Service Marketing Report 2

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SERVICE MARKETING REPORT

MKT431: Service Marketing

Submitted to:

Dr. Md. Tareque Aziz

Assistant Professor

BRAC Business School

BRAC University

Submitted by:

GROUP: 05

Habib Ghazi, ID: 10304117

Fariha Ahmed, ID: 11204035

Saurov Dhar, ID: 11204033

Nabila Islam, ID: 11104051

Ferdous Lamisa Moinuddin, ID: 11104115

Hasnine Nadvi, ID: 13304105

A. Md. Fahad Bin Hasan, ID: 10204134

MKT431: Service Marketing

Section: 01

BRAC Business School

Date of Submission: 31 March, 2014

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION 4

2. THE GAPS MODEL OF SERVICE QUALITY 5

3. CONSUMER BEHAVIOR IN SERVICES 7

4. CONSUMER EXPECTATIONS OF SERVICES 9

5. CONSUMER PERCEPTIONS OF SERVICES 11

6. LISTENING TO CUSTOMERS THROUGH RESEARCH 13

7. BUILDING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS 16

8. SERVICE RECOVERY 19

9. SERVICE DEVELOPMENT AND DESIGN 20

10. INTEGRATED SERVICE MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS 23

11. WAY FORWARD FOR THE COMPANY IN DELIVERING BEST QUALITY OF

SERVICES 27

12. CONCLUSION 29

13. APPENDIX – A: Service Design: How customers order online 31

14. APPENDIX – B: How the company processes the orders 32

15. APPENDIX – C: Bar diagrams and pie charts 33

16. APPENDIX – D: Questionnaire for customers 37

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1. INTRODUCTION

People tend to dine out at restaurants during occasions or sometimes for no reason. A touch of

the favorite restaurant can spice up the whole atmosphere. However, a new business has recently

started to gain name in Dhaka that delivers restaurant food right at the doorstep.

HungryNaki.com is a 100% online based company which promises to deliver restaurant food at

home or office. They have been operating for 6 months and have gained reputation and success

in the recent months. HungryNaki has developed the whole concept of online delivery by

focusing on customers who are busy going. Their main target market is the corporate, because

they have less time to prepare food at home. However, youth is also targeted because most online

users fall into that group of age. So, only a telephone call or a 15 minutes visit to their website

can save 1 hour of hard work needed to cook.

HungryNaki currently delivers food within Dhaka city in 20 locations. They are in contract with

over 100 restaurants all around the city. 80% of all online orders for food delivery are received

by HungryNaki because there are few competitors in the market, naming one would be

FoodPanda.com. One unique feature of HungryNaki is that their operational processes and

development are in-house. This report focuses on why HungryNaki is unique in its own way and

what makes HungryNaki what it is today.

The following report is on the service of HungryNaki.com. It contains gaps of the services and

how the company closes the gaps. The report also talks about the consumer behavior and how

HungryNaki builds and maintains relationship with customers. There is insight about their

service development. Analysis of their communication media is also done. The report focuses on

what improvements should HungryNaki make in order to have a stronger stand relative to

competitors.

Information to aid this report has been found from a survey with 30 respondents. Also, an

interview was done with the COO of HungryNaki. However, certain difficulties were faced

while completing this report:

Limited number of respondents was available for the survey.

Confidentiality was maintained regarding in-depth information.

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2. THE GAPS MODEL OF SERVICE QUALITY

Expectations of customers are the main drivers of the service market. There is no boundary of

expectations and service providers’ duty is to give the best of their service to reach the expected

service level of the customers. The services that service providers provide to the customers are

known as the perceived services. The difference between the expected service and the perceived

service is known as “Service Gap”. GAP is always measured with numbers. For example, a

customer is expecting that the service he is willing to buy will provide him 100% satisfaction but

instead the actual service gave him a satisfaction level of 70%. Hence, the service gap will be

(100%-70%=30%) 30%.

Customer expectations and perceptions and the actual service gaps for HungryNaki are analyzed

in the following table:

Expectations Perceptions Actual Gap

(Expectation –

Perception)

1 The food delivery service will be free of

cost.

Include delivery

charges of TK. 100

0 – 100 = -100

2 To place the order it will take 5 minutes. It takes 10 minutes. 5 – 10 = -5

3 The customers think they will get the

confirmation right after the order

(immediately, ie, waiting time = 0

minutes).

They get the

confirmation after 5

minutes.

0 – 5 = -5 minutes

4 Food will be delivered within 45

minutes.

It takes 60 minutes

to deliver the food.

45 – 60 = -15 minutes

5 Customer expected food quality is

excellent. (Likert scale 5)

Actual food quality

is good (Likert scale

3)

5 – 3 = 2

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6 Customers expect a 24 hour food

delivery service.

Their service is for

11 hours (11am-

10pm)

24 – 11 = 13 hours

Reasons for gap:

Gap 1: In different online food service the delivery charge is very low or zero. For example

Food Panda does not have any delivery charge.

Gap 2: Because of speed of the internet and complex procedure the time to place the order is

more than the expected time.

Gap 3: Because of the long procedure and manual operation of the system, the confirmation call

is late sometimes.

Gap 4: Because of traffic jam and lack of human resources, the food is delivered in 60 minutes.

Also, restaurants delay in preparing and packing the food.

Gap 5: Food quality depends on the restaurants. As a result, sometimes the food quality becomes

low. Sometimes the food gets cold due to the time taken for delivery.

Gap 6: Due to lack of human resource and most of the restaurants close by 10pm. So they do

not give provide service for 24 hours.

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3. CONSUMER BEHAVIOR IN SERVICES

Customer is the most important part of the organization. In order to satisfy the customer, we

must know what customers think about the service and how they behave.

1. Customer segmentation: we can divide HungryNaki customers into different groups. They

are shown in the following table:

Stage Marital status Children at home

Single Married None <6 years >6 years

Single I (Younger<35) X X

Full nest I (Younger<35) X X

Single Parent I (Younger<35) X X

Table: Customer Segmentation of HungryNaki

2. Why HungryNaki choose them as their target customer:

If we see their age most of them belong to the young group. They include students,

working parents with little child, single parents, service holder who does not live with

family, etc. They have fewer tendencies to cook food. For example, students or the single

parent who work outside would not like to take hassles for cooking.

To save time, they would purchase food online because they do not have time. For

example, students who live in shared quarter may order online to save time during exams.

In Bangladesh, online purchases are mostly done by the youth.

3. Reasons these customers purchase the service of HungryNaki: (important)

Reference group: Co-workers, friends, class mate, and friends from apartment influence

them to purchase the food through HungryNaki.

Traffic jam: Due to traffic jam, sometimes the customers do not want go outside for

having food.

Time: People of Dhaka city live a very busy life. Sometimes they do not get time to cook

or have food outside. In that case, they purchase the service of HungryNaki.

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Emergency: For instance, if there are unforeseen guests at home, people order food

through HungryNaki because generally they deliver in time.

Occasion: People order food on occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, etc.

Promotional activity: The promotional activities of HungryNaki also influence people to

purchase their service. For example, recently HungryNaki sponsored BRAC University

Club Fair, as a result of which, lot of students came to know about their service and many

of them have purchased the service.

Variety of choice: HungryNaki is providing food from different restaurants. Customers

can see the menu of different restaurants and can order easily.

Less risky: HungryNaki maintains privacy of customer information, so customers feel

safe while inputing information to order online.

4. Decision making process:

Information Search

(Friends, Internet, Bill board)

Purchase: Order online

Need Recognition

(Physiological need: Food & Hunger)

Figure: Decision making process of the customers of

HungryNaki

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How Customers experience the service:

1. Service as process: Customer has to go through a process if they want to purchase the

service. For example, they have to go to the webpage, select food, order it etc. So

customers enjoy every part of it. For instance, they enjoy ordering food from variety of

options.

2. Service as drama: Some customers can see it as a drama. For example, when they get the

confirmation call, they can enjoy the conversation as a part of drama.

5. CONSUMER EXPECTATIONS OF SERVICES

Customer expectations are crucial and need to be met. A company’s main aim is to offer service

as close as possible to expected level so that the customer gap is kept at a minimum.

From the survey conducted, it is seen that 37% customers have rated the overall service as good

and 13% have rated average. This is because there were few customers who did not receive what

was expected. For example, some customers got delayed delivery while some did not find the

customer service prompt. It is HungryNaki’s responsibility to ensure that these values are as low

as possible so that there is little dissatisfaction and customers rate them as excellent.

The level of expectations of HungryNaki’s customers is strong in the area of experience-based

norms. This is because HungryNaki is a 100% online based company and is targeted towards

online users. Also, they are just growing in the market because it has been only 6 months since

inception. So the expectation from such service company cannot be predetermined. This means

that HungryNaki’s service do not have search qualities as customers do not find information

beforehand. The customers have to experience the service in order to keep an expectation and

then evaluate the level of satisfaction based on the quality of service perceived. For example,

customers expect HungryNaki to deliver the food in 60 minutes time as promised, but sometimes

customers find that the delivery is delayed due to unavoidable reasons. Customers still find this

satisfactory and acceptable as it is seen that 73% customers rated 5 out of 5 that food was

received in expected time. Moreover, HungryNaki overcomes the slight dissatisfaction caused by

delayed delivery by compensating and apologizing to customers.

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However, certain factors influence the customer expectations of service:

Sources of desired service expectations: Customers’ expectations can result from a

number of sources. For example, any personal need will drive the customer to expect a

service. Also, there can be peer influence. For instance, a friend who has already availed

the service can suggest the customer to use the service too. As a result, customers expect

that the food delivered will be kept warm and delivery will be free of charge. Customers

also expect that delivery will be made in any desired location. Nevertheless, sources of

desired expectations should be time worthy and cost effective.

Sources of adequate service expectations: To expect the best of a service, customers must

have adequate information about the service. For example, customers have to know about

the process of ordering online, the available payment methods and the promised time of

delivery. According to the survey, 43% customers rated 1 and strongly agreed that it was

easy to place order. This is because they had enough information about the whole process

which helped the overall process seem easy. This implies that 43% customers expected 5

based on adequate information learned.

Service encounter expectations Vs overall service expectations: while encountering the

service, customers expect that the process of ordering online would take 5 minutes and

the delivery will be made in 30 minutes. However, it is seen that the delivery time is 60

minutes and a number of confirmation calls are made before the delivery is made which

makes the overall time go past 5 minutes. Although the service encounter expectations

are not met, customers are seen to be satisfied by the overall service because of features

like the courtesy upheld by the delivery men and the packaging of the food. Hence

HungryNaki needs to focus on the overall service expectations and try to provide service

as close as possible to the expectations so that the actual customer gap is low. According

to the survey, 73% customers rated 1 and said the perceived delivery time met the

expected delivery time. HungryNaki needs to focus on the rest 27% and ensure this

number is as minor as possible.

Sources of both desired and predicted service expectations: desired expectations are

predetermined, whereas predicted expectations result from information search and peer

influence. For example, customers desire that breakfast delivery will be made at 9:00am

in the morning, but from prediction it is found that breakfast delivery service is not

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offered by HungryNaki. Customers also desire that food will be delivered free of charge

but after customers’ prediction, it is seen that 33% customers rated service charge 2 out

of 5. So, HungryNaki needs to focus on the predicted expectations so that customers get

favourable information about their service which will result in positive word-of-mouth

communication.

Moreover, it is found from the survey that 30% customers desire the food to be kept warm and

30% customers want HungryNaki to enhance their delivery range. These numbers need to be

focused on so that HungryNaki make improvements in their operations.

6. CONSUMER PERCEPTIONS OF SERVICES

Analysis of the customer perception is important as it helps to assess whether the desired

positioning has been achieved. HungryNaki analyzes customer satisfaction through customer

feedbacks from follow-up calls. However, customer satisfaction is determined from the service

features itself. For example, the courtesy of the delivery men, the apology letters that customers

receive when the service fails all determine how satisfied the customers are. According to the

survey, 50% customers rated 5 out of 5 to the way the delivery men behaved.

The survey also states that 83% customers are willing to recommend HungryNaki to friends and

family. This means that HungryNaki is being able to position themselves as a favorable brand in

the minds of customers. However, customers judge the service quality based on several factors:

Reliability: The survey states that 100% customers rated 1 and strongly agreed that the

ordered food was delivered. This means that HungryNaki succeeded to deliver the

promised service.

Responsiveness: 40% customers rated 4 out of 5 as they received prompt queries to their

problems when they contacted HungryNaki. There was no dissatisfaction.

Assurance: HungryNaki promises to deliver in 60 minutes. 73% customers rated 1 and

strongly agreed that they received the food in the expected time.

Empathy: HungryNaki handles each complaint very seriously. In case of a service failure,

they send bouquets of roses or a card as a symbol of apology. Also, they make follow-up

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calls to each customer to ensure that the food is received. This concludes that they give

individualized attention to each customer.

Tangibles: In case of a service failure, HungryNaki sends personalized letters with proper

explanation of why the failure took place. Also, the courtesy of the delivery men and the

container used to deliver food are found to be satisfactory. This shows that HungryNaki

manages the tangibles effectively.

However, customer satisfaction also depends on the e-service quality. As HungryNaki is a 100%

online based company, it has to ensure that the e-service provided is of quality.

Efficiency: the website of HungryNaki is simple and easy to use. 7% customers were

attracted to their website.

Fulfillment: the website promises to deliver food within 60 minutes. This promise is

fulfilled as 73% customers rated 1 and strongly agreed that the food was delivered in

time.

Privacy: HungryNaki strictly maintains privacy to customer information as learnt from

the interview with the COO.

Responsiveness: HungryNaki lacks in responding through their website as they manage

customer queries mostly through telephone and facebook.

Contact: HungryNaki website contains contact numbers and email address. 47%

customers rated 5 out of 5 that the overall customer service was excellent when

contacted.

However, customers’ perceive that service encounter will be pleasant and that employees will

respond to their problems. It has been found that 33% customers rated 5 out of 5 that employees

were responsive. It has also been learnt that during service failures, any employee in the office,

whether it be the computer operator or the COO, handles customers’ complains on the telephone.

This concludes that all the employees are very responsive.

Customers also perceive employees to be adaptive, but HungryNaki lacks behind because they

do not try to meet customer’s personal needs and wants. For example, if a customer calls to order

an ice-cream, HungryNaki does not offer the service because they do not deliver ice-creams due

to container issues.

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However, the evidence of service for HungryNaki is seen from the physical aspects. For

example, the servicescape of HungryNaki is satisfactory because from the survey, 50%

customers rated the overall service as excellent. Their guarantee is to deliver in 60 minutes,

which is kept as 73% customers rated 1 and highly agreed that they received the food in time.

The technology and the website is also user friendly as the whole ordering process is completed

in 5 steps as stated in their website.

To state the overall perception of customers, 50% customers rated 5 out of 5 and 13% rated 3

because of slight dissatisfaction regarding delivery time and charge. HungryNaki needs to ensure

these 13% customers jump up to rate their service a 5.

7. LISTENING TO CONSUMERS THROUGH RESEARCH

To gather information for this report, a survey was carried out with 30 respondents. Each of them

was asked to fill-up the questionnaire attached in Appendix – D. Based on the survey, analyses

was done on several factors. Results have been summarized in diagrams at the end in

Appendices. However, findings of the analysis are as follows:

33% of the customer visited HungryNaki once. Basically online food service is a new

service in Bangladesh and people are less aware of it. 33% of the customer visited

HungryNaki service between 5-8 times which shows they are able to provide the service

according to customer expectations which delights customers and hence purchasing

increases. 7% of the customer took the service more than 8 times which shows that

successful promotional activities and communication have been done to reach customers.

73% of the customers took this type of food service for the first time which shows

HungryNaki’s extensive promotion, for example in billboards, have helped people to

know about their service. 27% of the customers experienced such food service before so

at this position it would be challenging for HungryNaki to give these group of customers

a better service than their competitors.

87% of the customers found the availability of HungryNaki in their areas, as more

locations are covered; more customers are able to experience their service. 13% of the

customer cannot access the HungryNaki service as they are not available in locations like

Old Dhaka.

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20% customers were attracted to HungryNaki for its name and reputation. This is because

HungryNaki makes commitment with customers that they will deliver in 60 minutes,

which they fulfill. So customers are satisfied which means that there are positive word-

of-mouth communications. This strengthens the company’s reputation and name.

90% customers said that the food quality was not different than that of in restaurants.

This means that HungryNaki succeeds to maintain hygiene with the help of its packaging

and food containers. Moreover, they use foiled containers in attempt to try to keep the

food warm. The remaining 10% customers have said that the food was a bit different

because the food was not warm when delivered. Also, as it takes 60 minute to deliver, the

taste of the food reduces to some extent. One customer has said that an order was made

during raining season so the food was found to be wet which ultimately changed the taste

of the food.

93% customers have said that there was nothing wrong with the service. This is because

HungryNaki maintains punctuality and fulfils the delivered promise. The rest 7% said

HungryNaki provided disappointing service at minor. One reason was delay in the

delivery time. The other reason was that the exact ordered food was not delivered,

although it was later found out that it was the restaurant’s fault, not HungryNaki’s.

43% people are satisfied due to HungryNaki’s customer care responsiveness because they

always confirm the order by calling their consumers. Also, they make follow up calls.

However, 7% people are dissatisfied because people do not like to talk so many times

about their food over the phone to their food providers.

47% people are highly satisfied by their customer care solutions because they are more

likely to change the whole delivery of foods for any complains over the phone. They

provide new food and compensation for their mistakes. 10% customers rated solutions

provided as average. This is because although the customer received the missed out order

at a later time, it was still not in the expected time.

Overall customer care service provided by the HungryNaki has got 47% highly satisfied

consumers because they are always giving extra care to customers by communicating

properly with customers. At least 2 calls are made after the food is delivered to take

feedbacks. However, 17% still think they are providing average service because these

services are not so much extra ordinary compared to competitor, like FoodPanda.com.

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50% consumers are highly satisfied with the delivery men behavior; because they call

customers before reaching their home and make sure that they are going to the right

address. They do not open the packages they are delivering before reaching and handle

the package with care. 10% customers rated this feature as average because sometimes

the delivery men failed to communicate properly with humble attitude.

30% are highly dissatisfied with service charge. They are only providing services in

certain areas and regardless of the distance from their office, they charge the same fee to

all orders. 17% are satisfied because they provide quality service at the end of the day.

50% customers are satisfied with the payment method because consumers get different

opportunities for their payments where others are only using cash on. 17% rated as

average because they take more than 5 minutes to confirm that the consumer’s payment is

successful and customers do not like to wait.

73% customers strongly agreed with the delivery time of the food. It means HungryNaki

is able to keep their promise.

40% of the people are satisfied as the food was warm. The number of highly satisfied and

average number is same (30%) because they use special containers in attempt to keep the

food warm.

43% people strongly agreed that ordering food online is easy as it is flexible for them to

choose their food. 20% rated average because of technical issues faced while placing

order.

100% customers strongly agreed that the ordered food was delivered. This means that

HungryNaki maintains commitment.

40% consumers stated HungryNaki needs to improve their service charge because

consumers do not want to pay 100 taka per delivery. Customers want variations in

payment policy because they want to pay fewer amounts when the quantity is less or

when the restaurant is near to residence. For example, a person who lives near KFC does

not like to pay 100 taka for delivering food from KFC.

30% consumers expect that they will get to order from other places rather than only from

their own area because people are ordering food online to get more choices and more

services by giving 100 taka per delivery.

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83% customers agreed to recommend HungryNaki to friends and family because they

believe that HungryNaki provides quality service. 16.67% people do not agree because

they think like Facebook, it will also stop people socializing as foods are ordered home.

50% people are still keeping their faith on HungryNaki because they are highly satisfied

with their online services as well as they are creating new opportunity for the

Bangladeshi people to get food from their residence. They are making life easier. 13 %

people have given average feedback because of service charges and delayed deliveries.

However, still nobody has given any negative feedback about HungryNaki’s services.

8. BUILDING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS

Customers’ satisfaction is the key to success in any business; it gradually increases customer

retention rate. In today’s business, it is not enough to just satisfy the customer, but it is also

important to build relationship with customer by delighting them through the services.

HungryNaki is an online food delivery service which not only focuses on delivering of the food

but also on building relationship with their customers by providing them with extra facilities.

Goals of Hungrynaki to build customer relationship:

Acquiring customer: to acquire customers, HungryNaki follows the following:

New Year SMS: they send New Year SMS to their existing customers and also potential

customers so that customers feel good about their service.

Sponsorship: they sponsor different events which are related with their target consumers.

In this process, they not only provide money to the organizer of that particular event but

also involve with the process of that event, so that they can identify their potential

customers and also promote their brand. For example: in BRAC University, they

sponsored Club Fair Spring 2014 and promoted their brand through burger competition

and distributed free delivery coupon to everyone so that people get idea about their brand

and subscribe to their service.

Others: they also promote their brand and create more customers for their brand through

billboards, social media and also feature in daily newspapers so that consumers get idea

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about them and get interested to purchase their product. Because they believe in

visibility, they want to promote their brand in a way that will keep them in a higher stand

than their competitors.

Satisfying customer: it is very important to satisfy the customers if any company wants to do

business. For customer satisfaction, HungryNaki pursues the following:

Loyalty Card: they are planning to bring up a Loyalty Card. This card can be redeemed.

The card will be known as HUNGRY CARD. People who order more will be able to earn

points and even if the customers do not have money, they can order via this card. It is

almost like a pre-paid card. This card will be effective from April 2014. Through this

they are offering membership to their customers. This will make customers feel special

and a part of the organization which will ultimately result in higher satisfaction.

Maintaining Customer Privacy: they maintain customer privacy which provides

confidence to the customers that it is a well maintained organization and that their

information will not be leaked. Not all employees in their office have access to customer

information. Only the people who handle orders can see customer information in their

system. So, it is creating satisfaction among the customers.

Retaining Customer: It is very difficult for a business to retain customers. To reduce the

switching effect of customers, HungryNaki provides customers with some special facilities:

Reward facilities: they give special off for their special customers, discounts on a high

amount of buy etc. For example they provide Eid gifts, birthday gifts and sorry flowers to

their relatives and near friends on behalf of their customers.

Providing replacement services: Replacement of foods on complains, re-delivering the

food, compensations are made. For example, if they fail to provide the exact order on

delivery, they provide customers with extra products as part of their compensation

planning. For example, if they fail to deliver burger on time, they provide extra French

fries to amend their mistakes and also to make consumers happy about their service.

Enhancing customers: The end result shows how strong the relationship is with customers. To

build a strong relationship, they upgrade the website in different ways. For instance, on weekly

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basis, HungryNaki upgrades their web page where they come up with the restaurants who are

giving discounts on purchasing their food.

Figure: Website upgrade with weekly discount offers

Customer preferences: On a weekly basis, a customer who has placed the highest

amount of orders receives a bouquet and a “Thank You” card. This helps HungryNaki to

enhance customer loyalty and close the gaps.

Special offer: HungryNaki offers free delivery service to all orders on days when

Bangladesh Cricket Team has a scheduled match in the T20 World Cup. This makes

customers happy.

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Customer’s benefits:

Social benefit: using website helps consumers to build a better social class in front of the

other non-users because they are pretty much close to technology and can order food

from anywhere just by clicking.

Confidence benefit: they are also likely to build some confidence among the other non-

users as they get special care from the restaurants and certain amount of price off while

others do not. Moreover, they have the confidence of getting the food anywhere they

want because they know that they will not make any mistakes and will provide the food

on time.

Special treatment: Getting special treatments, like getting a cup cake or certain amount

of price offs after ordering a large number of foods in a month can really make customers

feel very special in front of others.

9. SERVICE RECOVERY

HungryNaki follows several service recovery strategies for satisfying the dissatisfied customers.

They believe increasing responsiveness in service recovery will enhance customer loyalty.

To satisfy dissatisfied customers, they send different food for free and do follow-up

phone calls after 1 hour of delivery when food is received after 60 minutes as promised.

[The reason behind this perspective is to make sure that service does not fail second time.

Customers also feel that company is giving importance to them in terms of tailoring.]

Whenever customers are dissatisfied with the food itself, the food that is delivered is

exchanged with some new food. [If the customer finds out that the delivered food got

stale or due to inappropriate packaging the food got misplaced, then HungryNaki is the

one to take liability and they exchange the ordered food with new food.]

They send gifts to dis-satisfied customers. [In cases like delayed delivery, the customer

gets too angry as they wait for an hour for the food. The COO shared an incidence with

us that once two girls did not get the order in 60 minutes. The delivery man reached their

door after one hour twenty minutes. The customers were initially dissatisfied, but

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HungryNaki recovered the failure by delivering a bouquet of roses to the same customers

for free as a symbol of apology.

They give compensation or refund to customers. [HungryNaki believes that they are the

one to take the responsibility for any failure. A situation was such that a customer ordered

burger and coleslaw from a restaurant. The employee in the restaurant forgot to put the

coleslaw in the box and so HungryNaki delivered only the burger to the customer. When

the customer discovered there was no coleslaw, he complained to HungryNaki and they

contacted the owner of the restaurant. It was later found that it was the employee’s fault

who forgot to box the coleslaw. So that very night, Hungry Naki sent that customer a box

containing coleslaw and did not take any delivery charge. Also, the price for the coleslaw

was not taken.

For customers who are dissatisfied, they send personalized letters with explanation of

why the service failure took place and also sends cards. [HungryNaki believes that it is

their duty to provide adequate explanations to their customers. They provide with enough

reasons for a particular situation in which the service went wrong.]

10. SERVICE DEVELOPMENT AND DESIGN

Business Strategy Development: HungryNaki is a new company and have entered into new

market segment where this sort of business was not so popular among the Bangladeshi

consumers. The vision statement of Hungrynaki is to “deliver food to the Bangladeshi citizen in

Dhaka city”. Besides, the strategy taken by HungryNaki is to take the advantage of technology

and to help the consumers eat food or entertain guest by ordering food from their residence,

office or other place through HungryNaki website.

New service strategy development: The following are the ideas in sequence by which

HungryNaki has developed its business:

They will provide the service through website by which the consumers can connect with

them for ordering food from desired restaurants in Dhaka city.

The pricing of delivering the food will be very low. Moreover, the delivery charge will be

fixed and the quantity of the foods will not affect the service cost that they are providing.

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For example, if customers order worth Tk. 5000 and Tk. 500, delivery charges for both

deliveries will be Tk. 100.

They will target the niche market segments for their services. Basically they are targeting

online customers like Facebook users who are more likely to use the website for ordering

the food rather than going outside by themselves.

Following the lead climbing approach, HungryNaki started their business from a small

part of Gulshan to reduce the risk and also to minimize the cost and time of delivery and

to be safe in this new business. By using lead climbing approach, they would then expand

their business by providing services to different places if the demand gets higher in a

short time.

They will have two type of payment, one is cash on delivery and another is card/online

payment. Online payment will not be taken directly; it has to be either a bank or a third

party gateway. SSL Commerce serves as a gateway to online payment. HungryNaki is

not a financial organization, so customers will not pay them directly when paying online.

Online banks for international payments will be DBBL and BRAC Bank.

Idea development:

They provide 2 types of services: REGULAR HOME DELIVERY and CATERING

SERVICE. Regular delivery is prompt service (order and get delivery). Catering involves

pre-ordering for many people; for example, during small events and occasions.

They will provide service online and for their delivery they will use motorcycle or

minivan depending on the quantity of the orders.

They will manage to keep the price low by restricting the consumer to order food from

their zonal restaurants. For example, if the consumer is from Gulshan 1, then he or she

can only order food from the Gulshan 1 restaurants; they cannot order from restaurants

located in Dhanmondi.

They will deliver the food on time because they are only taking the order from a

particular zone so they can reach their client within their time limit of 60 minutes.

Their service is not 24/7 because restaurants are not open 24/7. Currently they do not

offer any service for breakfast delivery.

Concept development:

22

The reasons behind their concept development are as follows:

Try to make it convenient for people to get from home rather than waiting in the long

queue of restaurants. Moreover, due to traffic jams, it has become quite hazardous for the

people to move physically in Dhaka city. Therefore they are trying to save people from

wasting their times in the traffic jams after their long day at office or universities.

According to them, HungryNaki is unique because there are not much e-commerce

companies and food delivery service is even smaller. KhanaHero was a company that

started at the same time as HungryNaki but had to shut down after 3 months. However, a

new company named FoodPanda has started to operate along with HungryNaki at this

moment.

KhanaHero which had international touch had to collapse after operating for 3 months in

Bangladesh because they did not have the knowledge and the experience that is required

for operating in the Bangladeshi culture. Moreover, they only tried to provide service in

the conference centers and they failed to maintain the services they thought they could

provide to the Bangladeshi consumers. So HungryNaki adapted to the needs and wants of

customers within Dhaka city.

HungryNaki is a 100% Bangladeshi company. Everything in their company has been

done in-house, when other companies have always looked to take help from outside

professionals for developing their services. Besides, they work 7 days a week, the only

holiday they have is on Eid because people never stop eating. Above all, the prices are

affordable because they have foods of all price ranges and they are providing both online

and offline services to get the payments.

However, other companies like FooodPanda only use offline services as a mean of

payment.

HungryNaki has been operating for last 6 months in this sector and they are also the first movers

in this sector, so they could not provide us with any financial information as well as we could not

find any other good competitors where we can predict their financial data to produce the cost

benefit analysis.

Implementation, Test Marketing and Commercialization:

23

At first they develop the website and test it by providing services in a small are like

Banani and Gulshan.

After getting success, they expand their service by providing services in a small scale like

Bashundhara, Baridhara, Gulshan and Banani.

After getting positive feed backs and results, now they are operating commercially in 20

different areas in Dhaka city.

Post introduction evaluation has not been done yet because they are only operating for last 6

months. However, after providing services for 1 year they will also follow the same procedures

like others.

11. INTEGRATED SERVICE MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS

Integrating marketing communications always poses a great challenge for marketers of tangible

goods, so the challenge is multiplied when it is approached for service marketing. Service

marketers must ensure that their services - the offerings of which can be lost in words at times –

and the accompanying message is integrated in all forms of communications that is picked up by

the customers of the business be it advertising, personal selling, online interactions or promises

made by service providers. Since its inception 6 months ago, HungryNaki.com has been making

numerous efforts to enhance its outreach to customers in Dhaka and initiate communications

with them for marketing its services. The company has been using various approaches to that end

such as advertising in newspapers, promoting its services online in social networking sites and

also using personal selling to a certain extent to expand its customer base.

Since HungryNaki has only recently begun operations and is relatively small serving only the

Dhaka city customer base. As such, the firm is able to easily integrate its messages into

uniformity and communicate effectively its services to customers. The messages of the business

are communicated using the following channels:

Facebook – HungryNaki considers the social media site key to its communications with

customers as it is the most relevant to the service it is offering – HungryNaki is in itself

an online food delivery service. Facebook has been at the forefront of the company’s

efforts to generate an expanding customer base and is evidenced by the 100,000 likes on

24

the company’s page at the time of writing of this report. It is the primary and only

channel alongside the company website that updates customers on the dynamic service

and creates relationships with them.

Advertisements: The company has taken to mass advertising by putting up billboards in

prime locations of Dhaka city such as a large one at the Kakoli intersection of the Banani

area. It also has regular ads in top dailies such as The Daily Star and Prothom Alo,

usually getting space in the first 2 pages.

Figure: Current billboard ad at the Kakoli intersection of the Banani area.

Awareness: HungryNaki has been trying to create awareness of its services by running

articles of its operations in youth themed magazines and food related sections of

newspapers. It also performs promotional activities such as participating in occasions and

sponsoring events.

Personal selling: Employees of HungryNaki try to sell their company’s service offerings

to people they know, people they come across and influential people in different social

circles. They are aware of the fact that convincing a single customer can have a chain

effect leading to more customers adopting the company’s services.

25

HungryNaki has a great task of integrating all of the above approaches of communicating with

customers so that the service messages reaching customers from the varied sources are all

uniform and does not lead to any miscommunication. HungryNaki’s service offerings are more

dynamic than many other service companies due to the fact that food is something for which

tastes change regularly and the company has to continually offer new food variations as well as

price variations to match customers’ needs and occasions. For example, the company Facebook

page may announce that during the final game of the T20 tournament, HungryNaki will offer

50% discount on all its deliveries. This update has to be integrated with the website in the form

of a visible announcement or at least the payment option must reflect the update, or else

customers will experience a large gap in service quality. Until now, the company has been able

to maintain the online integration smoothly.

All of HungryNaki’s communications have one thing in common: they invoke the claim that

customers will be able to get food at their convenience ensuring food and service quality to the

best of their capability at the same time. They make promises but avoid overpromising

customers. Their services are not covering all of Dhaka as of yet and they admit to that fact on

their Facebook page ensuring customers that physical expansion is coming soon but also mention

that customers may have to wait a while. They are also cautious in all their communication

channels such as phone calls and employee interactions to mention that their responsibility is

delivery and food quality variations result from the side of the restaurants and not the company

itself.

As mentioned earlier, HungryNaki is a very dynamic service offering and as such its offerings

are modified on a regular basis. Every employee of the company has to be aware of every change

as soon as it takes place so that the company message communicated is consistent across the

board and customers are touched with an integrated marketing approach. The customer care

officer has to know of the 15% discount that will be offered this coming Friday so that when

customers call inquiring about it, the officer can give a prompt response. If the message was not

integrated and the employee was unaware of the offer, he/she would have to ask the customer to

wait while consulting the supervisor, creating an impression of an underdeveloped service or

even business. On the other hand, the IT officer has to be informed at the same time so that the

website and Facebook page can be updated simultaneously. According to COO Mr. Tausif

26

Ahmad, the level of effective integrated service marketing communications has been achieved at

HungryNaki due to them having a flat organization and an informal work setting so that

everyone is talking to everyone else openly regarding work. Due to the compact size of the

organization, it is also possible for them to have group announcements of changes in service and

it is actually ensured that such a short session takes place every time there is a change in service

provision, which usually occurs every once or twice a week.

Communication within the company is made easy because all departments work simultaneously.

The customer service team takes orders. The IT team develops the website and the whole system.

On the other hand, the marketing team works in close contact with the customer service team so

that customer expectations can be well learned. The business development team (also called the

sales team) brings in contract with restaurants. It has also been learnt that the accounts team

works in contact with the customer service team and the business development team so that all

transactions are recorded properly and appropriate financial analyses are made.

12. WAY FORWARD FOR THE COMPANY IN DELIVERING BEST QUALITY OF

SERVICES

27

The following table shows comparisons between HungryNaki and its immediate competitor,

FoodPanda. There are aspects in which HungryNaki lacks behind and they should focus on

improving in those aspects:

FoodPanda HungryNaki Comparison

1) Delivers in 65

minutes.

Hungrynaki

delivers in 60

minutes.

Hungry Naki

Foodpanda

2) Both iOS and

android app

available.

Only android app

available.

Foodpanda

Hungry Naki

3) Payment method is

only cash on

delivery

Payment is through

MasterCard, visa,

American Express,

bKash & cash on

delivery.

Hungry Naki

Foodpanda

4) Delivery charge is

FREE.

Delivery charge is

100 taka per

delivery.

Foodpanda

Hungry Naki

5) Operates from

11am to 11 pm

Operates from

11am to 10 pm

Foodpanda

HungryNaki

One of the first recommendations we can make for HungryNaki.com is that they need to

widen the area of service provision within Dhaka City such as Motijheel and the rest of

the city. This was agreed upon by our interviewee as well. It is important because there

are numerous looking to avail this service for some time now and if they cannot receive

it, they will certainly turn to competitors, leading to a loss of a large chunk of potential

customers.

The service as of yet only operates up until 10 PM. This service duration needs to be

increased up to midnight due to the fact that Bangladeshis these days are of the habit of

28

having their dinner late into the night, especially on weekends and this service

modification will delight existing customers and draw in more new ones.

We would also like to recommend them to increase advertisements on TV and radio since

this is where they will receive a lot of exposure to customers from various walks of life.

Advertisements at partner restaurants must also be initiated so that customers can recall

later when ordering that their favorite restaurant is enlisted with the service. This could

be in the form of stand banners or door stickers saying “HungryNaki Food Partner”.

HungryNaki has a disclaimer mentioning that food quality is the responsibility of the

restaurant that prepared it and the service is not liable for problems in food preparation

even though they do attempt service recovery in these cases. The company should

announce this message more visibly so that customers are aware of this fact and are less

likely to express disappointment in the service delivery due to understanding of the

situation.

A tracking system of the service’s current status, if implemented, would make life easier

for both the customer and the service provider, since both are equally aware of the current

service states. Such a system in place would create a lot of efficiency for employees since

they will have to answer fewer calls answering basic inquiries.

The employees need to be trained to be able to make decisions on their own since the

current employees still consult their supervisor regarding basic matters. This leads to a lot

of time lost and the employees never become self-dependent or adaptable. Unified

weekly meetings are also critical in keeping every employee in touch with the

performance of the company and the upcoming changes.

HungryNaki can come up with an iOS app because their competitor, FoodPanda has both

iOS and Android apps. Also, they could reduce or omit the delivery charge because from

the survey, customer dissatisfaction was the most with the delivery charge.

As Bangladesh is a country of culture and religion, they should start offering delivery

services on times like Ramadan. This will help them boost up because Muslim customers

might want some good food delivery during Sehri and Iftar. Also, they should focus on

other religions. For example, during a puja, they could give offers like “Order thrice and

get a free box of special sweets”.

29

13. CONCLUSION

HungryNaki.com may not be the first service of its kind in the Bangladeshi service market

scenario, but it certainly looks like it is doing things right, succeeding where others have failed or

are struggling. The magic behind its success story is one simple ingredient – customer defined

customer service. Throughout our conversations with the company’s COO as well as hearing of

customer experiences right from the customers themselves, we got to discover that the company

understands that customer is king.

Since it is a relatively new service in Bangladesh with very few competitors, it has been crafting

a realistic approach to developing customer expectations and then focusing all its efforts on

delivering close to those expectations, so that at a minimum customer satisfaction is achieved

and by means of up close and personal customer interactions, has had good rates of customer

delight outcomes.

The HungryNaki business model can be a potential example of best practices for other services,

especially in terms of its customer relationship and recovery practices. From our research into

the company policies regarding approaching customer needs as well as responding to service

failures, we’ve discovered that the company takes each one of its customer’s needs seriously

down to the personal level, catering to them individually at times if there is a risk that the

customer may go unsatisfied by means of rewarding them for their dissatisfaction. If this practice

continues even as the company grows, it can thrive and prosper in this expanding market.

HungryNaki has shown promise in its endeavors thus far but it is still in its early days, having

been in the arena for only 6 months and it has to go long way and at the same time ensure

sustainability of operations in varying times of economic and political spheres. The

recommendations we’ve provided in this report were in response to the business shortcomings

cited by the company COO as well as our experiences with the service and also customer

revelations. If the company can bank on its best practices and at the same time work out the bugs

that may manifest into bigger troubles over time, then the business will prevail and prove to be a

mainstay and even the biggest player in the industry alongside other service giants within

Bangladesh.

30

14. APPENDIX – A: Service Design: How consumers order online

Open the web page (Avg. time: 5 seconds)

Logging in and placing order (Avg. time: 4 mins)

31

No

Yes

No

Yes

15. APPENDIX – B: How the company processes the order

Payment in card (Avg.

Time: 2 mins)

Choose Cash on delivery (Avg. 30 sec.)

Call from manager & Email to confirm the order (Avg. 10 min)

Deliver (Avg. 42 min)

(Get the order)

Calling the consumers for reconfirmation (Avg. 2 min)

End

Food is satisfactory (Avg 1 min)

Collecting feedback (Avg. 1min)

Getting the order (Avg 1 min)

32

No

Yes

16. APPENDIX – C: Bar Diagrams and Pie Charts

Manually check the list (Avg. 3 min)

Give call to customer to confirm (Avg 1 min)

Place order in restaurant (Avg. 3 min)

Ready to give food (Avg 20

min)

Appoint deliveryman to deliver (Avg. 1 min)

Confirm the food is ready (Avg 1 min)

Deliveryman delivers the food (Avg. 30 min)

System Update the order has been delivered (Avg. 2 min)

End

Feedback from customers (Avg 1min)

Customer relationship

team

Delivery man

Customer manager

Customer manager

33

20%

20%

10%7%

10%

17%

17%

Features of HungryNaki that attracted customers

Name

Reputation

OverallService

Website

CustomerService

FastResponse

Time

Yes No0%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

87%

13%

Is the delivery service available in your area?

Yes No0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

10%

90%

Was the food quality different than that of in the restaurants?

34

Yes No0%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

7%

93%

Was there anything wrong with the service?

83%

17%

Will you recommend HungryNaki to friends and family?

YesNo

50%

37%

13%

Overall service satisfaction

ExcellentGoodAveragePoorVery Poor

35

1 2 3 4

Customer Care Re-sponsiveness

NaN 0.0666666666666667

0.2 0.4 0.333333333333333

Solution provided by the customer care

NaN NaN 0.1 0.433333333333333

0.466666666666668

Overall service pro-vided by the cus-tomer care

NaN NaN 0.166666666666667

0.366666666666668

0.466666666666668

Level of satisfaction for customer care

(Scale: 1 = highly dissatisfied, 5 = highly satisfied)

1 2 3

Behaviour of the delivery man

NaN NaN 0.1 0.4 0.5

Rate of service charge

NaN 0.333333333333333

0.266666666666667

0.166666666666667

0.233333333333334

Payment method NaN NaN 0.166666666666667

0.333333333333333

0.5

Level of satisfaction regarding delivery

(Scale: 1 = highly dissatisfied, 5 = highly satisfied)

36

1 2

The food was delivered within the ex-pected time

0.733333333333334

0.266666666666667

NaN NaN NaN

The food was still warm 0.3 0.4 0.3 NaN NaN

It was easy to place order 0.433333333333333

0.366666666666668

0.2 NaN NaN

The food that was ordered were actu-ally delivered

1 NaN NaN NaN NaN

Response % to the following statement

(Scale: 1 = Strongly Agree, 5 = Strongly Disagree)

37

17. APPENDIX – D: Questionnaire for customers

This questionnaire has been prepared by a group of students from BRAC University to survey on

the service of HungryNaki.com, a food delivery company. Please complete the survey. It will not

take more than 5 minutes. Thank you for the time and assistance.

1. Are you a food enthusiast? Yes / No

2. Do you prefer dining at a restaurant or having the same food at home?

____________________________________

3. How many times have you used the service of HungryNaki?

a) Once

b) 2-4 times

c) 5-8 times

d) More than 8 times

4. Have you used any other food delivery service? If yes, please mention which one.

_____________________________________

5. Is the delivery service available in your area? Yes / No

6. What feature of HungryNaki attracted you to use it?

_____________________________________

7. Was the food quality different than that of in the restaurants? Yes / No

8. Was there anything wrong with the service? If yes, please mention what went wrong.

_____________________________________

9. Did you report it to their customer care service? Yes / No

10. Please rate the following which are related to customer care in terms of satisfaction:

Highly

Dissatisfied

1 2 3 4

Highly

Satisfied

5

1. Customer care responsiveness

2. Solution provided by the

customer care

3. Overall service provided by

the customer care

38

11. Please rate the following in terms of satisfaction which is related to delivery of the food.

Highly

Dissatisfied

1 2 3 4

Highly

Satisfied

5

1. Behavior of the delivery man

2. Rate of service charge

3. Payment method

12. Please state your level of agreement with the following statements:

Strngly

Agree

1 2 3 4

Strongly

Disagree

5

1. The food was delivered within

the expected time

2. The food was still warm

3. It was easy to place order

4. The food that was ordered was

actually delivered

13. Please tick which factor(s) of the service provided by HungryNaki needs improvement?

a) Time management

b) Lesser service charge

c) Keeping the food warm

d) Delivery location range

e) Payment method

14. Will you recommend your friends or family to avail the service of HungryNaki? Yes / No

15. Please tick on the following attributes to rate the overall service provided by HungryNaki

starting from placing the order till delivery:

39

Excellent Good Average Poor Very poor