Service Marketing Integrating Customer

Question: Discuss about theService Marketing for Integrating Customer. Answer: Introduction The organizations operating in various industries and markets have been creating and implementing strategies to increase the sales of their products or services in order to gain more profit in the market. This in turn allows the organizations to focus on the 7Ps of marketing in order to have effective marketing skills. This report focuses on the service marketing of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (Bhardwaj, 2014). Service Provider Description Commonwealth Bank of Australia is one of the biggest Australian banks operating in the international market and has its headquarters in Sydney, Australia. The bank operates in Melbourne, Australia as well and provides a wide range of financial services to its customers. The services provided by the organization can be categorized into a number of sections based on the type of consumer. These categories of services provided by the organization are personal, business and corporate services. The personal financial services of the organization include transaction accounts, savings accounts, credit cards, insurance, personal loans, term deposits and international payments. The business financial services provided by the organization include business accounts, business credit cards, merchant services, business loans, superannuation, asset finance, business insurance, and investment planning and risk management. The corporate financial services and solutions provided by the organization inc lude working capital, capital raising and capital lending. Such diverse set of services provided to the customers of the organization allows the Commonwealth Bank of Australia to be one of the biggest service providers operating in the country. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia also provides a number of other services to support these core financial services, which in turn attract more number of customers. This service provider in the country aims at gaining and maintaining the position of the finest financial services organization in the country through efficient and effective customer service. As one of the leading providers of integrated financial services, the organization focuses a lot on customer commitment and customer satisfaction (Bitner, 2014). Target Market Analysis The Commonwealth Bank of Australia provides a wide range of financial services to the individuals, businesses and corporations in the corresponding markets. All of these services provided by the organization are targeted at various segments of the market, which are analyzed in this section of the report. Personal Financial Services This section analyzes the target market for the personal financial services provided by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. The segmentation criteria for the personal financial services provided by the organization are defined on the basis of the factors mentioned below. Age A number of personal financial services provided by the organization such as retirement plans, investment plans and wealth building plans are generally targeted at the customers in their late 20s and early 30s, which is considered the peak age to start such an investment plan. For some of the other financial services like fixed deposits, recurring deposits and savings accounts, the organization doesnt focus a lot on the age of the customers present in the market (Goi, 2015). Income The organization targets the customers with medium to high socioeconomic status for the marketing activities of the services like term deposits, credit cards, insurances and international payments. The organization targets the customers with high socioeconomic status for a number of other services like forex cards, premium credit cards and premium savings/investment accounts. The organization targets the marketing activities of the personal loans on the customers with low to medium socioeconomic status and income level (Huotari, 2012). Lifestyle The lifestyle of the customers present in the corresponding market of operation is a major factor in determining the target market segment. The organization targets the marketing activities of the credit cards, rewards cards and personal loans on the customers with frequent shopping activities both online and offline. The customers with high volume of shopping activities are considered to be very good prospects for the new services related to credit cards, rewards cards and personal loans. Family Background The organization also targets the customers for a number of services, who have any of their family members as a customer of the organization. So a number of services of the organization are targeted on the relatives of the existing customers through a number of business policies like referral (Lovelock, 2015). Business Financial Services The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is focusing a lot on the small and medium enterprises across the globe for a number of their business financial services like business loans, asset protection, business insurance and risk management. The organization also targets the large enterprises for a number of premium business financial services like investment planning, merchant services and superannuation (Schultz, 2013). Service performance analysis on four of the 7Ps The marketing activities and strategies of any organization can be defined as the 7Ps of marketing, which are product, place, price, promotion, people, process and physical environment. This section of the report analyzes the performance of the service marketing activities of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in terms of these factors in the marketing strategies. Product The products in the marketing strategies of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia are the various financial services provided by the organization. The organization focuses a lot on the design of the financial services on the basis of the needs and requirements of the customers present in the local target market along with the market condition and trends in the local market. The financial services provided by the organization are custom tailored on the basis of the economic condition of Australia. The economic condition of the country affects the financial requirement of the customers present in the corresponding market, which in turn define the services provided by the organization. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia utilizes this to promote its services in Australia with the commitment that the services provided by the organization are the best o survive and tackle the economic condition of the country (Metcalfe, 2013). People The financial services provided by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia are designed and developed by focusing on the needs of the customers closely. So the financial services provided by the organization in the local target market are based on the needs of the customers in the financial conditions and economy of the country. The organization utilizes this factor very efficiently to design and promote the services to the customers present in the local target market. So the marketing strategies for the services provided by the organization in the local target market are based on the needs and requirements of the customers in the corresponding market (Gummesson, 2012). Price The price of the services of the organization is one of the most significant factors in the buying behavior and decision making process of the customers. So the price of the financial services provided by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Melbourne are focused on the economic condition of the country along with the standard of living of the customers in the corresponding market. The marketing activities for the services of the organization promotes the fair pricing of the services to attract more number of customers in various segments of the local market (Lusch, 2014). Place The places at which the services are available for purchase are another significant factor in the purchase decision making process of the customers. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia ensures that the marketing strategies for the services focus on the easy availability of the services at various common places along with the internet. The organization ensures that the branches are present at most of the popular and crowded areas of the country, which in turn provides easy access of the customers for purchasing the services. The organization also allows the customers to buy a number of services over the internet in order to provide more convenience to the customers (Wilson, 2012). Recommendations This section of the report mentions some of the recommendations for particular services provided by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. One of the recommendations for the bank is to improve one of 7Ps of marketing for its services. The bank can allow the customer i.e. People associated with the services to be more comfortable and convenient while updating the contact information for the services being consumed. The customers are currently required to visit a branch in order to update various information such as the contact information tied to the services they consume. This in turn negates the requirement or need of the customers to have convenient ways to update such information without visiting the branch of the bank. The organization can ensure the security of this action by providing the facilities in the online banking of the customers and adding an extra factor of authentication through the personal mobile number of the customers (Kotler, 2015). The services provided by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia can fail if the database of the organization is crashed due to a hardware malfunction. The services consumed by the customers of the organization are managed by the organization through the effective collection, storage and management of both the customer and service data in the database of the organization, which is vulnerable to the hardware failures. The organization can define a service recovery strategy to tackle with such scenarios, which allows the organization to maintain multiple copies of all the information in a distributed database across various locations (Bajada, 2015). The organization can ensure the maintenance of all the information in the centralized database and the duplicate copies of all the information in various locations across the globe. This in turn will allow the organization to resume the service even if the centralized database goes down, by collecting the required information from the distribute d database (Gummesson, 2012). Conclusion The services provided by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia are a lot diversified in terms of their type and target. The organization puts a lot of focus on the 7Ps of marketing for the services it provides and focuses on customer commitment and satisfaction as its core value. 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