Executive summary The key intent of undertaking this assignment
was to explore the quality of service dispensed at Les Enfants
Dabord kindergarten in the Mauritian pre-primary schooling context.
Our main motive was to investigate about drivers affecting customer
and consumer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Moreover, in
relation with our findings we had to chart out a scheme for the
kindergarten to create and sustain customer loyalty. Subsequently,
we have used data gathering techniques such as on-site observation,
personal interviews and questionnaires.
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Literature review Background The word kindergarten is German
word which literally means Childrens Garden. It is a form of
education for young children which serves as a transition from home
to the commencement of more formal schooling. Children are taught
to develop basic skills through creative play and social
interaction. Friedrich Frbel, German pedagogue, opened the first
kindergarten on 28th June 1840. In Mauritius, pre-primary schools
operate under the banner of Pre-School Act of 1997. Company profile
Les Enfants Dabord (LED) kindergarten first opened its door in
Rose-Belle on the 13th August 2007. The director, Mrs. Bibi
Shaheranah Oozeerally is the sole qualified personnel at LED with
23 years of experience in other pre-primary schools. It is actually
operating at maximum capacity with 25 children.
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Research and methodology Objectives of research Pre-purchase
study:
What are the factors considered by parents when choosing a
pre-primary school?
Post-purchase study:
To know the drivers of satisfaction and dissatisfaction in the
context of LEDResearch design For the sake of the study, the most
appropriate strategy was exploratory and descriptive. The
exploratory phase of the research took the form of face-to-face
interviews with different stakeholders, related in a way or not to
our research, namely: Les Enfants Dabord Step Ahead Infant school
Le Nid Nursery & Pre-Primary school
Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development Mrs.
Kistama: Head of EarlyChildhood Development Primary Teachers
Provident Fund - Mr. Deenoo, officer in charge Ministry of Health
and Quality of Life Anonymous officer Sebastien Coiffure In
addition to this, an observation technique was used at LED and Step
Ahead to analyze the service delivery process and to gain an
insight on the quality of service.1 Furthermore, a descriptive
study in the form of a survey was carried out in 2 phases among
firstly parents whose child has already left LED and secondly
potential customers of a kindergarten. Fieldwork and data
collection
Questionnaire designA questionnaire was used both for the
pre-purchase and post-purchase analysis as it is the most cost
effective and because of its high degree of precision. Both
questionnaires were designed in a semistructured way, with a mix of
open-ended questions and multiple choice questions. A SERVQUAL
scale was included in the post-purchase research in order for the
customers to evaluate LEDs service quality.1
Refer to appendix for details
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The reason behind the insertion of open-ended questions is that
it leaves the respondent free to provide any reply that seems
appropriate in the light of the question and at the same time it
reduces the element of bias.
Mode of administrationThe pre-purchase questionnaire was
administered through personal interview. This decision was taken
because it would give the interviewer a certain form of control on
the respondent and the latter could also ask foe clarification if
necessary. Concerning the post-purchase research, candidates were
reached through telephone and a series of questions were addressed
to them.
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Introduction Service definition A contemporary definition
provided by Kotler, Armstrong, Saunders and Wong (1999):A service
is any activity or benefit that one party can offer to another
which is essentially intangible and does not result in the
ownership of anything. Its production may or may not be tied to a
physical product. By nature, services are variable from children to
children, intangible in terms of knowledge and creativity,
perishable for example regarding the excitement about picnics,
inseparable in the case of the children, who once having learnt the
alphabets, will not separate themselves from the knowledge and
nonownership in the sense that the children cannot own the teaching
of the teacher. Kindergarten
Tangibles Dominant
Intangibles Dominant
Figure 1: The goods & services continuum Adapted from:-
Adrian Palmer
Drivers of satisfaction
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1.0 Factors that influence customer expectation of services The
Factors that influence customer expectation of services (Figure 2)
if known by the service provider, may give a clearer pathway to
achieve the objective of delighting the customers. Hence the
diagram below illustrates this application at LED. Diagram -
Factors that influence customer expectation of services (Refer Page
99 Principles of Services Marketing Fig. 4.6) 2.0 Service Encounter
In the kindergarten environment, the service encounters occur when
the customer interacts with the services employees, other
customers, the physical surroundings and technology equipment.
These take place at LED at different steps: firstly when the child
enters the yard of the school, then on getting inside the building,
interacting with other pupils and teachers, playing around and
observing all physical attributes of the building. As such, the
nursery is a high-contact service industry. 3.0 Flow charting Given
that it serves as a clarifier of how customer is involved in
service encounters, is a proactive approach which gives the latter
a clear image of how he/she is to be drawn in the service; thereby
preventing any scope of dissatisfaction through confusion.
4.0 Role In service encounter, employees and customers each have
roles to play. Satisfaction, dissatisfaction or delight will all
depend on role congruence.
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In our context, the actors are the director, the employees, the
parents and children. LEDs director says that she performs all the
roles of the world; that is, that of a friend, parent or even
enemy. For example, when she states that quand lenfant quitte la
maison le amtin, cest toujours un dchirement et le role dune maman
quand lenfant rentre est de le cajoler et lui inspirer la
confiance. As for the children, they are the ultimate consumers of
this service and according to the director, these children are
simply blank papers upon which she has to imprint knowledge and
creativity. The role of parents is to support them all through the
process by participating in the activities organised by the school.
5.0 Script The use of scripts for role performance has been
pedagogically researched and proven by experts and are therefore
presumed to be beneficial both for children and staff. At LED,
scripts as such are most informal by nature. But in this
profession, the actors often encounter moments whereby they have to
improvise. An example of script is the morning welcome of the
children by Mrs. Oozeerally who greets the child at the door saying
Bonjour. a va mon bb?, Allez, accroche tu viens to ask the child to
keep his/her bag at a particular place. A case of improvisation is
when a child refuses to drink milk during the milk-time and the
governess has to think of ideas to persuade him/her to drink it.
6.0 Word of Mouth According to Mrs. Oozeerally, most of the
children who are enrolled at her school come mainly via
recommendation. She also cites the example of a boy whose cousin
was at the kindergarten and now all other children in the family
are following the trend. This is solely due to recommendation she
declares. Core, supplementary & augmented
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Dimensions of the service environment Servicescape The service
environment is composed of three dimensions namely ambient, special
layout and functionality and sign, symbols and artifacts. In terms
of ambient condition music and color are majorly used at LED. For
instance low decibel music lullabies and vivacious, lively colors
are used. Concerning special layout child friendly furniture are
compulsory according to the Ministry of Health and Safety.
Furniture should not have sharp edges and toxic components.
Children, being blank papers as Mrs. Oozeerally said, will use
sign, symbol and artifacts in terms of Mauritian flag, National
Anthem and photos of distinguishing events to facilitate their
learning experience. Empowerment Out of the three keys of Blanchard
et al. (1996) model, only one of them is considered at LED, that of
sharing information with everyone, i.e. LEDs director shares
information concerning what revolves around his service to her two
trainees, for example showing how to cuddle a child or how to make
the child memorize something. Service quality and customer
satisfaction
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In terms of functional quality, LED has been able to
differentiate itself out of the crowd and according to Mrs.
Oozeerally, the success of her kindergarten lies in the way she
delivers her service and also a major fraction of all the children
come on word-of-mouth. She holds the following qualifications:
MIE2 & MCA3 - certificate in proficiency in early childhood
education Preschool Trust Fund course St. John Ambulance course
(First-Aid) Leadership Certificate (SOS Poverty)Hence she follows
the Scandinavians school of thought which requires an integrated
approach based on building customer relationships (Gronroos, 1989)
Service recovery When a particular parent is aggrieved and
management is to be blamed, Mrs. Oozeerally personally deals with
the problem with immediate individual attention. However if
management is not to be blamed, Mrs. Oozeerally still takes actions
by providing counseling to parents and reassuring them as their
children are their most precious asset. Price After analysis, it is
noted that the price at LED of Rs 400 per month is reasonable for
the service provided. Further when a particular child is one year
to pass to primary school, a subsidy of Rs 200 is granted by the
Government
2
MIE: Mauritius Institute of Education MCA: Mauritius college of
the Air
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Drivers of dissatisfaction 1. Failure points in service
delivery
F1: This is a failure point because it has been remarked through
observation that children are reluctant to leave their parents and
enter the kindergartens compound. This can cause problem by
consuming the precious time of both the parents and the personnel.
In addition, a crying child can spoil the atmosphere and incite
other classmates to cry also. F2: The second failure occurs within
the gap when the child goes to leave his/her bag and comes to play
in the main room. A child may stay in the lunch room itself to
avoid playing if the latter has had a fight with someone at home or
school. F3: The third failure point refers to as and when the
director fails to prepare watercolour when the child wants to paint
and the two trainees are late. This extract occurs in the morning
and normally when the director is busy welcoming all children; so
she may fail to attend the child who wants to paint.
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2. FlowchartingSometime when the flowcharting changes it causes
dissatisfaction to customers who are mostly resistant to change.
Example Mrs. Oozeerallyhahrana Ozeerally, director of LED
mentioned, some parent expected the admission day way formalities
like paper work and thats it. However this system evolved with
formalities added to a parent-teacher one hour meeting. This acted
as a turn off for the parents.
3. RoleIf one party does not follow its particular role, the
satisfaction will not be achieved. For instance the director made
it clear that even parents have roles in the education of the
children with a proper follow up at home. She further said if
parents do not fulfill their role, the expected level of
satisfaction will not be met.
4. ScriptScripts are not always appropriate because each child
has a particular personality and must be dealt with accordingly.
Further, as time goes by, the childrens behaviours and ways of
thinking changes and the old script simply becomes ineffective. One
quoted example is the case of Somayyah, a mischievous girl, who
refuses to clean up after using water color was given wax crayons
instead.
5. Service productAny incoherence between marketing asset and
operating asset will be having definite adverse outcomes on the
service delivery process.
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It is seen that there is incoherence between the marketing and
operating assets of LED. For instance the school promises
development of the child while the very vector of child development
is open space. LED has six rooms without any playground and all is
done within the confines of the building with hardly any outdoor
games. The director has a wide international network of contacts
from where she draws updates regarding pedagogical ways of
teaching. For example, her contacts at Duke University (America)
advised LED to use bright and appealing flash cards to enhance
learning. Conversely, LED does not have the resources required to
acquire these cards. Hence, this association is not optimized upon.
Another facet is that Mrs. Oozeerally is the only experienced
qualified person and the trainees are still on learning process at
the MIE. Thus, all these affect service delivery and consequently
satisfaction.
6. Flower modelThe problem with the facilitating and enhancing
elements is that they erode with time. The particular enhancing
element is adopted by competitors and every customer expects this
element. So it loses its differentiating potential. Dental check up
was an enhancing element three years ago when LED opened its doors
while today many kindergartens has these check-ups; hence, it
eroded from enhancing to facilitating and may well become a core in
the future.
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7. ServicescapeIt is found that there is a kitchen at LED,
however firstly there is no particular scent that allows the child
to determine it is a kitchen since there is no cooking in it.
Concerning signs and symbols, LED is equipped with the basics that
an average pre-primary school would provide like a national
pole-flag, human anatomy charts amongst others.
8. Service qualityIt has been noted through observation and
research that even though LED is good at functional qualities, it
is poor in technical elements. For example the decoration could
have been better; an open playing field must be built amongst
others.
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The Gaps Model of SQE x p e c t a t io n s P e r c e p t io n
s
Customer
S e r v ic e D e l iv e r y
Gap 4
E x t e r n a l C o m m u n ic a t i o n
1 p a G
S e r v ic e S t a n d a r d s
2 p a G
3 p a G
M a n a g e m e n t P e r c e p t io n s
Company
9. Service guaranteeThere is no proper service guarantee at LED
except trust that parents can have in LED as the director said.
However, trust is very subjective and fragile. This cannot be a
base for service guarantee.
10. PriceThe price LED charges is relatively low as compared to
others. This can be a problem in the sense that people associate
high-price to high-quality and consequently LED can be perceived as
a low-quality service provider.
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How to get loyal customers? 1. People LED does not have any
qualified full-time employees except Mrs. Oozeerally. She should as
such hire the right people, empower and motivate them. As she said,
the right person is someone who practices good emotion management,
is non-violent, caring and above all patient. On-the-job training
will be required both for the director to assess the potential
employee and for the trainee to get into the skin of Mrs.
Oozeerally. Once the trainee acquires the appropriate skills; this
will enhance customer satisfaction, consolidating word of mouth
thus generating customer loyalty. 2. Interactive marketing A closer
relationship exists when there is face-to-face interaction between
customers and service providers according to C. Lovelock. Although
the service itself remains important, value is added by people and
social processes. The actual process for obtaining feedback is on
an individual basis when parents come to fetch or drop their
children. This process should be formalized by carrying out
parentteachers meeting once in a month where there will be more
interactions between parents and parents and parents and teachers
as well. Parents discussing amongst themselves can provide better
suggestions and constructive criticisms. 3. Database marketing The
childrens health and medical peculiarities can be monitored through
check-ups and recorded in a database starting with the carnet de
sant provided by the parents on admission day. Hence to ensure
customer loyalty, the service provider should ascertain that the
customer climbs up this ladder:
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Other recommendations
1. As per the Ministry of Health and Quality of Life, the norms
for the pre schools in receipt of the per capitagrant report, the
ratio between teachers and children should be 1 adult per 20 pupils
of 3-4 years. LED is clearly violating this statement because Mrs.
Oozeerally alone is managing 25 pupils of both below and above 3
years. Hence, we would advise that either she takes only children
of above 4 years or appoint additional staff. To support this
recommendation 56.25% customer themselves, in the post-purchase
survey, said that the staff is too limited.
2. According to the report there should be prior preparation of
materials and space for daily activities.However, Mrs. Oozeerally
prepares the materials simultaneously when children are entering
the class. The solution is to empower the trainees, outsource or
extend hours of work so that when the children leave, she can
prepare for the next day.
3. Law recommends that 25 pupils should be having 10 puzzles
assorted, 5 sets of constructions blocks and10 sets of educational
teaching aids. At LED, it is observed that these equipments do
exist but not in the required amount. In fact 31.25% customers
suggested that there should be more equipment. The director can
lobby the sponsor Red Cow for more equipment or increase the price
as past customers (75%) view the price they pay relatively low
compared to the service received.
4. Given that if among the main actors, i.e. the parents,
teachers and children, one does not perform his/herrole, objectives
of - at least making the child ready to meet society - may not be
achieved. So proper lines of communication must be established by
the director to sensitize parents regarding the significance of
their cooperation.
5. 31.25% of customers believe that the compound of LED is very
limited. But it was observed that a widearea of unoccupied and is
just next to the kindergarten. Mrs. Oozeerally is already renting
the kindergarten building and can make a better deal to rent that
plot of land to provide for more space. 6. LED is very poor on the
marketing base. For instance the brochure is rather dull and not
appealing. A better one with flashy colors and enhanced photos can
be put on the brochures. 7. LED can approach Le Clinique Lorette
situated at Curepipe to request for medical coverage of its
students in case of emergencies. On one hand, LED will be effective
in handling seriously injured/sick children and on the other hand
it will enhance the corporate image of the clinic since it will be
doing CSR.
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8. As children are very energetic in nature, physical education
can be implemented in the curriculum, takingStep Ahead as a
model.
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Conclusion Our analysis of pre- purchasing and post-purchasing
stimuli pertaining to the current situation of Les Enfants Dabord
has brought us to the fact that it is performing well as an average
economical kindergarten. However, to ensure a brighter future and
make the most of growth opportunities available, the school must
consider to giving a face-lift to its service system and if
possible implement the abovementioned recommendations. LED would
then be in a better position of serving its niche of middle-class
customers in an enhanced way.
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