Intercity Bus Service Management

Question: Write an essay on Intercity Bus Service? Answer: Introduction Intercity Bus Service is a growing industry in the current market. A proper marketing strategy is very necessary for transport organization. Thus this report is a marketing analysis of Intercity Bus Service. 7P marketing mix provides a basic overview of the marketing strategy of the organization. Location, Service cape, style of service and staffing provides the location selection strategy, service overview and staff selection and task assigning process of the organization. Rest part of the report creates basis for marketing communication plan. 7P marketing mix Product Product mix includes the development of plan for the right product according to the needs and requirements of the customers. Organization provides various types of bus services in the market. These services can be divided into various categories like A.C. and non A.C. buses, sleeper and non- sleeper buses. Each type of bus is for specific purpose like A.C. buses are for increasing the comfort of the customer. Rich class people like to travel in the A.C. buses while non A.C. buses are for reducing the fairs mainly for middle class people. Sleeper buses are for the long routes and non- sleeper buses are for the small routes. Intercity transport service also provides the facility of luggage booking (Sharma, 2005). Customers can send their parcels in the buses. Place Intercity bus service has a wide transportation channel. It mainly targets the large cities. Most of the buses of Intercity Bus Service start from a large city and cover the small villages also. In small villages it works on franchisee basis while it has its own offices in large city (Kamane, 2012). Intercity Bus service chooses the main market as its office location so that customer can reach the office easily. It also provides the online booking facility to the customers so that customers can book their seats from their home. Price Intercity provides its services in various ranges according to the chosen services. The price of tickets for A.C. bus is comparatively more than the price of Non A.C. buses. Prices also depend on the distance of travel. More the distance, more will be the prices. Non- Sleeper buses will only contain the sittings while sleeper buses contain three types of seats sitting, single sleeper and double sleeper. Prices for sitting seats of both sleeper and non- sleeper are same while the prices of double sleeper is more than the sitting seats and prices of single sleeper is more than the double sleeper comparatively. There are only slight differences in the prices of single and double sleeper. Promotion The promotion mix of Intercity Bus Service can be categorised into three categories Advertisement, sales promotion and telemarketing. It uses various ways to advertise their services in the market. Organization believes in latest trend of advertising like online advertisement, hoardings, providing advertisement on television channels etc. Organization gives more priority to online advertisement as this is more effective and efficient source of advertisement in current time. Sales promotion includes two ways of sales promotions providing discounts and organizing tours and packages. Generally Intercity Bus Service provides 66% discounts to students, 50% discount to the senior citizens and 75% discounts to handicapped people (Haider, 2013). Organization provides the monthly pass facility to the customers which needs to travel on daily basis. It also provides attractive discounts on special occasions. Intercity Bus Service also organizes various holiday tours for promotion. For telemarketing promotion, organization owned a toll free number which can be used by the consumers for various purposes like enquiry, complaint and ticket booking. This telemarketing service remains open for 24 hours. People People is also an important marketing mix. There are various types of people associated in the overall process of the Intercity Bus service. Manager at each office which handles the employees and customers from the particular office, employees that book the tickets, conductors and drivers are the main actors of overall process (Economist, 2013). Marketing manager manages the marketing of the organization in that particular area. Server man manages the all details related to the server e. Process manager develops all the strategies related to departure of buses etc. Thus the above people manage the whole process of Intercity Bus service. Process The process starts with the reservation of tickets and ends on the customers feedback after reaching to its destination. The first part of the process is reservation of tickets; Intercity Bus Service provides three ways of booking the seat online booking, office booking and booking on telephone. Online booking can be done from the website of Intercity Bus Service. For office booking customer needs to visit the office and book their tickets. For booking on telephone consumer need to use the toll free number of the organization and book their ticket (Sharma, 2005). The second part of the process is boarding on bus. Customer need to arrive at the office of the organization half hour before the departure time of the bus. Conductor will check the ticket and helps in taking their respective seats. After reaching to the destination customer need s to fill a feedback form according to their travelling experiences with the Intercity Bus service. Physical Evidence Physical evidence describes the surroundings where customer and service industry interact with each other and service is delivered to the consumers by the service providers. Ticket counters of the intercity bus have extreme space with chairs in fixed in the line so that customers can purchase tickets comfortably even after a huge gathering at the ticket counter. There are more than three ticket counters at every bus stand to maintain the high gathering (Ritson, 2013). Intercity bus service has the luxury buses with rich interior and highly comfortable seats including all the safety equipment required in case of emergency. The buses used to be clean well after every ride. Location, Services cape, Style of Service and Staffing For location part organization targets the big cities. It runs the between the two large cities and covers all the villages between those cities according to the shortest routes. Intercity Bus Service locates various offices in single large city but the bus is departed from the location where all the people can reach easily. More than one location in single city helps in attracting the more consumers from the market. Service cape is related to the environment in which consumer and service provider interact with each other and provide their services. Intercity Bus service provides a cool and calm environment to the consumers. Various facilities have been provided by the organization to provide quality service to the consumers (Lee, 2009). Luxury buses are designed by considering various small facilities which provide comfort to the consumers. Thus this enhances the positive customer experience of consumers with the Intercity Bus Services. As the style of service is considered, this includes the data related to what types of services are provided by the organization and how organization provides these services to their customer. Organization practise to provide customer centred quality service to consumers for attracting mare customers towards the organization (Pathak, 2011). The moto of Intercity Bus Service is to make the journey comfortable by providing the best services to the consumers. Intercity Bus Service is famous for its high quality luxury and comfortable services in the market. Staffing is one of the most important parts of the organization. It creates the base for overall process of the transportation. Staffing includes various processes like recruitment of the various staff and assigning them their task according to their skills and efficiency. The most important task of transport organization is the recruitment of skilled and experienced drivers. Organization used to recruit the drivers on the basis of driving test. Various types of cautions used to be performed while recruiting the driver like checking of proper certificates and driving licences etc (Maheshwari, 2012) These drivers are put on training of one month with the experienced drivers for one month. Other staffs are recruited on the basis of their experience and qualification required by the organization and that recruited staffs is assigned the task according to the requirement of the organization and skills of the employees. Method to monitor service quality Managing quality of the service is an important task of the organization. For managing the quality of the service it is important to monitor the services after specific period. The services of the organization can be divided into three parts reservation of tickets, boarding and de- boarding of the consumers and after service process. A testing team for each process is assigned to monitor the quality of the services (CAAD, 2014). These teams also provide the suggestion for improvement in the quality of the services provided by the organization. For managing reservation process the team will monitor the online reservation process, office reservation process and telephone reservation process. Online reservation process will include the monitoring the best technology available in the market which can be embedded in the online reservation site of the organization for improving the customer experience of online booking of tickets (Perreau, 2013). Telephone reservation monitoring will include the checking of proper working of the reservation extension and the proper working of toll free number. This will also include the process that can be embedded in the telephone booking of tickets for improving the customer experience of ticket booking. The boarding and de-boarding monitoring of services includes the improvement in the traveling services for the consumers like buses should be cleaned after every ride, all the seats of the buses should be checked after every ride, if there is any defect in any of the seat of the bus than that seat is replaced immediately (Alipore, 2011). Buses are tested after every ride, experience of the drivers help in checking the condition of bus. Every bus is serviced afte4r one month of ride and recycled after three years. The after service process is very important for maintaining the quality of the services. Feedback of the customer is the most important part of monitoring all the services provided by the organization. It helps in deep monitoring of the services. Customers suggestion after taking the services of the organization creates a great scope for improvement in the services. Marketing Information Marketing information include the management of existing customers, managing the database and collection of feedback from the consumers. It is more important to managing the existing customers than adding new customers in the database of the organization (Bordan, 1965). Thus Intercity Bus Service has a separate team to create various strategies for retaining the existing customers in the market. For this a separate database has been constructed by the organization which includes the various details like name, address, email address, phone number is managed. A proper communication is established with those customers, this connection system helps in convincing and retaining the existing customers in the market. Organization also provides various facilities to its permanent customers in terms of special discounts in ticket fairs and special tours organized by the organization. Feedback system is one of the most important parts of the organization as it helps in monitoring the quality of the services. A special team has been created by the Intercity Bus Service which tracks the overall feedback process. The main source of feedback is online. A separate page has been prepared on the website of the organization which accepts the feedback by the customer. A special extension has also been provided on the toll free number. Customer can fill the feedback form after completing their journey. Methods to earn customer loyalty Earning customer loyalty is one of the important processes of any organization. It is very tough to earn the customer loyalty and trust by the organization. Philosophically customers are very sensitive towards the services for which they pay money. If they dont get the proper services as they expected, it creates a negative impact on the consumers (Ghemawat, 2007). First of all customers are very sensitive about the payment process. Organization has a very safe payment process. For online booking Intercity bus service provides both online and offline payment facility to the consumers. Consumers can pay through their debit card, credit card or net banking or customer can pay for the ticket at the time of boarding. Secondly organization promotes only those services that organization can provide easily and efficiently to their customers. Organization understands the fact that if the customer doesnt get what they had seen the brochure or advertisement than it creates a negative impact on the consumers. Thus organization promotes only those facilities that it can provide efficiently. Mistake can be done anyone these mistakes can create a negative impact if not managed properly. For this organization has separate customer handling team that handles the customer queries and complaints efficiently. Thus by the above process organization earns the customer loyalty in the market. Staff guidelines for Handling Customers It is staff of the organization that can create or destroy reputation of the organization in the market. Thus a proper guideline for the staff is very necessary. Each type of staff should have different sets of guidelines. These guidelines should be customer centred. The driver should be provided strict guidelines for safe driving. Similarly conductor of bus handles the customers in the bus. Thus the customer should provide the guidelines related to safety and security so that he can explain the safety guidelines to the customers in case of any emergency (MSI, 2012). The customer handling guidelines should also be provided to the conductor like proper checking of tickets, guiding with their seats etc. Similarly ticket booker and the customer query and complaints handling staff should be provided guidelines for well behaving with the customers. Thus above guidelines to the staff help in managing the proper communication and interaction with the customers. Customer Communication Plan Customer communication plan is also an important factor which if implemented properly enhances the growth of the organization multiple times. Thus organization uses the current trends and latest technology to communicate with the customers. Social media is the great source of communication with the consumers. According to the statistics online social media covers more than 50% of the world. This is also an effective and efficient way connecting with the consumers. Facebook alone covers more than 50% of the overall population of the world (Forbes, 2014). Facebook status update, photos etc. services helps in communicating with the consumers. Twitter is also an effective source of communicating with customers. Tweets on twitter help in reaching a large number of people not only in a single city but also worldwide. YouTube Video sharing is also an effective way of reaching to maximum number of people. Uploading video about various processes and facilities on the YouTube channel creates a great understanding about the services of organization. The other communication plans will include the seminars, malls, surveys, banners, hoardings, television advertisement etc. A seminar is also an effective way for communicating with people. Various people used to visit malls on daily basis, thus various types of activities in the malls help in reaching more people. The overall communication plan of the organization is as follows. Activity Time Period Facebook campaign by creating Facebook page on the platform 6 months YouTube campaigns uploading video after specific period 6 months Twitter campaign managing Twitter page for reaching large number of people 3 months Email Communication to nearly 10000 users 2 months SEO marketing 5 months Hoardings 6 months Seminars in various cities 12 months Conclusion Intercity Bus service provides various types of transportation services to its consumers like A.C. and non A.C. buses, sleeper and non-sleeper buses according to the needs and requirements of the consumers. Thus the prices of the services also vary according to these services. Organization believes in online source for marketing in the market thus putted the online sources at the centre of market communication plan. References Kamane, Kanish (2012). 7Ps in Transport Sector [online]. Available From: https://www.slideshare.net/kanishkamane/7ps-in-trasportation-sector-14821147 [Accessed: 28th April 2015]. Haider, Ali (2013). Transportation service marketing fast treavels [online]. Available From: https://www.slideshare.net/AliHaider2/transportation-service-marketing-fast-travels [Accessed: 28th April 2015]. CAAD (2014). Integrate Marketing evaluation [online]. Available From: https://www.caad.au.edu/attachments/article/43/Class%2015-Evaluation.pdf [Accessed: Accessed: 28th April 2015]. Forbes(2014). Watch out Facebook with Google + #2 and YouTube at #3 [online]. Available From: https://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2013/01/26/watch-out-facebook-with-google-at-2-and-youtube-at-3-google-inc-could-catch-up/ [Accessed: 28th April 2015]. Maheshwari, Rajendra (2012). Marketing Management. 1st ed. New Delhi: International BookHouse Sharma, H. (2005). Services Marketing mix. 15(6) p. 456- 470. Lee, C. (2009). A Review of Marketing mix: 4Ps or Mor? International journal of marketing studies, 12(2)p. 2-6. Alipour, M. (2011). The role of service marketing mix and its its impact. 134(1) p. 73-77. Bordan, N. (1965). The concept of markting mix. Science in marketing,23 (12)p. 386-397. Ghemawat, Panus by the above process organization earns the customety equipment required in case of Conclusionstomers so that customers can book their seats frokaj (2007). Managing Differences, The central challenge of global strategy [online]. 1 (3) p. 12 Available From: https://mbi.dirkjanswagerman.nl/static/files/MBI/Module%2021/Managing_Differences.pdf [Accessed: 28th April 2015]. MSI. (2012). Sourier Services. MSI, 1-13. Perreau, fanny (2013). The forces that drive consumer behaviour [online] Available From: https://theconsumerfactor.com/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2013/12/The-forces-that-drive-consumer-behavior-Fanny-Perreau-TheConsumerFactor.pdf [Accessed: 28th April 2015]. Pathak, Raj (2011). Marketing mix- An overview of marketing strategy [online]. Available From https://www.academia.edu/5249311/4.0_Marketing_Mix_An_Overview_of_Implementation_of_Marketing_Strategies [Accessed: 28th April 2015]. Ritson, Neil (2013) Strategic management. 1st edition, :Bookboon publications. Economist (2013). Here There and everywhere [online]. 1 (1) p.1-2 Available From: https://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/20130119_offshoring_davos.pdf [Accessed: 28th April 2015].