Sushi King

OUTLINE CONTENT| PAGES| introduction| 2| Question 1 (9 degrees of method)| 3-6| Question 2| 7-9| conclusion| 10| Appendix and reference| 11-13| Introduction Sushi King first opened in 1995, pioneering a new era of Japanese cuisine in Malaysia with our unique ‘Kaiten Sushi’ or ‘Revolving Sushi’ with quick service restaurant concept. Offering range of Japanese cuisine where everyone can enjoy it t really affordable price. With the nice environment that they have , they are really gaining quickly popularity to become the favorite among locals foreigners taste. From a single outlet in Kuala Lumpur, we have grown to encompass over 70 (and counting) restaurants nationwide, distinguishing themselves as the largest sushi chain of restaurants in the country. The affordable price, efficiency of services from their restaurant had proved that they have the distinctive advantages, our specially equipped sushi-making machines and conveyor system showcasing quality sushi in a hygienic environment, as we offer quick and fresh food to suit today’s fast pace of life. The unique experience of selecting from a variety of sushi dishes on the revolving conveyor belt at leisure has attracted a wide variety of customers from all walks of life, from Japanese tourists and expatriates to even those initially unfamiliar with Japanese cuisine. Today, we have expanded our expertise to include specialized catering services for a variety of events and functions. As they continue to grow, we set our sights on further regional and eventually international expansion. Come and indulge in the Sushi King experience today. Question 1 Based on your understanding of Services Management, please explain to the Regional General Manager of â€Å"Sushi King SDN BHD† the findings of your study on his company pertaining to the 9 methods (degrees) of classifying services 9 Methods (Degrees) Of Classifying Services Intangibility In Service Management, there are nine methods (degrees) of classifying services. This method helps the company to classifying the services according to the characteristics. The first degree of classifying services is degree of intangibility. In terms of degree of intangibility, all services can be placed on a continuum ranging from low to high intangibility. For example, the higher the intangibility of Sushi King, the more difficulties customers experience when evaluating the offering. Intangibility can poses problems for the operating system since intangible things cannot be stored. Besides that, intangibility things are also difficult to standardize, making the quality much more dependent on the employee providing that particular service. Service also cannot be readily displayed or communicated. In Sushi King if the worker posses to high intangibility, it will be difficult for customer to experience on what they perceived for that services when evaluating the performance. Customer Contact Required Customer contact required has one of the characteristics that is the fact that demand for the service is often instantaneous and cannot be stored and that a flaw in the service operating system will have an immediate, direct effect on the consumer. The interaction between the employee and the customer means that the service employees have to be both competent and communicative. Therefore it becomes even more important to select and train employees that fit these criteria in order to perform their jobs well as front office employee. In sushi king, the interaction between employees and customer is very important as it will perform their ways of job very well in order for them to have both competent and communicative. Simultaneity This is not necessarily the same as the previous dimension. Production and consumption can occur simultaneously without the customer being present. Home banking and phone banking, for instance, allow the consumer to consume the service without face to face contact with the sushi king service provider. This is not necessary same as contact of customer required. In order for sushi king to provide the best service to the customer, what they can do is they need to face to face with their customer in order to allow them consume the service, production and consumption still occur simultaneously. Besides that, with that customer can affect each other while employee might affect the outcomes. Heterogeneity Employee and customer are the source of heterogeneity. As a result, there will be more heterogeneity in high consumer contact organizations. . In order to perform really well, Sushi king need to standardizing the operating system might be away to reduce this homogeneity. The implications are service delivery and customer satisfactions depend on employee and customer actions. For example, when employee serve customer in bad ways, it will affect the sushi king in names as it will gives bad pictures of sushi king. Perishability This dimension is of course closely related to the degree of intangibility and the degree of simultaneity. Means that the lower the goods component in the offering and the more consumption and production overlap, the higher the degree on perishability. As a consequence, these offerings cannot be stored. Managing the operation system by means of capacity management thus becomes more complex. Capacity management itself will influence both the employees and the customers. For example, customers of Sushi King will experience shorter waiting times, while the employees will have to adapt to more flexibility. The implication of this dimension is it is difficult to synchronize supply and demand with services. Other than that, services cannot be returned or resold. Demand fluctuation over time Dimensions related of previous point, the more demand fluctuates the more capacity management becomes important. The implication of this dimension is manager of Sushi King also faced with the challenge of continues fluctuation in demand, for instance. When the demand for the services is higher than the capacity management, the company effectively loses its chance to serve the customer. When the demand is less than the capacity, the company will loses revenue owing to unused resources. Since the capacity is a fixed component, the only viable option for the service manager is to find strategies that assist them to influence demand, strategies which can attract customers to voluntarily alter their demand. Additionally, excess capacity or low demand will not only affect the company's profit, but will also affect the quality of service that experienced by customers. Service customization Customization refers to the need and ability to alter the service in order to satisfy the individual customer's particular preferences. In terms of degree of service customization, unlike goods which are mostly purchased ‘off the shelf’, services can be much more customized. This is especially true when there is a high degree of overlap between production and consumption. For example, a meal at Sushi King, which is assembled from prepared items, is low in customization and served with little interaction occurring between the customer and the service providers. The implication of degree of customization is it will affect the ability to control the quality of the service being delivered and the perception of the service by the customer. Labor intensity Labor intensity can be defined as the ratio of labor cost to plant and equipment. A firm whose product, or in this case of Sushi King service, it requires a high content of time and effort with comparatively little plant and equipment cost would be said to be labor intense. Customer interaction represents the degree to which the customer can intervene in the service process. Service direction: towards people or equipment Personal services like hotels and restaurants are more towards people while transportation are equipment. In sushi king they need to focus more in their service direction to people as it will be more important as people will give the perception towards their restaurants including their services. Question 2 Prepare a short proposal to the Regional General Manager whether the â€Å"future Service Direction† of Sushi King SDN BHD should be towards people or equipment and how to achieve that. Service direction towards people or equipment is one of the classifying services that refer whether company wanted to focus towards people or equipment. Sushi king is restaurant, with that in what that I think, sushi king need to be more concern on people where they are actually providing foods and services to people. For the future direction, sushi king need to be towards people because they are the one who consume what that sushi king had. In sushi king, they are required to prepare their worker with people oriented service in order to well perform in what that consumer wants and needs. Their worker also need to have different value and skills to really success fulfill customer needs. Sushi king future service directions is people so it related to customer relationship management (CRM). It is a widely model for managing a company’s interactions with the customers and services prospects. It also involve using technology to organize, automate and synchronize business processes, principally services activities for instance, but also those for marketing, customer service and technical support. The overall goals of customer relationship management are to find, attract and win new customer, service and retain those the company already has and reduce the costs. Most of the companies nowadays are difficult of improving customer service in order to impact customer retention levels. Customer relationship management can be achieved through the raising customer satisfaction levels that require comprehensive systems approach. There are several steps in building relationships of worker and customer. The first step is to setting a clear customer experience strategy. To establish a good strategy certain key practices are required. First one is staff at sushi king need to understand the overall organizations vision and mission, next, sushi king staff need to define customer organizations customer service direction as well as value and they need to ensure customer service is defined as a key responsibility for the business or department. Second step is to selecting correct people in order for sushi king to be having just a good worker. When recruiting employees to provide customer service, the process often tends to concentrate more on functional expertise, technical competence and knowledge rather than interpersonal skills. However, lack of the right attitude can drastically impact client satisfaction levels. Research has in fact shown that attitude is the most important requirement like skills and functional expertise can be taught. Therefore in selecting the right people, sushi king need to define the critical job requirements and develop scenario-based interviews/assessment centers to screen and select candidates. Sushi king needs to involve multiple team members in the hiring process and ensure evaluation is based on objective not based on subjective criteria. Third strategy is to developing, motivating and managing your people Even though you have hired the right people, there is still a need to orient them into the organization’s customer relationship culture and define key communication skills. Therefore to build a customer relationship culture, it is important for sushi king to provide training in key areas required to deliver exceptional personal service as well as reinforce these skills using ongoing coaching and feedback. Sushi king also need to measure current performance levels and reward performance using a combination of monetary awards and non-monetary recognition. Other than that is establishing effective service delivery processes that provide the foundation for smoothing or inhibiting the material service element of the customer interaction. Efficient service delivery systems appear transparent to the customer. The critical elements in ensuring a positive material customer experience are sushi king needs to mapping the service delivery processes and evaluating critical success points in the process. Sushi king also needs to defining service standards and objectives for these essential points and establishing service delivery procedures to optimize material service as well as sushi king can create service level agreements to smooth internal service delivery. Next is building in continuous improvement, no matter how effective the service delivery processes, or well-trained the service deliverers, things go wrong. Products have faults. Customers get frustrated. Things slip through the cracks. The organizations that are built around managing the customer experience are able to resolve these issues effectively. In order for sushi king to recover effectively, it is necessary for sushi king to actively seek customer feedback and complaints as sushi king cannot improve if you don't know what went wrong in the first place. Sushi king also needs to train staff on how to handle customer complaints effectively using the correct mix of empathizing, apologizing and resolution as well as make sure that the real problem is solved, not just the symptoms. Sushi king also need to focus on proactive (prevention) as well as reactive (cure) problem solving. Lastly is ensuring managers are the key change-agents consultants, we observe that senior management often has the vision, intention and commitment to introduce a comprehensive customer relationship management system. The make or break element is in involving middle management in the change process, and empowering them to be the key change-agents. To do this, it is important to sushi king to engage the management team early and often in the process and its involve management members in articulating the customer experience strategy. Sushi king also need to teach managers coaching skills so that they are able to articulate and reinforce the key personal service skills and use managers as facilitators when rolling out interpersonal skills training. Rewarding managers on establishing, monitoring and updating service delivery processes as well as ensures managers are able to act as an example to their teams. As a conclusion, sushi king really need to build customer relationship in order to gives the best future service direction towards people. Conclusion For the current condition in sushi king, their service actually got little bit of lack in giving service to their customer. With a bit of improvement and innovation, I am sure that they really can come out with very good service quality that people may perceive. Reference http://www. sushi-king. com/