Each company has its own marketing strategies to ensure that its products and services are purchased by a wide variety of customers. A company has to come up with a good marketing mix in order to generate a high amount of revenue. This means that the marketing department of that company has to search for adequate information regarding the factors that affect its services. One of the variables that may affect the marketing mix may include physical evidence and the people. In addition to this, the service process is also important in determining the marketing mix of a company (Martin 2011).
There are a wide variety of services offered by various companies. One of the services that are suitable in the current international business environment is insurance services. For a company to engage in this type of service, it should be more focused on the customers (Jennifer 2009). This will ensure that the customers are satisfied with the services offered by the company. In addition to this, the customers will be loyal to the products. This means that they will prefer buying the services of this company instead of the services offered by other rival companies.
Insurance services involve a great deal of employee participation. Companies should ensure that employees are comfortable and motivated to provide high quality services since they are the ones that have physical contact with the customers. A company should also ensure that employees are divided according to the type of services they offer to the customers. An organization that gives excellent insurance services must have an outstanding organizational culture that ensures all employees provide an excellent performance (John 2012). This is the reason why all companies require all new employees to undergo induction. Induction ensures that employees adapt to the organizational culture in order to work towards achieving the goals of the organization.
It is very important to develop the design of the insurance service to enable the customers to understand what the services offered entail. Before knowing that, it is important to understand how the employees and the customers are represented in the provision of these services. This can be well explained by the use of a blue print. This blue print is important in giving a representation of the people involved in visual form (William 2010). The blue print can be represented using a map or a graph depending on the nature of services offered. In our case, it is better to draw diagrams in order to show the connection between the services offered, the employees and the customers being served.
The flow of activities that are related to insurance services can be formulated by dividing them into three broad categories: the life insurance, the general insurance and the asset management. In the category of life insurance, the employees deal with matters relating to medical issues. These employees are qualified and highly trained to deal with customers who require medical insurance. In this category, one activity involved here is the application by the customer for a medical cover. The customer must have received adequate information about the services offered by the medical insurers.
The second category is the one for the general insurance. In this case, there are a wide category of contingencies that are covered by the insurance company. One activity in this case is the specification of the asset that needs to be covered. Here, one may be required to conduct valuation on the asset that is being covered (Jennifer 2009). This is mainly because some assets are priced as a percentage of the asset being covered. A good example here is the motor insurance. In the third case, asset management involves a case where the insurance company manages the assets and properties of its customers at a fee. This also involves the valuation of the assets and their residual values.
The following diagram shows a design of the blueprint of the service process. It represents a flow of activities that occur during the service process of insurance cover.
The importance of drawing a blueprint for the insurance service is to give an overview of what is being expected. In addition to this, it helps a lot in planning on the best ways of dealing with the customers. Customers have diverse needs that need to be satisfied by various specialists. In the same way, various employees have specialized in specific insurance services. The blueprint therefore matches the needs of various customers with the required specialists that work in the insurance company. This is a strategic progress for any insurance company since it ensures that all customers’ problems are solved in the best way possible. The blueprint also helps customers to know the processes involved before getting the actual service.
Physical evidence is a term that is used to describe the tangible assets in an organization that enable the customer to prove that the firm as well as the products and services are in actual existence. This term may also be used to describe the environment on which the firm operates and where the services are dispensed by the employees of an organization. The interaction between the customers and the employees of the firm takes place in this environment. A company cannot be said to be offering services and yet there is no evidence that it is in existence (Martin 2011). The physical existence of a company can be proved by the evidence of materials as well as other tangible assets that are used to dispense the type of service offered.
The physical evidence of a company is important since a customer can know where to go to in case of failure of a certain product or service. In addition to this, a customer may be having questions to ask the employees on the use of the services being delivered. The physical evidence of a company or service also entails looking at whether the company has a customer service department that deals with the issues raised by various customers. Here, the customer will be more convinced to purchase the services offered since any problems are solved by the customer service department (John 2012). In addition to this, the customers are convinced to come back in case of any defect detected in the services dispensed to them.
In order to ensure that there is a good marketing mix for the insurance service, I would ensure that all the necessary physical evidences required are available in the company. This will form as a strategy to attract the customers to the organization. More so, I would ensure that the environment that houses the company consists of all the necessary equipment that is necessary to provide the required insurance services. I would also ensure that the customer service department is situated near the front of the office to ensure that the customers are directed well to the relevant service departments.
Services cape is a facility that is used to show the environment in which the services are made and the physical utilities in it. It is important to provide a detail of the services cape of the insurance service that is being provided. The various dimensions of the services cape include the physical environment and the holistic environment (Jennifer 2009). However, the most important aspect in this case is the physical environment dimension. This is mainly because this dimension involves more tangible assets that provide the physical evidence of the company.
The physical environment dimension includes ambient conditions, space and general conditions. One of the ambient conditions that show evidence that a service is offered by a company is the temperature of the place. For services that require the provision of medical services like in hospitals, the temperature varies due to the nature of the problems of the sick people. In our case, insurance companies require normal temperatures for services to be provided. Another ambient condition to be looked at is music and odor. Most services are sold when music is low and there is no bad odor.
The space of the environment in which the company is housed should be reasonable enough to contain all its assets as well as the high number of customers visiting the organization (Martin 2011). An insurance company has to have a large space for it to contain both the employees and the customers. The layout of the organization should be well designed to fit the nature of an insurance company. Most organizations search for the most qualified and skilled architects who draw the most appropriate layout of a company in relation to the type of services offered by that organization.
The equipment owned by a company can be evidence that certain service is offered by a company. For instance, an insurance company that does valuation of assets should have its own valuation equipment. This can act as an evidence to the customers that the company is not only doing valuation, but also offering vehicle insurance (Jennifer 2009). The various services offered by an insurance company can be put into writing to educate the customers on the various products and services offered. Brochures and fliers can be good to provide evidence that a certain service is offered.
Buildings can also act as physical evidence that a certain insurance company is existent. Usually, these buildings bear the name of the company being housed on them. In these buildings, there may be certain artifacts that may be drawn. For an insurance company, the artifacts drawn should resemble the products and services offered by an insurance company (William 2010). When one enters the entrance of an insurance company, he or she should be in a position to know that the services offered are those in the nature of insurance.
The people are also an important component in the marketing mix of the services offered by a company. The word “people” here refer to the customers as well as the employees serving them. In order to maintain customer satisfaction, there are certain aspects that must be adhered to by the management of the company. Both the customers and the employees should undergo some training in order to give them certain information that will help to retain the effectiveness of the services offered. It is important to look at this training on different perspectives.
Training of customers involves explaining to them how the services are provided. The customers are given all the relevant information regarding the services offered. In addition to this, they are told of the benefits that accrue once they subscribe to that service. Training customers also helps them to know how to use a certain product or service (John 2012). This helps to reduce any unnecessary inconveniences due to failure to understand the services offered.
Training of the employees involves teaching them how to deal with the various types of customers. They are taught how to treat customers in the event of a failure of a service. More so, they are trained on the best way of offering high quality service and how to ensure customer satisfaction. Employees of a company are the ones that maintain the relationship between the customer and the organization (Jennifer 2009). They are therefore trained on how to solve the problems faced by the customers in relation to the services offered.
Conclusively, an organization can maintain it employees by ensuring that the employees have all the required materials to dispense its services to the customers. The employees should also be maintained by providing a favorable environment for them to work efficiently. This can be done by offering them good treatment and motivating them to work better. The most important aspects of motivation necessary to enhance better employee performance include high salary payment, promotion, job security and rewards for any job that has been done excellently.
References
Martin, K (2011). Issues in Marketing. London. Palgrave Macmillan.
William, N (2010). Physical Environment of an Organization. London. Palgrave Macmillan.
John, K (2012). Employees and Their Effect in an Organization. New York. McGrath Hill.
Jennifer, M (2009). Service Process of Insurance Companies. Oxford. Oxford University Press.
