Service Excellence at Vapiano

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Advanced Marketing

Individual Assginment – Service Excellence

Vapiano’s Service Excellence in Germany

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2016/ 2017: Semester 1

Magdalena Sophia Hass

Student ID: 27425

Student Nr. 3589

Content

1. Vapiano – a service offering company?                                                         1

2. Vapiano’s service excellence                                                                 2

        2.1 The Offering                                                                         2

        2.2 The Funding Mechanism                                                         3

        2.3 The Employee Management System                                                 4

        2.4 The Customer Management System                                                 6

3. Conclusion                                                                                         7

4. List of References                                                                                 9

5. Appendix                                                                                         9

1. Vapiano – a service offering company?

Vapiano is a German fast food chain founded in 2002. The restaurants offer Italian style food. Launched the first restaurant in Hamburg, their food-concept is offered by now in 150 restaurants in 30 countries around the world, that are all located in city centres of bigger cities with strong visibility at frequently visited locations.^[1] [2] Since 2004 is the restaurant chain a franchise system. Vapiano’s concept is to offer their guests a relaxed space to sit down and “share one important quality: the love of enjoying life and sharing spontaneous and genuine companionship.”^[3] This is where also their company name has its origin in. The Italian proverb: “Chi va piano, va sano e va lontano” - If you have an easy-going and relaxed approach to life, you’ll live more healthily and longer. From that follows that the restaurant chain has a young urban working audience, who love to enjoy life, as their target group. In order to serve their needs, they have adapted their restaurant concept, which will be described in the next section.

Referring to the definition of Lovelock & Wirtz, services are defined as economic activities by one party to another.^[4] Service customers expect in exchange for their money, time or efforts to obtain access to goods, labor, facilities, environments or professional skills, and usually do not take ownership of any physical elements involved.^[5] In the case of the restaurant chain Vapiano, it is obvious that they are a pure service offering company. Meaning, their customers expect in exchange for their money to obtain, on the one hand food and labor for the preparation dishes, and on the other hand to use the facilities offered by all Vapiano restaurants (e.g. furniture, plates and cutlery, restrooms, etc.).

2. Vapiano’s Service Excellence

The following part will analyse how the restaurant chain aims for service excellence on the German market. According to Frei service excellence can be based on four critical elements: The Offering, the Funding Mechanism, the Employee Management System and the Customer Management System.^[6] This approach makes it possible to decide if Vapiano’s service business is a profitable business and whether it manages the trade-off between those four elements right or wrong and therefore succeeds or not.

2.1 The Offering

The fast-food chain offers their guests more than only ‘fast food’. An innovative ordering combined with a nice atmosphere puts the restaurants in between fast food and a cafeteria. There are different stations where one can order pizza, pasta, salad or dessert.^[7] Appendix 1 shows these food-ordering stations. The customised orders a directly placed with the chef, who can be observed while preparing the meal. Vapiano position itself, although being a fast food chain, for quality seeking customers. This comes not only from the food and ingredient’s quality, but also from the restaurants appearance in design and furniture. Pasta, pizza, sauces and desserts are handmade in-house daily and the used ingredients are very fresh.^[8] Nevertheless, Vapiano is a fast food restaurant and thus cannot compete with traditional Italian cuisine – this is why their quality of food must be classified as medium quality. Meaning they compromise in lower quality, in order to serve the food fast. The restaurant design is everything but comparable to classical self-service fast food chains and offers a modern and feel-good atmosphere. Olive trees, high-quality materials like wood or leather define the light and bright space.^[9] At Vapiano seats cannot be reserved in advance and a flexible payment method is offered. Thus they aim for a faster process. Customers are issued chip cards at the entrance. At each Vapiano there are as many chip cards as seats they have, which prevents overcrowded restaurants. Customers have to scan the chip card at each station, where they order something, and before leaving the restaurant the sum of the ordered food is to be paid at the register. Another, relatively new offering they have, is the Vapiano People loyalty programme. A mobile application offers the customers a bonus scheme. Appendix 2 shows the trade-off of Vapiano’s attributes they target for excellence and the attributes they compromise.