In the last blog, it had been discussed how the ironing shop may be losing out on cashing in on consumer surplus. In this post, we discuss the reverse scenario, where we find how a dry-cleaning store handles its operations to churn out extra moolah based on situational factors and the dynamic willingness-to-pay of its customers.
The dry-cleaning shop in question located in my hometown is named “Delight”, but as was quite evident from my experience with them this time, they do not consider customer delight as the necessary paradigm to strive for. Instead, their mechanism of working is to generate the maximum possible contribution without causing perceptible inconvenience to the customers either service-wise or in monetary terms.
As in all other vacations, there are always some clothes which I take home for dry-cleaning, and it was no different this time round. The change was that unlike other times, I had delayed visiting the shop to drop off these items. As a result, when I finally went to the dry-cleaners, there were only 4 days left before my return to XLRI.
Since it was necessary that I get my clothes returned before leaving Kolkata, I asked the person at the counter whether I would be guaranteed return of my clothes within the next 3 days. When I told him that I had a train to catch, it was evident to him that the situation for me was pretty important, and this is when he started pitching to me how normally they return the clothes in 3 days time, but due to the rains it sometimes gets delayed.
At this point, he suggested that if I go in for “Urgent” wash, I would definitely get my clothes back in that period, at an extra cost of 8/- per piece, which is about 50% over and above the actual cost of dry-cleaning. While I could clearly see that he was playing with my situation, I did not consider it worthwhile to take the risk of going in with the normal procedure. After all, in case my clothes were not delivered in time, I would have to spend much more in procuring a new pair of jeans.
The fact remains that if it is possible for the shop to provide delivery with guarantee within 3 days for urgent washes, they could have easily gone the extra mile and got it done for me at the normal cost, had simply delighting the customer been their prerogative. However, the business is run in a slightly different way I realized, and the categories of “urgent” and “semi-urgent” have been kept with an eye for situations very much like this.
EXPECTATIONS PRIOR TO SERVICE ENCOUNTER:
From my past experiences, I had always received timely delivery from this shop. However, never before had the situation been so tightly linked to my departure date as this time. I was therefore a little worried about the assurance of delivery, which gave the service person a hint as to me being a probable customer for the “urgent” category.
SERVICE CLASSIFICATION
1) The service in terms of the dry-cleaning was tangible, and was consistent with earlier experiences. However, with the added constraint of deadline, the intangible service experience was slightly different.
2) This is another case of possession processing, since anybody else could have taken the clothes to the shop on my behalf.
OUTCOME: While initially I was a bit dissatisfied at being pushed to avail a costlier service, when the package was finally delivered on time, some of the erstwhile dissatisfaction abated to a large extent.
INTERACTION: While the interaction with the service person at the counter was trying to push his cause, it has to be noted that he was always extremely cautious in ensuring that he did not overstep the line – forever making it appear that the final decision would be mine (the customer’s), without leaving any alternatives in reality than to take up the offer.
SERVICE RATING
a) Reliability: 4
b) Assurance: 3
c) Tangibles: 4
d) Empathy: 2
e) Responsiveness: 4
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