Influences Of Quality And Customer Service On Marketing Mix Decisions For Harridge Events Essay.

Assess the influences of quality and customer service on marketing mix decisions and formulate quality standards and customer service strategies for marketing operations.

Harridge Events is an event management company serving their clients expectations from 35 years. It was established in 1983 under the Harridge Groups which also consists of three business units including Harridge Business Travel and Harridge Luxury. The main focus of the company is always on the quality aspects and so they always provide personalised service to each project raised by clients. Each project of the company is value for money and challenged to provide more creativity within the client budget. The company also provides various levels of assistance for the events like marketing and promotion, designing and branding, travel accommodations and gifting.

The target market consists of the corporate clients, individuals and families with different requirements like creative and professionals meetings, conferences and exhibitions, weddings, Christmas parties and honeymoons. The company can launch respective events both in the UK and international countries. The expectations will also differ in each case of service. For example, in professional meetings, the client will expect a peaceful boardroom where all clients can relay their messages effectively and the venue should be spacious with lots of light (Henderson, 2011). The expectations of their clients also lie in the competencies and capabilities of the business like professionalism (working according to the contract and client satisfaction), innovation (to serve the customer in an innovative way by optimum utilization of the resources) and pricing of the service (effective packages for the non-corporate clients). 

It is a promise of the value and benefit to be delivered to the customer or client from the purchase of any respective product or service. A significant goal of value proposition is also to convince the customer or client that he or she will get more benefits than he is being asked to pay for (Barnes, Blake & Howard, 2017).
A strong value proposition builds trust in the client and customers and enables them to set the deals with full confidence. Harridge Events provides unique value propositions with high quality service and this makes the customer feel delighted. The company also plan in advance for each benefit and features lies in the value proposition needed to be delivered to the customer.

• Unique and creative ideas– The Company always stands on unique and creative ideas so that to satisfy clients taste. Every event of the Harridge is unique in terms of design, ambience and services.
• Location – Harridge Events provides international services in the events planning which leads to differentiation from the other event management company. The company do provide service in London and in international world as per the clients’ requirements. The event is also differentiated in terms of a local place like an event in golf resort or airport hotels.
• Service – This includes the supportive services to the event like better phone support, airport transfers and free drinks (Gil-Gómez, Oltra-Badenes & Adarme-Jaimes, 2014). Harridge Events also provides various supportive services in their events like marketing and promotion, designing and branding, travel accommodations and gifting. This generates a more positive value proposition.
• Price Differentiation– Generally, the requirement of every client are different and sometimes is does not mean that the company need to race to the bottom as sometimes it may require that you need to be 100% more expensive so that you can provide 500% superior service with unique and exclusive content. That is why the first priority of Harridge Events is to target luxury market.

The planning in this aspect of the value proposition is done by professionals managers and designers who make focus on every single activity of the event management (Ashton & Morton, 2005). These plans include getting of supplier database, venue database, resource manuals and client database (Emery, 2010). 

Service Encounter and Strategy Formulation

Harridge Events take care of every single element of any professional project given by the clients. They also promise to their clients that they will get an unforgettable experience after the accomplishment of the agreement. For each of their services, they provide a different option as standards so that the client can be guaranteed for a better event.

The company promise to deliver 200+ delegates for the full settlement of the event so that the client can be stress free from the activities of the events.

Christmas Packages– Harridge Christmas packages are designed with busy professionals in mind (Berkshire, 2017). The client imagination can be feed effectively and efficiently irrespective of their requirements.

The effective strategy to capture value includes a planned process, which starts with the setting of dates, as Christmas is a busy period.

Next step will be the budget allocation to every element of the group and some amount of money also need to be kept aside so as to backup unexpected costs.

Establishing the type of business party as it is also related to the budget planning. It needs to decide that the event is a daytime or evening event and bespoke or packaged Christmas party.

In this step, there is a need to identify suitable venues within the budgets. In addition, the theme of the event also needed to be integrated with every element of the venue.

For capturing positive value, other planning includes filling of bellies (food), music entertainment, transport facilities organization and guest invite checklist.

Therefore, every activity will be put together a full itinerary and the event management need to be done.

Creative and Professional Meetings– Harridge Events have a long time experience in organising simple corporate meetings of all kinds of businesses. It does not create any differentiation for the company as for whether the content or element of the meeting aimed at clients, team members or any potential investors, their professional event management team are expertise in handling all types of possible events effectively (Louhiala-Salminen & Kankaanranta, 2011).  

The effective strategy to capture value includes a planned process, which starts with the setting up of location by choosing beautiful space with a lot of lights.

The quality of food needs to be kept well and an unexpected speaker also needs to be introduced. 

The company also needs to offer branded pens and stationary rather those of the items provided in the venue itself.

Creative and Professional Meetings

There is a service of unlimited coffee to the guests and the management of the event company also gather the prior information about the dietaries of guests in advance so that the option of last minute gluten free option will not come.

Considering extra benefits, the company may offer unexpected ordered wine with lunch rather than the beverages provided in the packages of delegates (Nelson, Slavit, Perkins & Hathorn, 2008).

Worldwide Incentive Travel and Teambuilding Specialist– Harridge Events make promises to their clients about the fully planned event. They provide many supportive services to the event under the required budget of their clients.

The effective strategy to capture value includes a planned process, which starts with analysing the innovative ways to make the event more fun and worthwhile.

It also includes booking of all travel and transfers associated with the event.

Organization of daytime and evening activities related to the event and also books all accommodations.

Searching for the right suppliers to make your trip once in a lifetime.

Finding local guides in the chosen city or destination and also provide an on-site event consultant so that to oversee every special aspect of the event.

For capturing value with the help of future clients, the company can make full report and review of the success of the event so that next year of the company will be even more popular.

Stress-free conferences and exhibitions– Harridge Events make promises to their clients about the fully planned event. They provide many supportive services to the event under the required budget of their clients.

The effective strategy to capture value includes a planned process, which starts with analysing the innovative ways to make the event more fun and worthwhile.

It also includes booking of all travel and transfers associated with the event.

Organization of daytime and evening activities related to the event and also books all accommodations.

Searching for the right suppliers to make your trip once in a lifetime.

Finding local guides in the chosen city or destination and also provide an on-site event consultant so that to oversee every special aspect of the event. 

For capturing value with the help of future clients, the company can make full report and review of the success of the event so that next year of the company will be even more popular and successful (Siu, N., Wan, P. & Dong, 2012).

Full Weddings Packages– In Harridge events, weddings are always a joyous and memorable occasion and each couple has their own unique story to tell. The wedding planner at Harridge events has a collection of experienced team and they work with budgets from £40,000 to make the weeding unique and imaginative.

For capturing a positive value, they are specialised in on-site event management with Mood boards and concept generation.

They are also experienced in finding various services related to the venue or supplier.

As a part of their service, they can give their clients undivided attention to building relationships as this helps in understanding their exact requirements (Daniels, Lee & Cohen, 2012).

For this purpose, they provide face to face consultation which can go through all the ideas of the client.

Conclusion

It has been evident from all the factual presentation of this report that Harridge events are a committed and developing organization for defining a positive value proposition in the business operations.

The visionaries of the company are much acknowledgeable about the organization that it will provide better services to their customers and also establish an effective network of event management business in the international market. 

References 

Ashton, C., & Morton, L. (2005). Managing talent for competitive advantage: Taking a systemic approach to talent management. Strategic HR review, 4(5), 28-31.

Barnes, C., Blake, H. & Howard, T. (2017). Selling Your Value Proposition: How to Transform Your Business into a Selling Organization. United States: Kogan Page.

Berkshire. (2017). Shared Christmas Parties 2017. Retrieved from https://www.harridgeevents.com/shared-christmas-parties-2017.

Daniels, M. J., Lee, S., & Cohen, T. (2012). The attributes influencing wedding reception venue selection. Event Management, 16(3), 245-258.

Emery, P. (2010). Past, present, future major sport event management practice: The practitioner perspective. Sport management review, 13(2), 158-170.

Gil-Gómez, H., Oltra-Badenes, R., & Adarme-Jaimes, W. (2014). Service quality management based on the application of the ITIL standard. Dyna, 81(186), 51-56.

Henderson, S. (2011). The development of competitive advantage through sustainable event management. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, 3(3), 245-257.

Louhiala-Salminen, L., & Kankaanranta, A. (2011). Professional communication in a global business context: The notion of global communicative competence. IEEE Transactions on professional communication, 54(3), 244-262.

Nelson, T. H., Slavit, D., Perkins, M., & Hathorn, T. (2008). A culture of collaborative inquiry: Learning to develop and support professional learning communities. Teachers College Record, 110(6), 1269-1303.

Siu, N. Y. M., Wan, P. Y. K., & Dong, P. (2012). The impact of the servicescape on the desire to stay in convention and exhibition centers: The case of Macao. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 31(1), 236-246.