Closing the Customer Gap

The gaps model says that a service marketer must first close the customer gap between customer perceptions and expectations. To do so, the provider must close the four provider gaps, or discrepancies within the organization that inhibit delivery of quality service. The gaps model focuses on strategies and processes that firms can employ to drive service excellence.

Customer perceptions are subjective assessment of actual service experiences. Customer expectations are the standards or reference points for performance against which service experiences are compared and are often formulated in terms of what a customer believes will or should happen.

The sources of customer expectations consist of marketer-controlled factor (such as pricing, advertising, and sales promises) as well as factors that the marketer has limited ability to affect (innate personal needs, word-of-mouth communications, and competitive offerings). In a perfect world, expectations and perceptions would be identical: customers would perceive that they receive what they thought they would and should. In practice these concepts are often separated by some distance. Broadly, it is the goal of service marketing to bridge this distance.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Intrapersonal Competencies

• Self-awareness: Maintains awareness of internal emotional states and has the ability to differentiate between emotional states; awareness of emotional strengths and gaps,
• Self-management: Employs effective personal strategies to lessen or eliminate acting out of disruptive emotional states,
• Self-confidence: Develops and maintains a strong and realistic sense of one’s capabilities and value to others,
• Adaptability: Can adjust emotions, thoughts and behaviors to new dynamic situations; tolerant of different ideas  and perspectives,
• Stress management: Achieves and maintains an internal equilibrium and calmness within a changing environment,
• Responsibility: Keeps commitments to others within agreed-upon parameters on a consistent basis,
• Trustworthy: Knows one’s own values, principles and feelings and acts consistently in accordance with them; acts ethically, fairly and reliably in relationship with others.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Meanings of Meaning

Meanings are internal responses people hold for external stimuli. Many times people have different meanings for the same words. Good communicators are people who select verbal and nonverbal signs that they feel will elicit the intending meaning. Marketing communicators must be especially careful to use signs that will evoke the intended meaning in prospective buyers. All too often companies communicate their product offerings in terms familiar to themselves but not in terms familiar to their potential customers.

Meaning can be thought of as the set of internal responses and resulting predispositions evoked within a person when presented with a sign or stimulus object. Meaning is internal rather than external, to an individual. Meaning is psychological in that it represents a person’s subjective perception and effective reaction to stimuli.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Writing Tips

• When writing consider the recipients. What do they know already? What can you tell them?
• Outline your memos and letters before beginning to write.
• When writing reports, summarize key points or conclusions on the first page and document them with more information on subsequent pages.
• Write like you speak to make your writing as readable as possible.
• Learn the writing style of your organization and follow it. Don’t use flowery language (many adjectives and verbs) when inappropriate.
• Have your secretary or assistant edit and proofread your correspondence for sentence structure and grammatical errors.
• Keep dictionary thesaurus on hand to check spelling and word usage.
• Use variety of sentence structures—simple, complex, and compound—to add interest to your writing.
• When writing for a non-ethical audience, have a non-technical person identify jargon. Then either eliminate it or include a glossary defining the terms.
• Use charts and tables wherever possible to present numerical information.
• Use “action verbs” to add punch to your message.
• Eliminate weak words like “very,” “interesting,” “often,” and other bland adjectives or adverbs.
• Keep paragraphs short. Make sure the content of a paragraph revolves around only one thought—the topic sentence.
• If you do a large amount of routine correspondence, standardize it as much as possible.
• If procrastination is a problem, start writing a rough draft early so you have time to reverse it at least once.
• When allocating blocks of time for writing, set aside periods of one to one-and-a-half hours, rather than trying to do it in segments of 5 to 15 minutes.
• Develop a flash card system to work in your own common misspellings.
• Dictate correspondence, memos, and so forth, to save time.
• Seek immediate and specific feedback on reports you write.
• Take a second or third look at your memos before sending them.
• Use a grammar checking software program on your computer to identify errors you frequently make, and use that feedback to focus your efforts to improve your writing.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Organizational Structures

Business success is linked to a well thought out, clearly defined organizational structure. This is especially true when normal, everyday business pressures intensify: the organizational structure must respond or the business will fail. While an effective organizational structure may mean the difference between a healthy firm and a dying one, seldom are human lives at stake when organizational structures are designed.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Group Cohesiveness

Group cohesiveness results from all forces acting on the members to remain in the group. The forces that create cohesiveness are attraction to the group, resistance to leaving the group, and the motivations to remain a member of the group. Group cohesiveness is related to many aspects of group dynamics—maturity, homogeneity, and manageable size.

Group cohesiveness can be increased by competition or by the presence of an external threat. Ether factor can serve as a clearly defined goal that focuses members’ attention on their task and increases their willingness to work together.

Successfully reaching goals often increases the cohesiveness of a group because people are proud to be identified with a winner and to be thought of as competent and successful. They may be one reason for the popular phrase, “Success breeds success.” A group that is successful may become more cohesive and possibly even more successful.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Effective Brainstorming

• Choose the topic of discussion.
• Select a team for brainstorming.
• Choose a facilitator to monitor the process.
• Select the type of brainstorming exercise.
• Ensure everyone knows the rules.
• Define problem clearly.
• Give enough time for thought process.
• Ensure everyone participates.
• Keep a relaxed atmosphere.
• Generate as many ideas as possible.
• Motivate participants to think.
• Don’t allow discussion and evaluation.
• Every idea is to be recorded.
• Evaluate and finalize.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Why People Resist Change?

1. Loss of Control: When people feel on top of things, change threatens them with losing control of their personal area of control or influence.
2. Uncertainty: Predictability is contributing to many people. Change brings uncertainty, which some people find threatening.
3. Surprise: We like new things but hate surprises. Sudden change is very unsettling to most of us.
4. Habits: We love our habits. They are efficient and don’t require thought. Establishing new behavior patterns is difficult.
5. Familiarity: The more we know things, the better we like them. (that’s why companies spend a lot on advertising) The unfamiliar is disturbing.
6. Work: New things usually mean more work (at least at the beginning).
7. Competence: People know that they can do what they already do. Change means they will have to master new skills, and they don’t know if they will be able to do it
8. Ripples: People fear that change in one thing will lead to change in others.
9. Adjustment: People are afraid it will take them a long time to adjust to any change.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

 

Fundamental Change

There is an evident and strong desire for corporate transformation. With all the smoke there has to be some fire. Against the background of multiple and profound changes and challenges in the business environment, management accepts that incremental is no longer enough.

How fundamental the transformation should be will depend upon the situation and circumstances of the individual company. There are easier ways of getting directorial and managerial kicks.

Circumstances might allow a gradual transition and incremental adjustment. Managers need to understand the profound nature of the distinction between evolutionary and revolutionary change, and the requirements for beginning about a revolution in thought. They must learn from radicals rather than administrators.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

 

Independent Thinking

All employees are challenged to use their individual minds to their optimum to make rational decisions. In this context, each of us is responsible for what we do and who we are. In addition, creativity is strongly encouraged and only possible with independent thought.

We learn a great deal from each other. Teamwork is important. However each of us thinks alone. Our minds are not physically connected. In this regard, each of us must be willing to make an independent judgment of the facts based on our capacity to think logically. Just because the “crowd” says it so, does not make it so.

In this context, each of us is responsible for our own actions. Each of us is responsible for our personal success or failure, i.e., it is not the bank’s fault if someone does not achieve his objectives.

All human progress by definition is based on creativity, because creativity is the source of positive change. Creativity is only possible to an independent thinker. Creativity is not about just doing something different. It is about doing something better. To be better, the new method/process must be judged by its impact on the whole organization, and as to whether it contributes to the accomplishment of the mission.

There is an infinite opportunity for each of us to do whatever we do better. A significant aspect of the self-fulfillment which work can provide comes from creative thoughts and action.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.