Question 2
Total product concept as exemplified by Contiki
The total product concept involves view of the product in a view of its ability to satisfy potential customers. In order to understand the product in terms of the customers point of view, the product is divided into four segments of core product, expected product, augmented product and potential product. The view of a product in these perspectives is known as the total product view. The contiki brand is a whole some holiday package suited to satisfy the needs of the client by not only including destinations and great places to visit, but packaging the product in a whole some manner ensuring that the client derives satisfaction from each and every process and experience they go through be it travel, accommodation, food, leisure and other minute details are all included in the plan as part of the whole product. The packaging of the product by way of incorporation of the segments of the product detailed is what is referred to as the total product concept. The following paper will take a detailed look into the total product aspects of the contiki brand by way of evaluation of its key characteristics in comparison with the main requirements of the total product concept.
The contiki core product is the provision of holiday solutions to its clients. This is the facilitation the client’s needs to take a vacation literally. The view of the total product on this offering would be different where the total product concept would view it as a product that frees the mind after long working months provides solutions for the happy couple celebrating their anniversary stealing and taking you away on some exotic adventure away from the mundane routine you endure. By taking such a view, contiki connects with the client’s needs on an intimate level and is therefore able to offer them more personalized product by the consideration of the uniqueness of each client’s needs.
A review of the products offered by contiki reveal the total product concept in application. The opening statement to their brochure is telling enough of the kind of attitude that goes towards the development of packages for their clients, ‘one life, one shot, make it count’ line goes a long way in persuading the client to try the products on offer since the brevity of life is fully appreciated here and hence the experience enhanced, how appropriate!. The ‘no regrets’ slogan also goes towards achieving this goal as well by creating the feeling of completeness in the product. Boodin (1911) argued that a thing is the sum of all its qualities and if the qualities are removed, then we are left with nothing. Quality, as he reasons, is the sum of the imbedded qualities within the product. This is the view taken by contiki with regards to the packages they offer.
Contiki with regards to their pricing for instance, proudly state that ‘you can’t do what we do for less’. This statement backed up with their competitive price list is a demonstration of the total product approach they take in their product development. In the consumers view, an exchange is the comparison between the total costs and the total exchange value. Costs are deemed to include money and other subjective factors such as effort cost and psychological costs. The pricing of their products in a competitive manner and taking conscious effort towards reducing the subjective costs associated with obtaining similar products, contiki takes an active effort towards achieving total product satisfaction of their clients.
The circle customer satisfaction requires that, in order for satisfaction to be derived from the product, quality is an important component that must be considered in the product development and presentation. The circle of satisfaction has overlapping zones where satisfaction is sandwiched between the organization needs and customer needs. Meeting customer needs while at the same time providing the organization with its needs is a key strategy employed contiki tours. The products are presented in a way that shows a satisfied work force which in turn translates to a satisfied client. In page 15 of the brochure, contiki state that no compulsory tipping, only passionate service and exclusive local knowledge from this assertion, there is a picture of a work force that is content and satisfied in their job thus offering unparalleled service in turn.
Question 3
In the decision to either purchase or not to purchase, the customer undergoes different stages before they are in a position to make a decision on whether to buy or not.
- Problem or need recognition where the consumer realizes the need he/she has and identifies the kind of product they would require to satiate the need.
- Information search regarding the product identified to satisfy the need identified in the problem recognition phase.
- Evaluation of alternatives where the consumer weighs the various options they encounter during the information search phase. In this phase the consumer decides which product would best suit their needs.
- Purchase process
- Post purchase behavior
Purchase involvement – occurs when customers identify an unmet need and therefore go and seek the means to satisfy the particular want. Contiki can be said to mainly engage in fulfilling this part of the time zones. The brochure focuses almost exclusively on the availing of information towards the packages that they have in offer and the prices they charge for the various packages. The information can be regarded as highly informative of the decision by the customers on the decision to make a purchase or not. In page 31 of the brochure for instance, contiki details the various feature hotels the y have in their lineup such as the Cabala Hotel in Rome, Aphrodite resort hotel in the Mykonos, Himmelrich Hotel in Lucerne and many more. The selection of the hotels described together with the features and the unique comforts associated with each one of them are detailed. Information in a page like this is of great importance to a prospective client who has identified the need to take a vacation and is in search of an appropriate hotel to spend their vacation in. this kind of assistance afforded the client is based on the first time zone of buyer decision process.
The brochure however affects each of the other time zones to an extent. The product delivery involvement is the phase where the client makes a decision to purchase and become, effectively a customer of the involved firm. In this case therefore the decision by customers to purchase/consume packages offered by contiki. This phase also involves the level to which consumers are involved in the product delivery which is known in some circles as response involvement. The brochure goes a long way in detailing the way the customer will prospectively interact with the product owing to its nature as a service. The product interaction process therefore would be incomplete without being supplemented by detailed description of the expected interaction with the process. Through these elaborate descriptions the customer is already aware of what to expect of the product and as such is familiar with it, in a sense, prior to the actual purchase and product interaction. In page 13 of the brochure for instance, the brochure offers the different travel plans available while also detailing the activities that accompany the particular plan. This is an important aspect in this kind enterprise as the value derived from the product can only be determined after the actual experience, thus a detailed and as an accurate as possible description of what to expect should be offered to the prospective customers. In this way, the customer will have been aided in interacting with the product.
Post purchase involvement on the other hand is involved in aiding customers in being content that given all the conditions, they made the correct decision. This involvement is often referred to as enduring involvement. The brochure helps in this process by affirming to the client that, by choosing contiki, the customer gets the best value for money available. This aspect is best represented in the brochure in page 4 where the brochure proudly states, ‘life is there to be lived, make sure you look back with #no regrets’ the statement seems to make a prediction of the future and in a way informs the customer that they shall not regret the decision to choose contiki in future.
The five gap theory as employed in the circle of customer satisfaction which employs three parameters the knowledge gap where the needs of the target market are addressed in each of these stages. The gap theory is closed in the contiki case by offering the customers a variety of products to choose from. This eliminates the possibility of assumptions by the management that they know everything the client needs and bundle it in a single package. The standards gap in the contiki case is handled by ensuring that the auxiliary products are built in an established skeleton which is the core product. The core product of tour is offered with high quality benchmarks and the auxiliary products such as customized me time only supplement an already good product.
