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ITC563 Case Study Analysis & Evaluation Assignment

Introduction

This report will be based on a case study which determines about hairdressing chain. This study is based on Cut Short Salon which implements some new feature in their salon. According to the study, these features increase profitability. It addresses some recommendation which improves these new features and increases the rate of customer. It will address the new point which needs to be focused by the organisation and enhances the brand’s image of the organisation at the international level as well. Suggestion describes those concepts which need to be developed in the habit of the salon. Development and improvement are required for every organisation to grow in the same industry. This report will say that the salon needs to implement technology and the new technique which is useful for increases its brand image of a specific. Image is not enough. The salon must prove that its management and service is an exact what they promote in the market. Sponsorship will also help them to grow.

Question 1

In the field of salon service, the Cut Short started its works in the hair cutting and styling service. This organisation provides its hair styling services to its customer who would be booking its appointment from the online services. In this field, there are various organisations which provide efficient service to its customer. According to the report, the customer gets the advantage of service from the Cut Short. They save up to 15 minutes of each customer by providing the new advanced feature in its services. The recent adoption of new facility saves lots of time for each customer who visits the salon. When a customer visits the salon, the choosing styling takes time from the available services and the payment methods also took more time. These processes are very time consuming for every customer (Catherine, 2016). Cut Short implement some features which increase the profitability and minimize the time consuming by the customer. The implementation is as follows:

  1. a) Pre-booking appointment through online service (website) of the organisation –customer can select the service like restyle, blow wave, trim etc. with date and time.
  2. b) When customer completed appointment or pre-booking- the payment also is made online from the credit card or PayPal.
  3. c) Cut short encourages its customer for pre-booking, online payment by offering a 10% discount.

d)If the customer does not reach on their appointment time, they will be penalised from extra charge.

These features add by the Cut Short Salon which increases its profitability and optimizes the time resource in an efficient manner. The customer appreciated these feature because it reduces the complexity of booking, minimises the time for payment queue and significant use is to save the time for choosing a hair styling method (Dean, 2012).

Recommendations for the Cut Short Salon are:

Brand Awareness

It is a significant factor for any organisation that increases the profitability of the business. Cut Short Salon needs to increase its brand awareness in the local public. It increases by the rate of customer who visits the salon and at least tries once that particular service. The techniques required for brand awareness are brand ambassador, advertisement in print media by offering unique features or discount offers from another salon. Hire a celebrity who promotes the specific brand and performs advertisement on social media and television. 

Nowadays, social media is one of the best platforms for the promotion. If a celebrity promotes a specific organization or some brand, people automatically attract by and try at least once. The process of brand awareness requires lots of time, and more effort but organisation surely achieves the particular objects of the organization. Salon draws the attraction by providing unique hair styling features in fewer amounts, by providing combo offers or the special day in which they must offer a 50% discount to the customer (Engineering Business Journal, 2015).

According to the case study that Cut Short Salon provides pre-booking service on its website. If a celebrity shares the particular link of their website by which customer can easily access and take advantage of its service. Customer take services and they impressed from the salon service. It has the vast possibility that customer will become a regular customer. These strategies will be helpful to attract the customer.

Pamphlet will be distributed with the newspaper in the local areas. Fashion magazines include some part of the salon which says about newly updated services of the Cut Short Salon. There are some other alternatives which enhance brand awareness among people, i.e. Salon must collaborate with the modelling association, film industry. These associations are a very significant resource for brand awareness, and it is the primary tools which increase the growth of Salon. If the quality of work is more appropriate according to the expectation, respective Salon grows its brand in international based (Lewis, 2012).

Salon’s Administration 

As per the case study, salon improves various features and updated its service according to the demand of time, but Salon needs to be organized its administration as per its services. The customer expects to prefer those salons which give respect and treat well in the accordance of behaviour, attitude and the preference in the service. When customers visit the salon, first visit reception window and book its seat or inform about its pre-booking service about its respective function. It is the duty of receptionist that they respectfully welcome the customer and listen carefully about the service customer. If there is a massive queue maintain or manage accordingly that every customer will be satisfied with their preference level (Pocol, 2012).

After that, the customer will be seated for offering their services. Space must be hygienic, the use of the product should be high quality or original, the use of clothes or towel should be clean, the administration should take care of unwanted noise etc. These features will provide an initial level of relaxation and satisfaction to the customer.

Further, all these services, customer move towards the payment gateway if they already paid by online means that they avoid this step. Those customers who not paid online that give pay by cash, PayPal, credit card, debit card etc.

Employees of the respective salon must keep their attitude low in front of the customer and listen to the issues of the customer and gives them to the service according to their expectation (Soltani, 2016).

Innovation (Mobile Application)

This era belongs to the technology means, Cut Short Salon developed its website and offered the various feature on it. But it requires one further step towards technology. This Salon needs to improve its mobile application which enhances the level of participation towards the salon. Mobile Application is easy too, and notification will recommend the customer for special service.

The salon must be updated according to the hair styling options with the product because now people like to use the branded product. It increases the image in front of the customer that respective salon use branded product which surely brings improvement on their scalp of hair (Tsai,J.et.al., 2012).

In traditional time people goes only on some special event or in monthly but now the time will change the mind of people. Mobile Application notifies about the unique offer and the reviews of customers as well.

In home page- Screen will be divided in some section like hair. Special part has subparts and like hail colouring, hair styling, hair cutting, hair straightening etc.

These sections will tell about the service and customer can access the information regarding particular service. This subpart information contains the product used for the service, specialist name, charges and charge will pay at the time of pre-booking. This method is taking less time and customer will get a notification if their pre-booking will be confirmed. Cut Short Salon get more benefit if they get the offer of home service because it will be charged more according to the service at the salon. 

This service will be available when the salon develops its mobile application and enhance technology. Pre-booking of service will be cancelled or postponed. This facility should be available at that app. If somebody cancelled its appointment, the amount would be deduced so that unwanted customer will not increase the traffic at the server (Wei, 2016).

This service shows that how many salons involved in the technology world and its make reliable towards the function of the salon. It will enhance the level of contribution from the sponsor products.

Beauty product and hair styling product companies are collaborating with those salons that make good its image in between the market.

Question 2

The unique suggestion which helps to improves the business service or operation offerings are as follows:

Use reliable products

The salon must focus on its regular contacts like they should always trust on reliable and original. The reliable hair product may be expensive, but the salon includes its habit that they never compromise with the product quality if the constraint is price, time or store. Cut Short Salon must highlight those things which might be attracted to the number of customers. The highlighted factor may be a reliable product and trustworthy. If salon undergoes in the sponsorship, they must be used by them only after appreciating by staff or salon individual. After this, the salon used or apply customer. Mostly, salon used various which give more fund for their sponsorship. If Cut Short Salon wants to grow at the international level, its essential requirement is to sponsor a global beauty product. Now a day people like to prefer international product because it believes that international product is more reliable due to its brand awareness among people. It enhances the rate of performance and customer rate. Salon proves that these products require the best service due to the human effort as well because every product demands specific effort and style. It will be determined when the salon staffs give their best and push their effort according to the demand for a particular product. Customer is curious about international services like hair spa, hair straightening etc. The salon should take a step towards that which maximizes the profitability and increase images in the market (Lewis, 2012).

Implementation of new service

New service will increase the excitement in the existing customer, and it attracts a new customer. The salon should be updated with the service which is recently implemented in the local market or international market. This strategy will complete the demand of customer and fulfils their expectation. People get aware about new service from social media, movies and serials. After watching videos and read about them customers want to implement on them also. But they want to give this chance to the experience personality or the reliable salon which can them easily trust and accept the new implementation. For example, a hair spa treatment is only for models or actress because of little bit expensive, and it requires good quality of the product. So just actors and models use this treatment, but nowadays it is entirely reasonable because salon uses technologies and gives hair spa according to the nature of hair and scalp. These strategies made profitable, so that salon starts implementation according to the market demand. Customer appreciates this theory and contributes their best favour. So, Cut Short Salon moves on this direction and offer new service to its customer. By this, salon increases its brand image because when it is ready to implement, they should advertisement in social media and give offers to the customer in their first service. It increases profitability, and it provides unique space in the same platform (Wei, 2016).

Conclusion

This report concludes the recommendation and suggestion of hairdressing chain. It was based on the case study in which a Cut Short Salon add some new exciting features which increase their profitability like pre-booking services, online payment through website reduce the wastage of time. It is the strategy which efficiently optimises the resource. Recommendation proves that salon needs to improve its existing service in a particular way and suggestion offers those strategies which enhance the rate of profitability with the traffic of new customer. This study concludes that salon is also a profitability sector because it increases or grows according to the time.

References

Catherine,B.,(2016).Redundant technology in the salon. Professional Beauty,pp. 118-119

Dean,D,H., (2012). Gender ethnic identity and patronage likelihood for a unisex hair salon.Young Consumers. Vol.13(2).pp. 124-135

Engineering Business Journal., (2015). Salon Allure Trade Show Evolves To Become “Hammock” With New Categories, Technology And Design. Engineering Business Journal.

Lewis, J. (2012). Festive party season the ideal time to promote your salon. Hairdressers Journal International.p. 5.

Pocol, A. G. (2012). Modern tools for sales promotion–online promotions (Report). The Proceedings of the International Conference, Marketing – from Information to Decision. Issue 5.p.380(16).

Soltani, Z. &Navimipour, N. J. (2016). Customer relationship management mechanisms: A systematic review of the state of the art literature and recommendations for future research. Computers in Human Behavior. Vol.61. pp.667-688

Tsai,J.et.al., (2012). The Effective and Quality Approach to Reduce the Turnover Rate for Hair Salon Industry.International Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development.Vol. 4(4). Pp. 44-57.

Wei, J. T. Lee, M. C. &Chen, H. K. Wu, H. H. (2016). Customer relationship management in the hairdressing industry: An application of data mining techniques. Expert Systems With Applications. Vol. 40(18). Pp.7513-7518.