has to a product/service, through what is known as the gap model (the difference between the performance of the product/service and the expectation of the customer), don't stand a chance. Tough luck guys! Start researching on the 'ugly underbelly' variety of topics. You may probably hit the bullseye.

Wodehouse and the Greun Effect

Got a mail from an old classmate that revived memories of the good ol' joys of sinking in to your favourite ragged-at-the-edges sofa with a PG Wodehouse in hand. Set me thinking as to what was it that segmented PGW from the rest of the wordsmiths. Can't be humour alone, since there were several blokes who wrote in that genre and fell flat. Neither can it be just jugglery of words - he was undoubtedly a master at that. I guess what set him apart was his sheer depth of understanding of human psychology. He knew, to use a metaphor, where to hit. Rather than hit where it hurts the most, he hit where it elevated you the most. One would be left with this quaint feeling of helpless enjoyment, wanting to sink deeper and deeper into the quagmire that he would drag us into. No wonder, we fell for the maestro's masterful manipulation that made the mundane, magnificent.

Incidentally, the Gruen Effect (or Transfer) refers to the psychological transformations that happen to a fairly natural individual when he/she visits a shopping mall. When a consumer enters a shopping mall, he/she is surrounded by an intentionally confusing layout that makes him/her lose track of his/ her original intentions. Spatial awareness of the surroundings play a key role, as does the surrounding sound and music. The effect of the transfer is marked by a slower walking pace, glazed eyes and slackening of the jaw. In short, the the moment when we forget what we came for and become impulse buyers. It's named after Victor Gruen (an Austrian architect) who modelled the first ever shopping mall. (courtesy wikipedia.com).

What Gruen is to malls, I guess, PGW is to books.