MARKETING of SERVICES DIARY

Submitted by: Saumarjit Konwar

PGP/16/342

Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode

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1. Chill out Cafe

Chill out Cafe is a small restaurant/hang out place located just near the IIM Gate at Kunnamangalam.
The ambience of the place is very good and with good lighting and music, the place serves as a good
place to hang out with friends. The food served is of good taste and quality and thats one of the
primary reasons the place is frequented by students from IIM Kozhikode. The only factor that serves
as a negative in this case is the fact that lead time for food orders to be processed is a little bit on the
higher side. This arises from the fact that there is just one stove for preparing the food items. Also as
there is just one person who is cooking at any given point of time, the time taken for the items to be
processed is a bit high. In totality, the place is very good and the service offerings are satisfactory.
The owner is very friendly and goes out of his way to make people feel comfortable at his place.
2. Vodafone recharge
One of the most important things in a students life is the easy availability of recharge at any given
point of time. The Vodafone OL recharge site has been stated below:
https://www.vodafone.in/pages/home_ker.aspx?cid=ker
The OL platform for recharge is very easy and easily understandable for a person who wants to avail
of this facility.

As seen in the figure above, the various categories are properly demarcated under the varied tags. If
a person opts for prepaid recharge, he just needs to go the prepaid tag under which he will find an
option recharge. The various denominations that are available for recharge as well as the various
value added services that are provided by Vodafone are clearly stated. I am more or less satisfied
with the services that are being offered by Vodafone. The website is easy to use and more often
than not I have not encountered any problems while trying to recharge. Barring a few instances
when the recharge was not successful due to network congestion, I cannot recollect any incident
when I had to encounter a failed recharge.

Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode

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3. Sea Queen Hotel

Sea Queen is a restaurant bar located near the Calicut city beach. The restaurant serves both food
and liquor and is known for its wide collection of food items. The ambience is decent and has
sufficient number of tables and sitting arrangements in case of rush hour and increased footfall. One
thing I feel lacking at Sea Queen is the fact there is no music being played while people are having
their food. This at times brings in a very mundane environment when all you can hear is people
chattering and talking. A little bit of music in the background would have helped a lot in improving
the ambience of the place. The time taken for the food to be brought is decent and none of the
orders take a lot of time to be processed. The mock tails and cocktails that are being served are
decent and the waiters who take your order are amiable and courteous. Overall am satisfied with
the services offered at Sea Queen and i havent had any bad experience as far as I can recollect.
4. IRCTC Restaurant
The IRCTC Restaurant is located inside the IIM Kozhikode Campus in front of E Hostel. It provides
very similar offerings as are been offered by any other restaurant. A menu is displayed on a white
board which is right adjacent to the counter where the order is placed. On ordering, one receives a
receipt which is then given to the waiter who will bring you your order. The food is decent and
passable. There is one specific incident that I would like to mention which happened during the 4 th
term. I was with my friend and both of us had ordered for rice and chilly paneer. When our order
came, we were surprised to find a piece of chicken in the paneer. Although I am a non vegetarian
and I do take meat, but such an incident happening for a person who is a pure vegan is not
acceptable at all. I immediately called the waiter and asked him to go and have the manager come
over to our table as I wanted to have a chat with him. I told him of what had happened and said that
whatever has happened is highly careless and reflects the callous attitude of the restaurant in taking
care of such important matters He assured me that such an incident would not happen again. But
this incident had left a very negative image in my mind and I had not visited IRCTC restaurant for
quite some time after this incident.
5. IRCTC website for booking tickets
The website has been listed below:
https://www.irctc.co.in/ . The website is very informative and is able to correctly provide
information about all the trains that are running. But the most cumbersome part is actually booking
the ticket. The website is very slow to say the least and very unreliable at times. I have had more
than one bad experience in which either my transaction has failed or money has been deducted
from my account but the ticket has not been booked. The traffic congestion in this website is very
high and as such the time for loading a page is at an average of around 3 minutes and more often
than not the transaction gets timed out even before the page could fully load. So, having to book a
ticket using the IRCTC website is an experience not many would like to relive again and again.
Although the services that are being provided are quite informative and comprehensive, still the
traffic in the network proves as a bottleneck.

Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode

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6. Nirmala Hospital, Calicut

Nirmala Hospital is located near Vellimadukunnu Bus Stop, Vellimadukunnu in Calicut. The Hospital
offers special services to students from IIM K. I would like to mention one incident in which I had cut
my finger and developed a deep gash on my finger. It was around 3 am, at night. I was immediately
rushed to Nirmala Hospital as I needed stitches on my hand to stop the bleeding. Although it was
quite late into the night, there was a doctor who was available and attended to me. My wound was
looked at and i was given the necessary care. I had three stitches on my finger but everyone at the
hospital seemed very caring and told me not to worry much. This is one incident which I had carried
forward with me. Another incident which was not so smooth happened when I was in the 1st term. I
had sprained my ankle and could not walk properly. I was taken to Nirmala Hospital, after getting my
token; I was made to wait for a very long time before someone attended to me. Even after a nurse
came and took me to the x ray room to take an x ray of my ankle to determine the extent of damage,
she did not seem very prepared and I was made to shift my leg a lot of times in uncomfortable
positions again and again. She did not seem very friendly and behaved rudely at times. Overall the
experience on that particular day was not very good and relaxing.
7. Reliance Fresh
Reliance Fresh is located at Kunnamangalam, Calicut. It is a supermarket and offers a host of
products from personal care, food items, stationary items, toiletries, fresh fruits, vegetables etc. The
wide variety of products served is displayed very conveniently on the shelves. The different products
are demarcated properly based on the category under which they fall. All the food items are stacked
in one corner and all the personal health items are stacked in another corner. The staff that are
present there are quite amiable and helpful and they direct you to the correct shelf in case you are
not able to find the item you are looking for. For the purpose of payment, there are three counters
and the process is very smooth. Both card systems of payment as well as monetary payment is
accepted and as such customers have no difficulty of any sort.
8. Night Mess @IIMK
The Night Mess at IIM Kozhikode is operated by A-Diet. The food items that are available are very
limited and the quantity served is not if adequate quantity for the price that is been charged. A lot of
students have raised complaints regarding the same but this has not been addressed so far. The
quality of food is decent but the lead time for the order to be processed is very high. There have
been a few instances when students have complained about the quality of food being served.
9. Crown Cinemas, Calicut
Crown Cinemas is a upscale movie hall located in the heart of Calicut City. Entertaining audiences for
8 decades with both Hollywood & Bollywood movies and overlooking the Mananchira square, The
Crown is a major draw to students, residents and professionals of all age groups throughout the
week. My experience with Crown has been very pleasant. The movies that are screened at Crown
are recent releases and the theatre makes it a point to screen all those movies which are popular
and in trend at that point of time. The ambience of the cinema hall is quite pleasing and good. The
AC temperature is just about perfect and the seating arrangement is proper. What needs an
improvement is in the number of food stalls that are available there. Very limited options for snacks
are available at Crown Cinemas. I am a person who likes to munch something when am watching a
Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode

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movie and under such circumstances, find it a bit bugging when not many options are available. The
hall has two screens and both of them screen movies simultaneously.
10. MakemyTrip.com

Make my trip is a website that is used for booking of air tickets, hotels ,buses, rails and offers
holiday packages. The website is very user friendly and easy to use. The different headings are
specified appropriately. I have been using make my trip to book my flight tickets regularly for more
than 4 years now and have never encountered any problem of any sort. The website itself is very
informative and as seen from the picture above is quite comprehensive in the description of its
various offerings. It also sends mails to regular users about the various holiday packages that are
being offered. This option can be turned off if customers find it bugging to be bombarded with mails
all the time. Overall, I am satisfied with the services offered by this website.

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Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode

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