1. Introduction

1.1 Origin of the report:

This course is designed to give the business students an understanding of various aspects that differentiates services marketing from traditional form of marketing goods. The term project is assigned to the students to teach them how to focus on customers and how customers get satisfied with service offerings.

To complete the report we were given a real life situation of CASCL organization, which is engaged in the service of guiding the students who wants to go abroad, mainly Australia to study.  We have to apply the tool of service marketing for analyzing the contents.

1.2 Purposes of the report:

1. To learn the practical use of service marketing.
2. Building the marketing strategies for the company
3. Finding out the physical evidences of services
4. How a good quality service can be designed and delivered.
5. Redesigning the core and secondary services
6. Recommendations from our point of view based on the problems

1.3 Source of information:

The report is originated from both primary and secondary data source.

Primary data source:

Face to face conversations with counselors and employees of CASCL and four other organizations who are engaged in the same service.

Secondary data source:

• Company’s brochure
• Company Websites

1.4 Scope and Limitation:

The scope is limited to the gaps about customer expectation, perception, company perception, their service delivery, their service design, their external communication, etc.

• There was difficulty of gathering information from different organizations.
• Although talking to the counselors and personnel of different organization was helpful, still we could not cover in depth analysis on the above mentioned topic.
• Getting relevant papers, documents, information were quite difficult.
• Restriction on time and resources of data.

2. Center for Advance Studies & Counseling Limited (cascl)

2.1 Organization Overview:

CASCL was established in 2000 with the premise to facilitate students from Bangladesh who are interested to study in Australia. With this vision, CASCL embarked on this ambitious plan and established a network of offices throughout Bangladesh, which is managed by highly trained and professional individuals. Today, CASCL is the leading educational consultancy firm in Bangladesh, representing prestigious Australian Universities and Institutes. Based on extensive experience in student counseling, CASCL enjoy an excellent success rate. Increase in this number over the years is evidence to CASCL’s high performance and quality services.

2.2 Organization vision:

To be recognized as the most reliable and responsive customer oriented firm in Bangladesh that assures substantial counseling service to all clients.

2.3 Organization mission:

CASCL wants to be the most successful customer oriented firm in the ” Student Counseling ” industry in Bangladesh. CASCL intend to provide superior, responsive, efficient and ideal career counseling service in every market segment in which they compete with an affordable charge.

2.4 Organization Goals:

      To train and motivate the internal customers efficiently so that they can deliver best services to the clients.

2.5 CASCL Success Story

CASCL attributes its success story to the people who availed CASCL’s services and the ever-growing customer base largely because of the referrals and strict adherence to ethical practices. To compliment the confidence shown by students and their parents, CASCL has developed a one-stop shop concept by providing counseling, admissions, visa advice with pre and post departure arrangements all under one roof along with IELTS preparation at CELFE (a sister concern of CASCL) in Banani. It provides step-by-steps guidance to students seeking admission in Australia.

2.6 Guide to Study in Australia

At present hundreds of students sent through CASCL are studying in various Australian Universities, which is both a sources of pride and inspiration for the organization. CASCL’s total commitment to its students can be guided from the fact that every year one of the CASCL’s people visits Australia and individually meet students to have first hand knowledge of their well-being.

2.7 What Makes CASCL an Attractive Partner?

      A trusted name in the Student Counseling service in Bangladesh.

      One-stop service provider for students who wants to go to Australia for Higher-studies

      Best logistics provider for International Universities in Bangladesh

      Large customer data base

      Unique, customer-oriented and value added services for clients

      Renowned in Bangladesh for promoting prestigious educational Institutions & Universities of Australia.

CASCL believes that the company’s future lies on the quality, reliability and dependability of services. This organization is aimed to earn the loyalty and recommendations of all their customers.

2.8 Study opportunities through CASCL:

CASCL places students in such universities and institutions where:

      Education standards rank amongst the highest in the world.

      Qualifications are widely recognized.

      Multiple institutions offering a wide variety of courses with flexible delivery methods.

      Government legislation and codes of conduct operate to regulate the industry and protect students.

      Educational facilities and teaching resource are of high quality.

      Competitive tuition fees and the low cost of living combine to represent good value for money.

      Students can get attractive lifestyle, favorable climate, and safe and politically stable environment, exotic landmarks and wildlife, friendly people.

      Overseas students are welcome in multicultural society.

      Network of support exist to help students in all aspects of their stay.

      There are opportunities to travel and / or work while studying.

2.9 Quality Objective of CASCL

CASCL believes in five steps to enhance the service quality, namely:

      Reliability: Establishment and maintenance of credibility.

      Responsiveness: Timely and effective respond to customers.

      Assurance: Assuring customers of the best service.

      Empathy: Offering customers undivided attention.

      Tangibles: Providing customers with all kinds of facilities required.

2.10 Services Offered by CASCL:

Through the countrywide branch offices, which are fully equipped with latest technology and foreign qualified staff, offers broad range of services under one roof including:

      Advice for the selection of best possible University /TAFE Institute.

      Advice for the selection of appropriate course as per student’s interest and qualifications.

      Admission in University /TAFE Institute.

      Complete guidance for the preparation if visa documents according to existing requirements of Australian High Commission.

      Facilitate visa approval.

      Pre and post departure arrangements

      Arranging accommodation

      Annual visit to Australia to meet Bangladeshi students, in order to resolve their issues /problems while in Australia.

CASCL established this firm having real insight of the student issues and provide first hand information to them.

CASCL represents only, state owned Australian Universities and TAFE Institutes and provides first hand information to prospective students about student life and education system in Australia.

2.11 List of universities /Institute represented by CASCL

      The University of Sydney – Website: www.usyd.edu.au

      University of Western Sydney (UWS) – Website: www.uws.edu.au

      Sydney West International College (SWIC) – Website: www.swic.usw.edu.au

      Victoria University of Technology (VU) – Website: www.vu.edu.au

      Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE (NMIT) – Website: www.nmit.vic.edu.au

      Latrobe University – Website: www.latrobe.edu.au

      University of Southern Queensland (USQ) – Website: www.usq.edu.au

      University of Wollongong – Website: www.uow.edu

      Study Group Australia – Website: www.go-study.com

      Canterbury Business College – Website: www.canterburybc.com.au

2.12 Strategic Alliance:

CASCL Bangladesh recently joined hands with Falcon Education and Consultancy Services, one of the leading education consultants and regional representatives for several British universities in the South Asia region. The strategic alliance with Falcon Education and Consultancy Services brings with it a wide range of choice of Irish and British universities to Bangladeshi students seeking higher education in UK.

2.12.1 Falcon Education and Consultancy Services:

Falcon Education and Consultancy Services was established in 1993. It represents a number of well reputed institutions in UK, USA, Ireland and Canada. Falcon has placed more than 2,700 students since its inception throughout the world not only from Pakistan but also from UAE, Bangladesh and Iran. Falcon has a team of fully trained, professional and friendly staff at all its offices ready to provide any information regarding study opportunities abroad.

2.12.1.1 Mission of Falcon Education and Consultancy Services:

a) To help and assist students in finding their goals through study opportunities around the globe.

b) To promote education institutions through cost effective marketing plans.

2.12.1.2 Performance of Falcon Education and Consultancy Services:

An overview of students sent country wise during the year 2003-2004.

Country wise students’ statistics for year 2003-2004

2.12.1.3 Student related services of Falcon Education and Consultancy Services:

      One to one career counseling, choosing & selecting courses & universities.

      Analyzing & sorting out application requirements for admission processing.

      Assisting & resolving credit transfers or exemptions.

      Student Visa Guidance and assisting in visa applications.

      Student accommodation.

      Pre-departure orientation.

2.12.1.4 Institution related services of Falcon Education and Consultancy Services:

      Market intelligence reports.

      Assisting in developing viable and practical marketing policies.

      Advising international offices on advertising budgets.

      Arranging recruitment and promotional trips.

      Arranging and booking educational fairs.

      Optimizing student targets.

      Feed back to institutions from parents and students.

      Arranging affiliations and collaborations with local institutions

2.12.1.5 What Makes Falcon Different?

      We are the only company in Pakistan offering a full range of free services to students.

      We have the largest and most reputable universities from UK.

      We have the highest visa success rate for our students for UK, USA and Ireland.

      Our staff is trained by institutions and the British Council.

      We are the only Pakistani company which has overseas offices.

      Our CEO and Senior Managers regularly visit our client universities to update themselves with latest developments.

Logo of Falcon Education and Consultancy Services

2.13 Partners of CASCL:

–     Falcon Education Services – Website: www.falconedu.com

–     Auspak international – Website: www.auspak.edu.com

2.14 The Clients of CASCL:

1. The University of Sydney – www.usyd.edu.au
2. Victoria university of Technology (VU) – www.vu.edu.au
3. Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE (NMIT) – www.nmit.vic.edu.au
4. University of Southern Queensland – www.usq.edu.au
5. University of Wollongong – www.uow.edu.au
6. Study Group Australia – www.go-study.com
7. Canterbury Business College – www.canterburybc.com.au

3. Services and their Marketing

Before discussing the project let us have a clear idea about what services actually are.

Services are deeds, processes and performances. Modern definitions of services focuses on the fact that  a service in it produces no tangible out put, although it may be influential in producing some tangible output. A contemporary definition is provided by Kotler and Armstrong (1991):

“A service is an activity or benefit that one party can offer to another that is essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything. Its production may or may not be tied to a physical product.” 

The give a definition of what constitutes a service is a bit difficult. Because it is quite difficult to distinguish services from goods, for when a good is purchased there is usually an element of service included. Similarly, a service is frequently augmented by a tangible product attached to the service.

In between there is a wide range of outputs that are a combination of tangible good and intangible services, which are called augmented products. This is why all productive activities should be placed on a scale somewhere between being a pure service (no tangible output) and a pure good (no intangible service added to the tangible good.) In practice, most products fall between the two extremes by being a combination of goods and services.

3.1 Service Marketing

Services marketing are different from product marketing. In the dynamic environment of services today creates an emergence on effective marketing. Among the keys to competing effectively in this new and challenging environment are skills in marketing strategy and their implementation.

Marketing can be described in several ways. It can be seen as a strategic thrust pursued by top management, as a set of functional activities performed by line managers (such as product policy, pricing, delivery, and communications), or as a customer driven orientation for the entire organization. Employees must be customer service oriented as well as concerned about efficiency. The service product must be tailored to customer needs, priced realistically, distributed through convenient channels, and actively promoted to customers. Today, many new market entrants are positioning their services to appeal to specific market segments through their pricing, communication efforts, and service delivery.

4. Features of services

Pure services have a number of distinctive characteristics which differentiate them from goods and have implications for the manner in which they are marketed. These can be described as:

      Intangibility

      Inseparability

      Variability

      Perish ability

      Ownership

4.1 Intangibility:

A pure service cannot be assessed using any of the physical senses. It is an abstraction which cannot be directly examined before it is purchased. Services don’t have physical integrity, aesthetic appearance, taste, smell.  Intangibility of services leads to customers:

1. Having difficulty in evaluation of competing services.
2. Perceiving high levels of risk.
3. Placing great emphasis on personal information sources.
4. Using price as a basis for assessing quality.

Its results in management response through:

1. Reducing service complexity.
2. Stress tangible cues.
3. Facilitating word-of-mouth recommendation.
4. Focusing on service quality.

We are doing our project on CASCL. It’s a company which guides students to go to Australia for higher education. It’s purely a service organization. Its service is not tangible. So it becomes difficult to evaluate their services, unless we utilize their services. For example only a student and his or her parents and relatives can say that the services they took are good or bad. As we discusses before that services are difficult to evaluate and customer feels that there may be high levels of risk. In such cases CASCL should take proper steps to reduce the service complexity so that customer can measure the service and can be comfortable. Customers are also influenced by their personal information sources, which distorted the real information. CASCL should be aware of these things and should try to provide clear and precise information on their advertisement.

4.2 Inseparability:

The production and consumption of a tangible good are two discrete activities. Companies usually produce goods in one central location and then arrange physical distribution to the retailer or other intermediaries who deliver to the customers. On the other hand, the consumption of a service is said to be inseparable from its means of production. Producer and consumer must normally interact in order to get the benefits of the service. Both must meet at a time and in a place which is mutually convenient so that the producer can directly pass on service benefits. In the extreme case of personal care services, the customer must be present during the entire production process, for example a doctor cannot provide a service without the involvement of a patient.

CASCL is a service company. So its service is also inseparable. When a student will consume their service it’s not possible for him or her to separate it from the means of production. They have to come to the CASCL office to get the benefit of the service. Due to the inseparability of the services, CASCL need to improve the environment of their office and hire efficient employees to serve their customers properly.

4.3 Variability:

Variability refers to the characteristics of many services that need to be tailored or customized to specific customers’ needs. For services, in contrast to many manufactured tangible goods, it can be difficult to carry out monitoring and control to ensure consistent standards.

For example, hairdressing, medical, legal and other professional services are not easy to monitor and control as because there is no physical evidences about the services. But in the case of product for example coca- cola bottles can be easily measured.

CASCL is a service organization so they have the problem of variability. To reduce variability they can concentrate on the methods like they can select, train, motivate and control personnel. They can also simplify their service offer and can make their service more flexible so that different options and features may be combined.

4.4 Perishability:

Perish ability means services cannot be stored. On the other hand we can store tangible product. For example we can store a tooth-paste. But if we try to store the lecture of the faculty, it’s not possible.

A producer of a service which cannot sell all its output produced in the current period has no chance to carry it forward for sale in a subsequent one. At the some way it’s not possible for CASCL to store their service for future. So due to perishable nature of their services CASCL has to prepare to provide quality service at anytime.

4.5 Ownership:

The inability to own a service is related to its intangibility and perishability. In purchasing goods, buyers usually acquire title to the goods in question and can subsequently do as they want with them. On the hand, when a service is performed, no ownership is transferred from the seller to the buyer. The buyer is merely buying the right to a service process such as the use of a parking lot or a lawyer’s time.

When a student takes the service of CASCL he or she doesn’t buy the ownership of CASCL. They just consume their service. So CASCL need to provide high quality service to give clients a good feeling regarding their services.

5. Zone of Tolerance

There are three important elements present in the concept of zone of tolerance. This concept is highly rich as far as its implications are concerned. The three elements of this concept are 1) expected service; 2) zone of tolerance; and 3) adequate service. The following figure shows the concept more simply.

In case of CASCL we have observed that the organization is facilitating students who want to go Australia for higher studies. The service provided by them has an enormous importance to each and every student, because their future education and their carrier are dependent on their service. If they don’t provide quality service and proper guidance, the students may end up with unfulfilled dreams. So, that is why people are very much cautious about the services that they are receiving from CASCL. Education is very important for all and it’s a matter of life time career, so, zone of tolerance is very low, due to high expectations, which actually means that expected service must match the experienced service or adequate service. For that reason, in the case of CASCL we have seen that CESCL is highly concerned about their customers and their satisfaction. They want to provide services at the moment the customers get into their office, because they don’t want to keep them waiting. Moreover they try to process all the visa procedures and other requirements within a reasonable time, so that the customers don’t get annoyed about their service delivery.

But sometimes it happens that CASCL send the student’s information to the education provider, which is the foreign universities, in order to get the offer letters. But sometimes they make 20/25 days delay to send the offer letter. This delay annoyed the students but it can be said that the fault is the service provider’s not CASCL’s.

It also happens that the institutes provide offer letters but the Australian High commission makes delay to process the visa requirements or provide the visa. Sometimes the students fail to attend the university sessions due to the unavailability of visa. All this things lowers the zone of tolerance but here the CASCL has no fault at all. So in this case CASCL has no role regarding the students’ zone of tolerance.

More over CASCL has developed software where all information of the students is given and the students can know about the updated information from the website of the CASCL without coming physically to the office. It reduces the number of encounters and it also increases the zone of tolerance. Thus the customer expectation is adequately met by CASCL.

6. Customer Perception of Quality

Based on the following aspects, customer perceives the quality of any given service. If any product and service have the following attributes, then it is perceived to deliver a good quality:

Responsiveness, reliability, assurance, empathy and tangibility of any given service enable a customer to determine its quality. A customer can thus gain satisfaction based on how each of these elements delivered a good service.

CASCL also have to be concerned about providing quality service to fulfill customer expectations and perception. Their services should have responsiveness, reliability, assurance, empathy and tangibility which enable a customer to determine their service quality.

7. Marketing Research

Marketing research is a very important and effective way to find out the needs, wants, and demands of the desired customer. There are many ways of accomplishing marketing research. However, the questionnaire survey method is the most popular method and mostly used one.

CASCL also need to do marketing research to find out the customer expectations as well as their service quality. They can use questionnaire survey method on a continuous basis to find out these things. They can give them to different university students and prospective customers to fill up, more over they can also give them to their current customers to know their expectations and demands.

According to their survey result CASCL can provide services to their present clients and thus try to fulfill their needs, which will increase CASCL’s popularity radically. Thus they can become the market leader by offering exactly what the customers want.

8. Service Delivery

There are two very important end of service delivery, one is customer and another is provider’s employee. Both of them are very important to the success of an organization. In the context of CASCL we also observed a successful service delivery process.

8.1 Employees Role

Employees of CASCL are highly qualified and motivated. The main inspiration came from the Managing director, Mr. A Khan, who is actually working as leader rather working as a head. He is very much concern to ensure his employees happiness with their situation. The employees are given attractive salary, each of them were given computers to work properly, the working environment is also very goods, all these things were given to increase employee loyalty as well as employee efficiency.

The job division of CASCL is designed in such a way where each and every employee has coordination with each other.  This step leads CASCL to make an excellent service delivery to its customers.

8.2 Customers Role

Customers of CASCL are the students who want to go to Australia for higher studies. They are also important for delivering the service. If they have good education, provide original information and fulfill all requirements, it will help CASCL to deliver the service efficiently and in a timely manner.

To get best output or service delivery both customer and employees of CASCL have to participate.

9. Encounter

Service encounters are a phenomenon that businesses have to face in their day to day operations. The level of encounter varies from organization to organization to the kind of services that it provides. For most customers, the impression of service occurs at the service counters or the moment of truth where the customers actually interact with the service firm.

Any encounter can potentially be critical in determining customer satisfaction and loyalty. If a customer is interacting with the firm for the first time, the initial encounter will create an impression for the firm. In first encounter situations, the customer has no basis for judging the organization, and the initial phone or face to face encounters can take on an excessive importance in the customer’s expectations of the quality of service.

Even when a customer has multiple interactions with a firm, each individual encounter is important in creating a composite image of the firm in the customers mind. Many positive experiences add up to the composite image of high quality, while negative experiences have the opposite effect. On the other hand, a combination of both positive and negative experiences will leave the customer feeling unsure of the quality of the firm’s service quality, doubtful of its consistency in service delivery and vulnerable to the appeals of competitors.

Logic suggests that not all encounters are equally important in building relationship. For certain organization, certain types of encounters are important for customer satisfaction. There are at times certain types of encounters which are known as the ‘bad apple’ which simply ruins the satisfactory encounters and runs away the customers. These occur in connection to encounters relating to failure of service delivery and others.

There are three general types of encounters.

      First is a remote encounter where a customer interacts through the bank via ATM or the mail order service. It also occurs when customer uses the billing system or communicates through other types of mail systems. In case of CASCL, when the students search information about CASCL in their web side it can be called remote encounter.

      Second, are the phone encounters, the most frequent type of encounter that occurs between the firm and the final customers. Almost all firms rely on this encounter for customer service and order taking functions. This differs from remote encounters because there is greater scope for variability. Tone of voice, employee knowledge, efficiency and effectiveness becomes an important criterion in this kind of encounter. This is why, CASCL have to be careful while recruiting their employees and providing information to the clients over phone.

      The third type of encounter is face-to-face encounter. Both verbal and non verbal qualities are important in this type of encounter. Here; the customers create their own quality of service via his or her interaction. The counselors of CASCL have to be extravert and well-informed because the clients will communicate with them face to face.

10. The service delivery process of CASCL

In CASCL, their process design was designed keeping in mind the customer’s view of service and as well as the flexible management style. Based on this assumption, the encounters that occur in the process are;

10.1 Step-1

The moment a customer walks into CASCL, the counseling process starts at the counseling department. When the primary counseling is finished, the counseling department keeps a copy of the inquiry card for follow up. And if the customer doesn’t respond within three working days, the procedure for counseling ends for that customer.

Task involved:

      Initial Counseling

      Follow up

      Communication with the universities.

10.2 Step-2

This step starts when a customer wants to fill the application form. Here; the customer is asked to fill up the university application form with the record department. At this point, data is entered by the record department into the database and sends one copy of the form to counseling and an extra copy to the dispatch department for further development. The accounts department also receives a list of the potential candidates for future reference.

Task involved:

Ü  Update records on a daily basis for new customers.

Ü  Process application form.

Ü  Follow up clients data for on going activities.

Ü  Disburse information to DISPATCH, VISA and ACCOUNTS Department.

10.3 Step-3 (Ancillary Department/Logistics)

The dispatch department’s main task is to follow up activities related to clients information, receiving & sending necessary documents to related departments regarding universities and providing overall logistical support to other departments. The dispatch department is not liable to the customers. Its major task is to collect offer letter and supply it to respective departments for further developments and processing.

10.4 Step-4

The record department processes the application form, after which the customer will be asked to submit and collect all the information regarding his/her higher studies for the respective country from the Record Department. The information includes-offer letter, accounts clearance and VISA acceptance information. If the Record department confirms the customer about the offer letter, than she will be asked to consult with VISA processing officer about the required papers to record department within a specified date. The Record department will also inform the customer to submit the service fee amount to accounts department and receive a payment receipt for further visa processing.

10.5 Step-5

Visa processing department works to fill up the Visa form only for the customers and submit it with all required documents for Visa acceptance. When the customers are advised to go for Visa counseling from the record department, then the visa counselor will collect papers from the record department for further development on Visa processing. After the completion of the visa processing, the counselor in visa processing department will keep the main copy for delivery and also disburse a copy of visa to record department for future reference. The visa department will give visa to its customer in exchange of the memo from the Accounts Department.

Through this collective process the customer will get a steady and prompt service for visa processing and will also construct a positive image about the organization in his/her mind.

11. CASCL in the future

11.1 Usage of E-commerce

To reduce such great number of encounters and the additional time lapses between these, CASCL has initiated developing its own E-Counseling whereby there will be remote encounter as opposed to the face to face encounters that it is experiencing. Through this E-counseling virtual office will be established where a prospective client can easily get on-line counseling service which will save the customers extra time and effort in Counseling.

11.2 Educational Partners:

CASCL has plan to form a unique relationship with the University of Southern Queensland (USQ), Australia that will allows CASCL to deliver some of their vital programs in Bangladesh i.e. one year Foundation Program for HSC students that ensures

an automatic entry to degree programs in a reputed Australian or NZ or Ireland or UK universities, Similarly, CASCL is now able to deliver some of NMIT’s (Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE) course in Bangladesh for Higher Secondary students and later articulate to a degree program in Australia, NZ, Ireland or UK universities.

12. Physical evidence

Every service has some tangible part attached to it and every product has some intangible part attached to it. There is no service that does not have any physical part. In CASCL the following physical evidences are found:

12.1 Physical environment:

12.1.1 Ambient factor: CASCL is situated in Banani area that is safe and secured. The infrastructure of the office building is modern with adequate facilities. There are spaces for car parking. The color of the building is red and the internal ambient has also got a resemblance with that. The furniture and other materials are well decorated and the rooms are spacious also.

12.1.2 Social factor: This aspect is often called as managing the customer mix.  Social factors basically cover the interaction of other customers and service employee, which is very friendly in CASCL. The total number of the employee is 9 in the office, which is just as needed. Their academic qualifications are as per the requirement. In some cases it’s more than that. For instance, the employee in the front desk is an MBA. This is so for the better mentoring of the visitors. The first impression cannot be altered usually and CASCL understand this very well.

12.2 Communications:

The service is highly interactive. People need to be convinced by the councilors to do further processing with the company. So, how well the employees are interacting with the visitors becomes the uniqueness of the organization. The company does not only communicate with the potential customers at the office but also through advertisements. They give ads in the newspaper, use leaflets on different occasions and do many other things to communicate with the people. One important feature of CASCL is the seminars.

Through seminars with the world’s renowned university people, CASCL attracts a number a number of potential customers. It does not only help them in their going process but also help people to know about the educational standards and features of different universities of the world.

12.3 Price:

Price constitutes another type of physical evidence, as customers are more likely to use price as a guide to quality for more intangible services. It can provide a clue about the quality of the service. Like if CASCL is compared with the other competitors of the market like Gesa, Interface, BSB, A to Z, IDP at is found that the extend of services that CASCL provides and the level of charges they ask has got a reasoning. Like they take all the responsibilities of a student regarding his or her higher studies starting from high commission facing to air ticket if needed and then charge all together TK15000, which is somewhat reasonable, compare to the stresses faced by anybody in the processing stage.

13. Designing the service of CASCL

13.1 Core service of CASCL:

The core service offered by CASCL is, “Your Global Future.” in another term it can be said that the core service of CASCL is “eliminate boundaries to accomplish career”. CASCL offers services which enables students to achieve quality education from the best universities of the world which gives them to opportunity to build careen in any where in the world and thus fulfill their dreams. The guidance provided by CASCL helps the students to get an idea about the best universities in world, especially Australia and all the requirements needed to go there. The students who utilized the CASCL’s services easily get access to the best universities of Australia, which facilitate them to achieve the brilliant future.

Figure: Service elements of CASCL

13.2 Supplementary services of CASCL:

13.2.1 Features:

In the tangible product features represents specific components of the product that could be added or subtracted without changing its essential characteristics, so that the organization can come up with different range of products that will appeal different market segment with the same core needs but with each segment requiring marginally different products to satisfy slightly different needs. In the same way most service offerings can be analyzed in terms of differentiating features.  

CASCL also offers different type of features added to their services. They provide guidance to get education from abroad. They have different market segment, some of them want to go for doing diplomas, some for undergrad studies, some for masters, and some for MBA. All of them have same core need, which is to go abroad for study but need slightly different products and services to fulfill the need. This is why CASCL offers different services according to their needs. CASCL covers a broad range of counseling services for their customers based on individual needs.

13.2.2 Styling:

Styling means giving the product a distinctive feel or look. A broader definition of style is considered which includes an external manner, mode or approach rather than merely a physical quality. The style of a service is a result of the combination of features, including tangible decor and the intangible manner in which front-line staff interact with customers.

CASCL as a service organization gives emphasis to the internal decoration of the office, the seating arrangement of the customers. The internal decoration of the office is very nice. They have used blue and red color to the furniture which beautifully portrays that this organization is engaged in sending students to Australia because the color of the Australian flag is also red and blue. The environment of the organization is also very quite and cool.

More over, CASCL have given emphasis to hire a MBA graduate for their front desk or reception, so that the customers can easily interact and get sufficient information about the organization.

13.2.3 Branding:

The purpose of branding is to identify products as belonging to a particular organization and to enable differentiation of its products from those of its competitors. Branding focuses the service provider’s corporate image.

CASCL plays a praise-worthy role in the area of student counseling for higher education in Bangladesh. CASCL provides the most extensive counseling and support services for the students – better than anyone else.

CASCL’s unique, customer-oriented and value added services have established CASCL in the realm of academic counseling in Bangladesh. More than 1,000 people from different segments of society have enlisted with CASCL till now to better fulfill their education or career ambitions. Today CASCL have in their clientele – students and professionals of all ages and experience from all over the country.

In this way CASCL has established a brand image among its customers. CASCL also designed its corporate logo in combination of blue and red which also focus this organization’s brand image.

13.2.4 Service delivery:

Service marketers should use the concept of accessibility rather than seeing service provision in terms of distribution/delivery as with goods. A number of resources affect this accessibility.  For example, human resource, especially contact personnel, machines, buildings and other physical infrastructure as well as supplementary services. These resources need to be managed by a service organization to enhance the accessibility of its service to customers.

They have placed their office in a very convenient place and customers don’t face any difficulty to find out CASCL. The have a Website through which customers can get information about this organization.

They have also hired adequate number of employees, so that the customers don’t face any problem to get access to their services. CASCL starts counseling the minute the customers walk in to the office.

13.2.5 Process:

Service design should pay attention to processes and the manner in which service personnel interact with customers during these processes. The organizations also need to ensure that their external strategy is supported by their employees.

To make the process of counseling the students effective, CASCL has employed highly educated people who have sufficient knowledge about different universities of the world and related information about them.

CASCL mission is to be the most successful customer oriented firm in the “Student Counseling” industry in Bangladesh. They intend to provide superior, responsive, efficient and ideal career counseling service in every market segment in which they compete with an affordable charge. So the employees of this organization should also co-ordinate with this mission and serve their best to support their mission.

13.2.6 People:

Personnel are an important element of the service offering and management must define the role expectations of employees and support this with training where necessary.

For CASCL the employees, who work for it, play an important role in offering the service. The personnel’s behavior, attitude represents the quality of the service offered by the organization. So the personnel must be trained to serve the customers and thus provide a good impression about the organization. CASCL has given importance to hire qualified people especially the counselors and train them, to fulfill customer needs.

13.2.7 Service quality and customer expectation:

Quality is an important factor used by the customers to evaluate the services of one organization in comparison to the offerings of others. In fact customers may judge not so much the quality of the individual service offerings as they judge the quality of the service provider.  This is why the management should give emphasis both on the quality of the service as well as the quality of service provider.

CASCL believes that the company’s future lies on the quality, reliability and dependability of services. This organization is aimed to earn the loyalty and recommendations of all their customers. But only providing quality service is not enough, they need to improve the quality of the service provider, because clients give more emphasis to the quality of the service provider. For this reason, along with proper training to the employees CASCL need to enhance its image by using the electronic and print media. They have already used print media to promote their brand image and thus convince the customers about its quality service.

14. Promotion of the Brand

14.1 Branding:

An important element of secondary services is the branding. The first question comes in to our mind is why do we name our company? The value of the name is branding. The equity, image and name combine the brand equity. To get this brand equity the companies spends lots of money, time and effort.

Branding differentiate an organization from its competitor. Branding is important for service organization as tangible product. This service market is now very saturated in Bangladesh. Many organizations are providing same service. If that business sector sells better, then market becomes competitive. Recently, Students are increasing going abroad for education. So educational service providing become a profitable and potential business sector in Bangladesh. Many organizations are doing in this business in Bangladesh. CASCL is also doing it. This service market has become very competitive now So, CASCL need to differentiate it from other organization. Because, many organization giving same service with almost same price. So, consumer prefers to take someone reliable and helpful for them. CASCL need to give a distinct name to it. When people hear the name of CASCL, they portray it as a reliable service provider. So, this brand name will reflect the trust of the consumers. A establish brand name always gets competitive advantage over other organization. Consumers also prefer to go with establish brand name because of its reliability. Therefore, CASCL need to establish its brand name to gain confidence among the customers and future prospect of the business.

14.2 Positioning:

Positioning is the important tools for services marketing. Every service or product needs to be positioned in its own way. We need to position a service to create an impression among the consumers. The company position itself by following a specific strategy. CASCL has a unique positioning strategy. They want to position themselves based on “Trust and their core service is, to eliminate career boundaries, they want to build a trust-based relationship with their customers. They want to make the customers fully relay on them. If they can’t gain trust of the customers, they will not be able to retain them.

Customers need cooperation from the service provider. So, CASCL should position it as a trustworthy and caring service organization. It create an impression among the customers that CASCL will guide them well to get visa and will advice them the best for getting better education. This positioning reflects in the mind of students that CASCL can serve their purpose the best and it will create opportunities for the student to go abroad.

14.3 Promotion:

Promotion plays a very important role in marketing. An effective promotion strategy can make a business very successful. The company must involve in promotional campaigns to position itself among their customers. The promotion campaign must match with the positioning strategy. There are many ways to promote a service organization. But CASCL has to find out its own ways for promoting its service. CASCL will fix its promotional strategy that can reach its massage to the customers.

The best way of promoting themselves is through Emotional Ads. They need to design their ads in such a way that will effect the customers’ emotions.

By giving statements in the ads, like, “You want to get a world class education which will be recognized in any part of the world and need guidance, than you are in the right place” or “World class education and brilliant future is waiting for you, step forward, we will guide you” CASCL can easily attract their customers emotionally.

14.4 Promotional mix strategy:

To promote their brand, positioning strategy CASCL needs to use different promotional mix. The main intention of the promotion is to promote them in such a way which will attract the customers.

 If CASCL place some bill board in front of universities and colleges, because students are the target market for CASCL it will attract the potential customers. They can also place the bill boards in busy roads to attract the people to acquire their service.

They can distribute hand leaf let to students and post some posters besides universities and colleges and at important public places.

Newspaper advertisement is also a good promotion strategy for CASCL. It should give advertisement in important newspaper such as, Ittafac, Daily Star, Prothom Alo, and Inkilab. Ad should be in a place where it is visible, such as at the front page or at back page or some special page, which is allocated for the students.

It also can arrange seminars regarding its activities where representatives of universities will be present. CASCL also make sure that students will get information of seminars.

Education fair become common promotional activity for this service industry. These fairs are getting huge response from the students. We know that every year education fare is held in Sheraton Hotel. CASCL should participate in education fare. Here we see that many service organizations attend this fare but they do not able to deliver the massage to students because of inefficient representatives. So, CASCL should employ a good representative who can speak well with the students and also able to serve the purpose of CASCL. It also can arrange education fare by it self independently because students like to come in fares for information. So, education fare is playing a very important role in promoting this education based service industry. CASCL should make an effective promotional plan based on fare.

An important promotional activity is television ad. But Television may not be financially visible for CASCL, because TV ads are very costly. But besides this CASCL can launch documentary program based educational service in Television channels.

More over, positioning the web site in frequently visited sites is also an important promotion strategy.

Another most effective way of promoting their brand is by building public relations. Existing and previous customers serves the main promotional purpose by word of mouth

and reference. They should maintain a communication with the customers who already took their services through emails and visit to them.

A big portion of customers comes to CASCL through reference and by word of mouth. CASCL still doing well for promoting its service but it can do even better by implementing these strategies described above.

15. Unique customer retention policy

15.1 Unknown:

In this stage, people do not know what CASCL is all about. So, the company needs to set up their prospect to the intended people by demonstrating the services and the features. To inform people about CASCL, the management need to give ads to the newspaper, distribute leaflets to prospect customers, and invest more in promotional campaigns.

15.2 Prospect:

In this stage people know about CASCL and also have the ability to obtain the service. CASCL need to provide best try to attract this prospects to make them their customers. For this purpose, they need to give lot of attractive features and incentives to attract the prospects.

15.3 Customer:

When people are coming to CASCE and having the service they become the customers. However, this is not the end of the cycle. This is just the beginning of retaining customers. CASCL have to provide the best service to the customers, in order to retain them for the longer period and make them their clients.

15.4 Client: 

CASCL basically gives a package of services starting from counseling to air tickets and further more depending on the customer requirement. So, when a customer takes not just one service but a bundle of services he or she becomes a client of that company. CASCL have to try their best to retain these clients. For that reason, they need to offer discounts and incentives, because these are the people who can bring more profit for the organization.

15.5 Advocate:

If the cycle of the customer retention is stopped up to the client level after passing all the other ones, even though long term success is not possible. And CASCL is the best example of this. More than 70% of the business goes on through word of mouth. Clients who are more than satisfied with the service of CASCL act basically as an ambassador for the company.

It is seen that the customer retention policy is the key to the success factor and it is continuous process. There must be adequate supply of customers and the company needs to net the customers with proper processes.

16. Retention strategy

16.1 Financial Bond:

16.1.1 Volume & frequency:

Students are the customers of CASCL. Customers primarily tied to the firm through financial incentives. Though students do not act like as traditional customers but they also look for financial benefit. Students prefer to go to the organizations that charge lower price for service. Rewarding is a widely used retention strategy. Though Students require this type of education provider’s service only for once but it will increase company’s good will to other customers. It can provide special discount to the students who have good academic qualification. CASCL also can provide financial benefit to the students who will bring new students for the organization.

16.1.2 Stable pricing:

CASCL can charge a stable price to the students and their relatives who already took their service. It also can arrange some special financial incentive for the particular students, such as, if CASCL have a discount price for the students of North South University, then NSU student will prefer to go to CASCL other then any education service provider organization.  Students actually want to minimize processing cost. Students are not about getting visa; therefore, they do not want to spent money for this service.

16.1.3 Bundling and cross selling:

More over as they offer all kind of facility to the students, for example, from visa processing to accommodation. So if they bundle the products together and give a discount, it will attract students.

16.2 Social Bond

16.2.1 Personal relationship:

Retention marketers build long-term relationship through social and interpersonal relationship. CASCL have to understand individual students need and want and service providers find ways of staying in touch with their customers, thereby developing social bond with them. They will exchange and share information among themselves by brining personal information in conversation.

Interpersonal bonds are common service organization where customers develop relationship with employees. Customers come to CASCL to take information about its service and how it will help them by their purpose. Employees or consultants should build some kind ties or at least informal relationship that will encourage customers to involve with CASCL. Consultant’s attitude is also an important factor for developing any kinds of social bond with customers. They have to create some impression that will encourage them for taking service from this organization. They have to convince customer with friendly behavior. Every single department of CASCL has to be cooperative with students. This relationship building starts from the front desk till higher-level management. If any one of it, in the whole process is not properly maintained than entire relationship building process will be affected.

16.2.2 Continuous relationship:

Relationship building is not one time process. It has to continue relationship with students in building among students. CASCL will continue this relationship with existing customers who are taking service currently and also with those students already studying abroad now. This social bond will bring new customers for CASCL through reference of previous students.

16.2.3 Social bonds among customers:

Relationship among customers is also important for CASCL. Students who have close relationship prefer to use same organization for service. Friends, who are willing to go abroad for education like to do their work together, though CASCL has nothing to do with relationship among the customers but this relationship ca effect CASCL in either positive or negative way.

Social bond gives organization competitive advantage over others. Competitor cannot imitate social bond like financial bond of the organization.

16.3 Customized bond

16.3.1 Customer intimacy:

In this part of the retention strategy students will provide information back to CASCL. It will help organization to know about personal need and exception of students from CASCL. Than they will fit their service accordingly. Students will be encouraged thorough the development of individual solution that fit the individual students needs.

16.3.2 Mass customization:

CASCL also need mass customization of the service. It should have enough options for the students. Students have different financial condition and different educational qualification. According to that they will choose the organization they like to study in future. If CASCL does not have that suitable options for the students then it will not able provide service to those students. Moreover, students come different part of the city or country. So, it is not possible for the students to take all service physically. There are many part of the service that can be done by phone or mailing system. If CASCL have all the possible options for providing different types of students then it will help them to retain their customers.

16.3.3 Innovation:

CASCL also have to be innovative for producing service. A same service can be given through many ways. So, CASCL should be innovative to ease the burden of the students who are willing to take the service. Students often have difficulties with understanding the service. If they do not understand the whole process of the service or how they will be benefited by the organization they will not will to take that service. So, customization should give the solution of problems.

16.4 Structural Bond

16.4.1 Integrated information system:

Structural Bond is created by organization by providing customized services to the client that are technology base and serve to make the customers more productive. CASCL has build an information system consist of information of students. It will help the students to see the progress of the work such as, offer letter acceptance, embassy processing etc.

16.4.2 Joint investment: 

CASCL can create strategic alliances with other educational service provider organization. No organization represents all universities that students are willing to go. So, If CASCL make agreements with other organization for exchange of services and students that will increase customers service of CASCL and also help to retain those customers whom they cannot serve directly. It’s one kind of a join investment between education providing firms.

CASCL is slightly different then other service proving organization. Students require this service only for once for going abroad for education purpose. Once they are done with that purpose they may not require further service of the organization. But through applying this retention strategy CASCL will be able to attract more customers and retain them to provide other customers who want CASCL’s service.

 17. Employee Retention

Customer retention and employee retention both are related to each other. It has huge positive effect over company’s overall productivity and growth. Employees are like to work those companies whose customers are satisfied and loyal. Experienced employees can add extra value to the organization. Because they are already know about the whole service and how to deliver it to the customers. Therefore, service quality improves. Employee retention also reduce huge amount of cost for CASCL. Recruitment of new employee and their training drains a significant amount of money from the organization. So, employee retention strategies save this money for the organization. It also saves time of organization.

A service organization requires more employee cooperation then manufacturing organization. In case of CASCL it requires more attention from employee then traditional service base organization. Here many things depend on employee performance. So, it is very essential to CASCL to retain expert employee in the organization and maximize service time of the employees as long as possible. It will improve the service quality and cost of turnover will reduce and maximize the profit.

For employee retention CASCL may have to develop some benefits for the employee that will motivate them to stay in the organization. Salary and other financial benefit is the most important part for the employees. So, CASCL have to make sure that employees are well paid, as they deserve. It also can arrange some bonus facilities for better performance. It has to provide a good working condition for the employees. Because, good working condition improves service quality. Finally, CASCL have to ensure certain things that will give incentive to retain an employee in the organization. CASCL have to remember that customer satisfaction depends on employee performance.

18. The service profit chain

In the real world of business, we have seen that satisfied and contended employees makes way for satisfied customers and satisfied customers in turn reinforce employees’ sense of satisfaction in their jobs. In case of CASCL, employees and counselors attitudes and delivery to those seeking higher admissions abroad, suggests that unless these employees are happy customer satisfaction will be difficult to achieve.

From our research, we have seen that both the climate for service and a climate for employee well being are highly correlated with overall customer perception of service quality. That is, both service climate and human resource management experiences that employees have within the organizations are reflected in how customers experience the service. In CASCL this should be important enough, and it is important enough .This is reflected in their educated and efficient human resource which reflects customer’s expectations of high quality service and educated counselors.

Here, it should be mentioned that employee satisfaction does not cause customer satisfaction rather the two are interrelated and feed off each other. In a service oriented firm like CASCL

      Employees are the service as they are only relying on their advice for going to an absolutely new land to get higher education.

      Employees are the organization in the customer’s eye as they make up the life-blood of the organization.

       In CASCL, the employees are the major marketers as they deliver and accentuate the intangible but very important part of the whole process.

 A service profit chain is accentuated when the linkages between (fig1) the internal service quality, employee satisfaction and productivity, the value of service provided to the customer, and ultimately customer satisfaction, retention and profits. This are made more useful when employees understand the Theory Y theory which says that employees should be proactive, eager to sell, find ways for more effective selling and be more profitable.

In the case of CASCL, employees need to be more Theory Y as opposed to Theory X which means introverted employees with lesser concentration on effective delivery.

19. Marketing strategy used by CASCL

CASCL, an organization, which is engaged in the service of giving the full advice regarding studying abroad, mainly engaged follows the Pull strategy. The definition of Pull strategy is, a manufacturing strategy aimed at the end consumer of a product. The product is pulled through the channel by consumer demand initiated by promotional efforts, inventory stocking procedures, etc. Another definition from sales point of view is the communications and promotional activities by the marketer to persuade consumers to request specific products or brands from retail channel members. This means they are mainly providing the service to the customers by creating awareness and demand among them about their service. They primarily don’t use any intermediaries to market their product.

CASCL try to discover the demand for their services among the customers through different promotional tools.  They have a large advertising budget to promote their company. In many news papers and magazines they give large advertisements to communicate with their customers.

But the main source from which general people come to know about the service of this company is through reference. It means the people who have already utilized their service, recommend others about their company. So here the customers play an important role as an advocate to promote their services.

20. Pricing method of CASCL

Companies set prices by selecting a general pricing method. Most of the organizations follow cost plus pricing method, which means adding a standard markup to the cost of the product or services. The service provider organization like CASCL and other such organizations also follow this method, this is why the price among them tends to be similar and price competition is minimized.

But some of these types of organizations also follow the competition based pricing. They mainly give attention to the competitors’ prices and pay less attention to its own costs or demand. These firms might charge the same, more or less compared to their competitors.

But the best approach which we suggest to CASCL is to follow the Marginal cost pricing, which suggest charging the price only based on the variable cost not concerning the fixed cost. The reason behind suggesting that method is, as the fixed cost of CASCL like the office space, equipments, decorations, furniture all are mainly bought in the first time and the cost of these things will be meet within 3 to 5 years. So they can price their service based on the marginal cost pricing. Thus they can charge a low price compared to the competitors and beat them out and gain profit.

21. Pricing strategy of CASCL

An effective strategy must identify how the role of price is to function as a service goes through different stages in its life, from the launch stage through growth to maturity. Pricing strategy usually changes as the product or service passes through its life cycle.

As CASCL doesn’t provide any new type of service or any new facility compared to other similar firms, that’s why it can’t follow the market skimming strategy. This organization need to follow the market penetration pricing, where it needs to set a low initial price in order to penetrate the market quickly and to attract the customers quickly.

But the competitors charge quite similar price. So it wouldn’t be that effective if CASCL only provide the market penetration pricing. This firm needs to add more quality, features and facilities in their services to attract customers.

22. Competitive analysis

CASCL plays a praise-worthy role in the area of student counseling for higher education in Bangladesh, because CASCL provides the most extensive counseling and support services for the students – better than anyone else. CASCL covers a broad range of counseling services for their customers based on individual needs.

In order to analyze the services of CASCL and its overall performance, competitive analysis is very important. Otherwise, it would not be clear in which spectrum CASCL is superior in this market. Not only that, a competitive analysis is needed to find out the lacking of CASCL if any.

To do that, five competitors namely IDP, GESA, a 2 z, Interface and BSB were taken in to account. All the companies were visited several times to observe the overall service facilities provided.

22.1 Comparative analysis based on quality:

CASCL provide complete assistance starting from IELTS preparation, course selection, admission, visa approval, and pre and post departure arrangements. This pre and post departure arrangements starts from arranging tickets to ensuring living facility in the foreign land to visiting Australia annually to resolve clients’ issues or problems regarding any academic or personal problem, which is a unique service and not provided by other competitors. The extent of service provided by CASCL is described briefly below:

22.1.1 Guiding while selecting university: Demand for higher studies are increasing day by day. Today’s generation realizes well the need for higher studies abroad. However, due to lack of information they do not know where to go and how. There are many organizations engaged in sending students abroad. But probably none of them provides guidelines about choosing universities. CASCL encompasses a vast range of information about a number of renowned universities and their requirements. So what CASCL does is that when a student comes to CASCL the counselor first listens to his or her interests, academic background and abilities and then suggests going to the universities that matches the requirements. To identify which university will be a perfect choice for a particular student is not an easy job, especially for the students who do not have much exposure of computer and internet. CASCL does this job very efficiently with the light of long experience.

In other words, CASCL starts counseling the minute somebody walks in. It helps students choose the University where the student wants to study from the leading universities and colleges of Australia, Ireland, UK and New Zealand. It supports students through Processing Applications, training students for Interviews and provides counseling for Placement and Credit Transfer. CASCL helps them choose what is best for them and also acquire the skills and qualification required for their respective destinations. Special career-based advice and training help the students and professionals to achieve a competitive edge in today’s dynamic business environment.

22.1.2 Guiding in the way of selecting courses: CASCL does not only give suggestions at the time of selecting universities but also give guidelines in choosing different courses in different universities and TAFE Institutions. CASCL also provides facilities so that students can browse through internet and get the information about different courses in different institutions free of charge.

22.1.3 Admission facilities: After selecting the university or TAFE institutes and the courses CASCL arranges the admission facilities. Students do not need to go anywhere to collect and rill up the admission form. CASCL performs all the formalities.

22.1.4 Facilitating visa approval: CASCL provides a complete guidance based on High Commission requirements and forward students application to the Australian High Commission and do necessary follow up to ensure on time departure.

22.1.5 Pre and post departure arrangements: Some students may face problems in arranging tickets and other related thing. For those CASCL gives all kind of services. Its services are extended to that level that even after going abroad, if anybody faces accommodation problem CASCL takes the responsibility to accommodate him or her in a convenient place.

22.1.6 After sale service: CASCL’s total commitment to its students can be guided from the fact that every year one of the CASCL’s persons visits Australia and individually meet students to have first hand knowledge of their well-being.

22.1.7 Other features:

      Brochures: CASCL’s brochure contains a great detail of information about everything separately like the study cost, courses offered, visa procedure, visa requirements, sponsorship etc. So, by reading the brochure one can easily get an idea about the institution and their service quality.

      Websites: CASCL’s website is very reach in data. It is an interactive website where students can fill up the online assessment forms. It helps the students to evaluate their qualification for the program they would like to apply for. Then CASCL make a contact with them by email and give the students a free feedback based on the information they submitted. CASCL provides every detail of the universities they offered in its website in different links. If one visits the website and wants to know about different facilities provided by different universities, then he or she will have to just click into that link and every thing will come in front of him. For instance, while visiting University of Wollongong its History, Campuses, Location, Areas of study, Academic Entry Requirements, English Language Entry Requirements, Schedule of Fees Accommodation, Airport Pick-Up, Number of Students, Courses Offered – every detail will be observed. In this way students can get an idea about everything by only visiting the website of CASCL.

22.1.8 Success rate:

The unique, customer-oriented and value added services has established CASCL in the realm of academic counseling in Bangladesh. More than 1,000 people from different segments of society have enlisted with CASCL till now to better fulfill their education or career ambitions. Today CASCL have in its clientele – students and professionals of all ages and experience from all over the country. CASCL’s growth in last 2 years is evidence to the satisfaction of many of its students around the world.

22.2 Competitive analysis based on price:

Except for few, the pricing strategy for several competitors is more or less similar. However, the extent of services provided varies from one another. On the other hand, there are some competitors putting smaller amount of chargers in the market. But in that case, charges are divided in to various steps and all the steps are not included in the total charging. The service takers have to pay separately for those works. So, if combined, charges will be similar to the market price.

From the table below, an idea of charges offered by different organization can be got. Here the in initial charger refers to the chargers at the time of giving only the offer letter. And the later charges are for all the other services provided by the organizations like high commission charges and others. This later services varies highly among organizations

­

 Total charges

CASCL

TK.3000TK.12000TK.15000 a 2 zTK.2000TK.15000TK.17000GESATK.4000TK.4000+TK.8000+InterfaceTK.15000-TK.15000BSBTK.3000TK.12000TK.15000IDP TK.3500-TK.3500

22.2.1 CASCL:

CASCL charges TK 3000 for the offer letter initially. In addition to that, it provides an in depth counseling free of cost. Actually, students can get an idea about their possibility through even visiting the CASCL website. The later charge is about TK12000 that consists the whole processing charges. Basically CASCL takes all the responsibilities of a student regarding his or her higher studies.

22.2.2 GESA:

Initial service charge is of TK.4000 after getting Pre-Visa Approval from Australian High Commission, students are required to pay another amount of TK.4000. However, this eight thousand does not cover all the charges. Application fee for different universities are separately charged. And it ranges from $50 to $100. Students have to pay equivalent amount of Bangladeshi TK for that. Not only that, students who wants to submit application to more than one institution, will have to pay an extra service charge of TK.1000 for each additional application which is a hassle in deed.

22.2.3 IDP:

 Looking in to the pricing strategy, IDP seems to be the cost leader, which is a non-profit organization. In this way, no one can compete with it. However, here one catch is that it does not take any responsibly of the clients. They provide information and guide though different books, magazines and brochures but do not provide any service regarding individual processing. That is, students have to do every job starting from applying to registration on their own cost and labor. But of course they provide good guidelines, as it’s an international organization and can offer almost all universities. Then again the burden remains on the students’ part.

22.2.4 A 2 z:

The initial charge offered by a 2 z is TK.2000. They also provide extensive services and charge an additional charge of TK.15000 for that. So, they charge about TK.17000 all together, which is the highest comparing others.

22.2.5 Interface:

The charges asked by interface are similar to CASCL. But here the difference is the extent of services provided. Another difference is that clients have to pay a total amount of TK.15000 during the time of getting offer letter. So here, clients are bound to take their service as offered.

22.2.6 BSB:

The pricing structure is again almost similar to CASCL but not the services provided.

So, it is seen that a number of companies are offering similar charges in the market. In a situation like this, the only way to compete better is providing quality service. Here it needs to mention that there are lots more organizations that are trying to provide similar services. But looking into their success rate and services those are skipped for the convenience of the analysis.

23. Recommendation

23.1 Interactive website:

Though CASCL has already started a soft ware where all students’ data will be available and students can get information without going to the CASCL office. But if they come up with such an interactive website from where students can easily apply to a university and get access to any information they require, any guidance is needed from the web site than it will reduce the encounter most effectively.

24.1 Effective counseling method:

CASCL has appointed highly educated and knowledgeable counselor, but if the management train them even better to convince the students to take their service, they will be able to gain more customers. For example, when any student first comes to their organization, the counselor should motivate him in such a way for which he can’t change his mind of going abroad. The counselor can convince the student by explaining the benefits of studying abroad, which facilities they will provide or even sometimes they can show the pictures of the universities and location maps to the students to convince them to take their services.

25. Conclusion

Throughout our report we have tried to assess the direction of the achievement of education centers in Dhaka City. We have tried to evaluate the operations and significance of our main focus of study a renowned institution known as CASCL.

CASCL has been performing considerably better than its competitors as has been seen from the research. It has been also seen that it is faring high in terms of quality and service. CASCL has been undertaking repeated steps for the improved service design and delivery, and is hence becoming one of the renowned institutions in the country.

In a world of globalization, where improved and quality education is becoming essential for a better life, CASCL is one such institution where customers can rely on for their education and processing in full faith.

24. Bibliography

1) Service Marketing, Zeithaml & Bitner, 2^nd ed. Tata McGraw-Hill reprint 2000.

2) “The quality improvement customers didn’t want” by Dawn Lacobucci, January 1996.