Service and Relationship Marketing Front Stage Operations

Question: Describe about the Service and Relationship Marketing of Front Stage Operations. Answer: About the National Australia Bank The National Australia Bank is providing its services from more than 150 years. The bank at this date provides its services to more than 10 million customers in countries including Australia, New Zealand and others around the world. (Annual Financial Report 2015, 2015). Flowchart Front stage operations involve attending the client activities of the business. Front stage operations include marketing, sales and service product delivery. Back stage operations are responsible for all the support and administrative processes. These processes support front stage operations. This aspect of the business remains hidden and unknown to the client (Glushko, 2008). Backstage The back stage operations are also known as core operations. The back office operations ensure that all the deals are settled on a timely basis and without any mistakes. The office also has the responsibility to monitor the cash settlement and security delivery and resolving any NOSTRO differences and fails. The department also oversees if all kind of cash movements are properly funded. The instructions are processed in time to ensure that cash and securities move in time to meet the agreed value date. The back office operations also have the duty to process any kind of compensation, interest claims and charges. It is in the back office of the bank that securities are placed for delivering stock (Chase, B., Hayes, H., 1991). The back stage aspect of the company comprise of function of administration. The functions of the back office are settlement of the trade, clearing of payment, keeping and maintaining of records for future references, complying with rules and regulations and als o maintaining the accounts of the company. The back office also looks after IT services of the company. Back office can be understood as a part of the organization that operates functions related to business. It is important that back office operations are done smoothly because it is where the responsibility of the management lies. This department is not responsible for generating the revenue for the organization (Safizadeh, H., Field', M., Ritzman, P., 2003). The front office has two main functions. One is sales and the second way is trade support. The sales people receive orders of the client. The main focus of the bank is to build client relationship and proactively encouraging the client to trade. The responsibilities of front office includes opening the bank account and guiding the client about the banking operations. It is also responsible for smooth processing and flow of information from front to back systems. The front office makes sure of reconciliation and escalation of issues in a timely manner. The front stage acts as a liaison with settlement areas, other middle office areas, traders and sales people, brokerage control and counterparties. The major responsibility of the front office is to ensure that various businesses requirements are met(Zomerdijk J, 2007) . The front office comprises of employees who monitor sales and financing functions. This department is known for generating the revenue for the entire organization. The functions of the front office departments are sales, mergers and acquisitions, trading and it also plays as an advisory to the big corporations. The front office deals directly with the customers and does not participate in the other functions of the organization. It is also the hardest area of a bank as they have very important functions and activities to carry out that is to run a bank (Miozzo, M., L, 2001). Significance of Service Encounter The service encounter is frequently viewed from the point of view of a customer. Service encounter is defined as that time period during which customer comes face to face with a service. Service encounter is a situation when the customer finally realizes a service. If one has to build good customer relations then the organization would have to create trust among the consumers. The trust is created by dialogues, gestures or conversations. Trust is the result of gradual process of exchange between the service provider and the customer. It is very important that at the time of service encounter, the customer should have full satisfaction with respect to the service (Bitner, 1990). There are limited numbers of opportunities in banks to impress a customer and the opportunities become less as the banking system has grown more automated. A good service encounter helps in building customer loyalty. The customer loyalty is very important because good customer loyalty would help in development of business. Service Encounter also helps in building customer relationships (Wang Hsu, 2012). A positive service encounter is a key to success for the company. A good encounter builds high customer loyalty and this motivates companies to be more customers oriented. Service encounters are the first exchanges between the customer and a company that gives the customer to judge service quality of the business. In the banking sector, customer satisfaction is the most important performance sign. The degree of customer satisfaction indicates towards customer loyalty. Customer satisfaction leads to relative attitude and repurchase of the goods (Kieu, T., Shirahada, K.). Analysis of Managerial Implications The National Australia Bank is a very reputed bank. The top management of the company is highly qualified and had proved to be effective for the business. There are investment managers, cash managers in the organization. These managers of the bank are highly competent. The managers are ideal for managing the investment cash flow of the customers. The bank has adopted various service marketing strategies. The national Australia bank is one of the first banks to introduce digital experience for its customers. As the use of smart phones continues to grow, NAB continued to expand its digital channels and made the experience of banking more personalized. The bank decided to build and deliver the digital strategy in such a way that it becomes more integrated and diversify the customer experiences. As the world of internet is growing and people prefer to do most of their jobs from the click of a mouse, the bank also made the operations of banking easier through net banking. Previously, the changes used to take a certain period of time but now the overhauls are solved within a period of six months. The bank is successful to leverage capabilities in Adobe Experience Manager. The content creation group now drives more changes as compared to previous situations. NAB is also using Amazon Web Services and Akami to further start content delivery. The result of this step is that the response time of the bank has been increased to almost 100% and NAB has effectively created and delivered impactful content. The team has focused in promoting more than 100 products and services on the website of the company. The bank is also able to integrate the digital channels of the already acquired brands. Previously, the banks acquired digital properties that had to be left independent due to unavailability of IT resources and time. But now, because of more streamlined and updated technology of updating the websites, NAB is able to promote cross selling opportunities and establish new brand s that increased website traffic and sales. The national bank has not only established its presence on laptops and net banking, but it has also introduced itself in mobile banking. NAB manager are now currently striving to further leverage the segment and behavior so that they can offer more personalized digital experience (National Australia Bank engages customers worldwide across devices, 2016) References Bibliography Annual Financial Report 2015. (2015). The Annual Financial Report 2015. National Australia Bank. Bitner, M. J. (1990). Evaluatong Service Encounters: The Effects of Physical Surroundings and Employee Responses. journal of marketing , 54 (1), 69-80. Chase, B., R., Hayes, H., R. (1991). Beefing up operations in service firms. Sloan Management Review , 33, 15. Glushko, R. J. (2008). Bridging the "Front Stage" and "Back Stage" in Service System Design. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley. Kieu, T., N. C., Shirahada, K. (n.d.). Service Encounter Satisfaction in the Retail Banking Service Sector: A Case Study of Vietnam Market. Miozzo, M., L, S. (2001). Internationalization of services: a technological perspective. Technological Forecasting and Social Change , 67 (2), 159-185. National Australia Bank engages customers worldwide across devices. (2016). www.adobe.com. Retrieved August 24, 2016, from www.adobe.com: https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/customer-success/pdfs/national-australia-bank-case-study.pdf Safizadeh, H., M., Field', M., J., Ritzman, P., L. (2003). An empirical analysis of financial services processes with a front-office or back-office orientation. Journal of Operations Management , 21 (5), 557-576. Wang, C.-H., Hsu, L.-C. (2012). How do Service Encounters Impact on Relationship Benefits. International Business Research , 5 (1). Zomerdijk, J, L. G. (2007). Structuring front office and back office work in service delivery systems: an empirical study of three design decisions. International Journal of Operations Production Management , 27 (1), 108-131.