Submitted by Group 3–

Aishwarya Singh M077-19

Ankit Saharia M080-19
Riya Handique M112-19
Manikanta Toram
Sheereen Kertetta M117-19
Shruti M120-19
Avneet Singh Saini M149-19
T Manikanta M161-19
PROJECT REPORT ON Surbhi Gupta M185-19

STUDY OF A SERVICE ORGANISATION

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

With great pleasure, we avail this opportunity to express our deepest gratitude to our
teacher and supervisor, Prof. Shibashish Chakraborty, Indian Institute of Management
Ranchi, for giving us such an excellent opportunity to learn and apply our Service
Marketing skills on the field through this project. We also thank him for extending his
wholehearted guidance and support to us during the whole term, helping us learn the
service marketing techniques and models that helped us in understanding the practical
aspects of the subject. We have a deep sense of admiration for his innate goodness
and inexhaustible enthusiasm. It helped us to work in the right direction to attain the
desired objective.

We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to Mr. Piyush Ranjan, Manager, Jawed
Habib -Main Road, Ranchi for his continuous support and guidance. His valuable
insights have served as the major contributor towards the completion of the project.

We would also like to thank the College Administration of Indian Institute of

Management, Ranchi, for providing us with the facilities that helped us in getting
secondary data for our project.

Last but not the least, we extend our thanks to our friends who have helped us with their
valuable insights and responses in order to complete the project.
 OBJECTIVE:

The Project Report has been designed to familiarize with the characteristics of services
in Jawed Habib Hair & Beauty Ltd. and their implications on service design as well as
delivery, by evaluating and highlighting key issues which we have identified in our
primary and secondary research. By using the concepts evolved during the course, the
report tries to address the following:

1. To study the service process design and delivery of Jawed Habib

2. To analyze customer expectations from their services
3. To evaluate the reasons for service delivery gaps (if any)

METHODS USED FOR STUDY:

Primary Research: We conducted an in-depth interview with an employee working in

Jawed Habib, in order to understand the service provider’s key issues/ points related to
their business.

Secondary Research: We referred to the company’s official website and other media
of communication used by the company like news sites, social media sites, etc. for
gathering information about the services offered.
 Jawed Habib Hair & Beauty Ltd.

Jawed Habib Hair & Beauty Ltd. is one of the

largest retail chains of hair salons in India. It
operates around 850 salons and 65 hair
academies across 115 cities in the country.
The company is owned by Jawed Habib, who
is currently the chairman and managing
director of the retail chain business.

Mission Statement:
“To organize the hair industry in India and bring it at par with global standards by
imparting training and regularly upgrading skills to benefit people connected to hair &
beauty”

The services offered by the salon include-

Hair & Beauty: This includes a full range of hair & beauty services like hair treatments,
texture, hair essentials, body essentials, etc.
Hair Studio: It is a specialty hair brand that offers exclusive hair services only. They
have professional masters who cater to the hair styling requirements at the JH Hair
Studio.
Hair Xpreso: It is the latest addition to the Jawed Habib family. By cutting down the frills
associated with hair styling, this particular unisex salon offers services at a low cost.
Hair Yoga: Through JH “Champi Salons”, they provide the traditional services of head
massage using oils specially created by them in-house. Apart from head massage, they
also provide other services like manicure, pedicure, dry-shampoo, semi-facial, etc.
Hair Academy: JH academies enjoy the reputation of India’s finest hair styling
academies. They train professionals through services which include hair, beauty and
make-up courses, ranging from basic to advanced. They also provide the option of
crash courses for freelancers.

The company works through a franchise business model and has its own range of hair
care products. It also operates in other countries like the United Kingdom, Singapore,
Dubai, Nepal and Bangladesh. In 2012, the venture resorted to a global strategy in
partnership with Procter & Gamble, the world’s largest consumer goods company. P&G
did not pick-up equity in the venture but provided bridge financing as well as helped
identify locations for its salons abroad.

The main competitors of Jawed Habib Hair & Beauty Ltd. are the top Indian retail chains
operated by VLCC, Shahnaz Hussain, Loreal and Lakmé.
 7 P’s of Jawed Habib

Product- JH caters to the complete hair and beauty needs of customers with its
affordable range of services under various sub-brands like Hair Studios, Hair Yoga, Hair
Xpreso and so on.

Price- JH salons have a wide range of price range according to the various services
they provide to customers. The prices also vary according to the sub brand line, for
instance, JH Studios charge higher prices than JH Xpreso, because of the additional frill
services.

HAIR STUDIOS HAIR XPRESO

Place- JH Hair salons are targeted at the upper middle class and hence, present in
areas where high footfall of the target group is assured. These include commercial
areas which have shopping malls & housing complexes, airports, etc. Currently JH
salons are present in the top 3 tiers of cities across the country.

Promotion- The company usually depends on BTL or Below-The-Line promotions

spread across its locations like shopping malls, airports, etc. apart from direct marketing
through newsletters, social media marketing and webinars to name a few.

People- JH Salons hire a range of professionals like bridal experts, hair care experts
and skin care experts to staff its service personnel team across franchises. It also
enjoys a loyal customer base served by professional stylists. A host of internal and
external marketing communications are carried out by the company in order to manage
these relationships.
Process- Service delivery process is similar to job shop operations wherein
professionals cater to different customer requirements like hair-dressing, facial, make-
up, etc. Mental stimulus processing of customers is ensured during the service through
magazines. At the back end, an efficient HRIS and ERP system allows the managers to
smoothen the operations and administration of the salon.

SERVICE 1

SERVICE 2
INPUT OUTPUT
SERVICE 3

SERVICE 4

Physical Evidence- The Essential Evidence includes a unique and soothing ambience
that includes the music, interiors, infotainment systems, lighting, employee appearance,
etc. These give a unique experience to the customers with high satisfaction levels.
Apart from these, there is also the Peripheral Evidence that includes gift vouchers and
loyalty cards to the regular customers of the salon.
 Types of Customers at JH Salons

We have divided the customers into four segments on the basis of engagement and
profitability.

 Platinum – These are the regular customers of JH. Customers falling in this
category receive regular offers and discounts through SMS and emails from the
company. They also receive special discounts on each visit, and customized
coupons for future engagements. These types of customers use almost all the
services of JH in both hair care and skin care divisions, and are very open to try
any new services introduced by JH. The service staff is well acquainted with
these customers, and willingly give special services to them without adding extra
charges.

 Gold – Customers under the gold label are not the regular customers of JH.
They can become platinum customers only if given frequent discounts and offers
on their preferred service. Although they also receive occasional offers on all
services through SMS, the conversion rate is low, since these customers do not
want to try the variety of services provided by JH. They are generally focused on
one particular service (either haircare or skincare).

 Iron – These are everyday customers of JH Salons, who only come only once to
try JH services, with no form or intention of loyalty towards it. As a result, they
don’t receive any notifications for discounts and offers.

 Lead – These types of customers want full attention and VIP service even for
minimal services, and spread negative WOM if not treated as per their
expectations.
 Service Blueprint of JH Salons

Before designing the blueprint, we created a flowchart of activities that take place in JH
salons for rendering hair and care services to customers:

Customer Customer
Customer Customer Stylist receives Service
makes checks in/ consults
waits for service based completed
appointment sanitizes customer
stylist on preference and payment
hands
made

Documentation of
Customer
service rendered,
decides to
process times and
walk out
amount charged

The following steps were taken to design the service blueprint for Jawed Habib salons-

1. We have identified the possible service encounters that can take place in a salon
service. These mainly include technology mediated encounters (example:
booking an appointment over telephone) and face-to-face encounters (example:
interaction at reception area or during service delivery like haircut/ facial/ etc.)

2. We also identified the possible elements of physical evidence that influence the
flow of customer experience and their emotional/social connections with the
company. JH salons have rightly recognized the impact of each and every
tangible and physical space element in creating interactive customer
experiences.

3. Then, we defined the customer actions, visible employee actions as well as

backstage employee contacts which collectively influence the total customer
experience during the service delivery. Support processes section of the
blueprint covers all the internal services and interactions that take place to
support the contact employees of JH salons.
The Service Blueprint of JH Salons:
 Service Quality at Jawed Habib

Service Quality depends on the 5 key factors namely

Tangibility: These are aspects of the saloon which could be seen. 
Physical facilities; Saloon atmosphere, waiting area, Interiors, lighting etc. 
Equipment; Seating Chairs, Mirrors, Payment Devices, Grooming utilities etc.
Personnel; Staff, Uniforms, Gloves etc.
Communication Material; Magazines, Fashion Trends brochures, Posters etc.

Reliability: The service at JH is uniform any day throughout the year offered by any
employee across its branches.

Responsiveness: Staff are always ready to assist customers with their needs and to
understand their expectations. They even ask the customer sometimes mid-way of the
service to check if they are happy with the outcome and does as per the customer
feedback.

Assurance: As all the staff at JH are trained at JH Academy and are qualified
professions to offer the service as per JH Standards, their demeanor gives confidence
to customers.
Empathy: Staff are always empathetic to customer requirements and expectations.

Convenience: JH Store is located at Main Road Ranchi and is conveniently accessible.

Communications & the Service Marketing Triangle

Consumers of Jawed Habib receive communications from a rich variety of marketing

vehicles- websites, social media, blogs, public relations, etc. They also receive
communication from servicescapes, customer service departments and the everyday
service encounters with hair stylists/employees. The service customer is a target of two
types of communication strategies adopted by the company- External marketing
communications and interactive marketing communications. At the back end, internal
marketing communication ensures that the messages delivered are consistent among
all employees and across all of its franchises.

COMPANY
(MANAGEMENT)

INTERNAL MARKETING EXTERNAL MARKETING

COMMUNICATIONS COMMUNICATIONS

EMPLOYEES CUSTOMERS
INTERACTIVE MARKETING
COMMUNICATIONS

Internal communication: These include all the qualities and values that the company
needs to pass on to its employees for providing the best services to its customers. The
JH Academy aims to provide the best scientific and systematic horizontal
communications training to its employees, right from staff recruitment to staff
upgradation training to all of its franchise units. The JH Group also ensures service
excellence through consistency in policies and procedures across departments and
branches. Recognition of top performing partner franchises is also done as part of its
internal communications.
Given below are a few examples-

TRAINING OF PROFESSIONALS IN JH ACADEMY

FRANCHISE RECOGNITION

External communications: Through its external communication vehicles, JH Group

tries to address the service intangibility in two ways- a) using advertising to
communicate service attributes and benefits to consumers b) strategies designed to
encourage word of mouth communication. These include a host of promotion activities
done through electronic/print media, sponsorships, online seminars, word of mouth, etc.
Given below are snippets of external communication like prints ads, sponsorship
posters, newsletters, and seminars:

SPONSORSHIP
PRINT ADS TAGS

SEMINARS

NEWSLETTERS

Interactive Communication: This involves servicescape encounters in salons and also

using social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook to exchange information with
customers. These are those touchpoints which are not controlled by the company itself
but can be monitored and used to understand customer expectations. JH franchises
mainly leverage on influencer posts to reach out to potential customers. Apart from
social media interactions, the company’s franchises also encourage non-task
conversation between the hairdresser and clients to forge a close professional
relationship.

The following snippets explain how interactive communications strategies are adopted
by JH salons:

SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE USING INFLUENCER

MARKETING AND HUMOR POSTS

INTERACTIVE
SERVICESCAPE DESIGN
 Service Recovery
Following are the steps taken by JH Salons to ensure a positive relationship with their
customers.

 Accountability – the manager of every JH salon is available to understand and

talk about the inconvenience that any customer faces during the service cycle.
 Immediate response – every query/complaint is responded by the JH staff
almost instantly at their Salons. If any customer gets dissatisfied with the service,
it is immediately compensated either through a better service (by assigning a
different employee), or through a discount in the bill (in case of irreversible
mishandling by staff).
 Fair treatment against complaints – JH Salons make sure that every customer,
be it a regular or new customer, gets their complaint sorted in a fair manner with
full transparency.
 Quality of products used – Apart from Habib’s private labels, the other products
used in their salons are of professional brands (such as Wella Professionals),
hence the quality is never compromised in lieu of low prices.

JH Salons continuously work towards improving their services for their customers.

 Maintaining safety during pandemic – JH Salons have taken full safety

measures in order to provide seamless services despite the adverse
circumstances. 

o Service only through appointments to avoid crowding

o Services done with full protective gear
o Seating arrangement as per social distancing norms
o Use of disposable aprons, cutting sheets, napkins, gloves
o Sanitizations of comb, scissor, brushes after each service
o Daily temperature check of staff
o Contactless payment

 Learning from complaints – all the complaints are tracked and the students at
Jawed Habib Academy are trained to make sure the previous mishaps are
avoided.
 Continuous feedback – the firm takes regular feedback not only for the quality
of their service, but also for the quality of the products under their label. This
 ensures that they improvise on both aspects to provide better products and
services to their customers.

Process for Service Innovation and Customer Service Standards

Demand and Supply Gap

Usually a store is co-managed by Corporate Office and Franchise owner. As per historical sales
records they have expected monthly potential revenue forecast. Store Manager is given an
objective to generate those revenue. For this purpose they do not use high end technology
solutions, rather depending on experience of store manager following adjustments are done to
maintain Yield percentage:

Demand Too Low SHIFT DEMAND Demand Too Low

Reduce Demand to Match Capacity (During Peak Time)

As their store layout and prices are determined by corporate office and they do not have full
control over it, following are the tactics they use:

1) Communicate with customers: It is hard predict the exact demand but the staff is well
aware of the effect of season and time on the numbers of customers that will show up,
so they recommend their regular customers preferred time when the number of
customers are less and staff can devote much time and care in serving the regular
customer.
2) Modify timing and location of service delivery- They are well aware of the impact of
festive season that will shoot up the demand. As per corporate standards, they have to
follow fixed timing, but on these special occasions they come up early and leave bit late.
So when the store opens, they are already prepared to serve customers and when
customers leave they shut the shop but stay to clean up and prepare for next day.

3) Incentive for non-peek time- They indulge in heavy promotions during Diwali and
Navratri. During these times, they distribute discount vouchers; among those is a batch
of special vouchers which gives higher discount during non-peak hour.

Sometimes they even tie-up with student bodies of school and colleges and give them
special offers (around Navratri, Events and Freshers/Farewell parties), to come during
non-peak time when they can cater to whole batch. This way they separate the huge
surge in demand from peak time. This ensures that normal customers get desired
service level.

Increase Demand to Match Capacity (During Off-Peak Time)

There are certain seasons especially during monsoon, when demand is too low. They have to
come up with following tactics to resolve it:

1) Educate Customers: Craftsmen also act as a consultant to customers, while serving

clients, they constantly talk to them to give them personalized felling. During such
occasions they also try to upsell few services like (massages and hair treatment
solutions). So during summers, usually the demand is high at that time they consult the
regular client to opt for some high end treatments and then schedule it the upcoming
months of monsoon, when they can invest more time and efforts to provide those high
end treatments.

2) Vary how the facility is being used: Javed Habib as an artist is active on social media
and frequently uploads educational videos on Facebook to educate the customers and
 other barbers. So during off peak times, these stores act as studios where such videos
are being shot. They also indulge in other non-primary activities like training new artists
who joined store, attending agents from company or any other business enquires and so
on.

3) Vary Service Offerings: During peak hours, the artist consults the regular customers to
come during a prescribed off peak time so that artist can spend more time to cater to
that regular clients.

Store used for Employees driven

promotional video shoots seminars for customers

Demand Too Low Adjust Capacity Demand Too Low

Increasing Capacity to match demand

Occasionally they have to increase capacity to match demand. Tactics they follow are:
1) Increasing Capacity: Javed Habib works on franchisee model and most of their furniture
is fixed. Therefore there is not a lot they can do to match demand. During festive
season, they increase a couple of extra seats to provide basic services and extra chairs
in waiting room. But if overall demand in that territory increases than company may open
a new store while taking into account the territory of existing store.
2) Stretch People: Our employees are well informed in advance that during festive seasons
only the genuine cases will be given vacation and rest all hands will be required on the
job. they even hire well reputed specialized artists on hourly basis during festive season.
3) Cross Train Employees-They have also cross trained their employees and in case of
high demand all the employees collaborate and distribute work to increase efficiency.
For example during college events, an artist assigned to a seat will take care of end to
end servicing that particular client
Adjust use of resources to match demand
When demand is low following tactics are being used:
 1) Auxiliary activities: When the demand is low, at that time staff performs auxiliary
activities like counting inventories, filling up the stock at the service point, repairing the
equipment or cleaning the facility and equipment.
2) Schedule Vacation and Employee Training: All our employee training workshops, video
shoots for promotion are performed when demand is low. Company also schedule most
of the paid vacations of employees, during this time.
3) Modify Facilities: Most of the renovation works happens during the non-peak hours.

Differentiating between customers

The success in this industry depends on two major factors: the service they provide and level of
personal attention they give to clients. Many clients that come to store are shop loyal and share
a personal connection with a particular craftsman. Hence, many a time unknowing they
differentiate between their customers in following ways:

1) Importance to customer: They give special importance to regular customer. This

encourages their colleagues or other customers to be more loyal to store. Regular
customers are given special advises, a craftsmen will spend more time on them,
craftsmen will be aware of clients preference and hence will ty to personalize service.
Sometimes complementary services are given to regular customers to increase their
delight for example a mini facial with hair spa.
2) Urgency of Job: They follow waitlist and customers can’t skip the queue by giving
premium price but in case of high demand and time constraint during festive season;
they perform tasks more mechanically and try to maintain adequate service level.
3) Duration of service transaction: In case of high demand, craftsmen spend less time
talking to customer and perform task more mechanically to reduce the transaction time
per customer. Many a times the craftsmen prepare well in advance and keeps the stock
near to service delivery time examples: shampoo bottles are filled in advance, extra skin
care products are kept near table so as to reduce the transit time.
4) Payment of a premium price: They already charge a premium for the branded service
they are giving. They maintain service quality level across stores and hence the
premium is charged to justify it.
 Pricing

It is well known that they charge premium for being a well-known brand that provides
standardize service across nation. But still their prices depends on various factors. Here is a
brief on how have they used best practices from different models:

1) Cost Based Pricing: Overhead cost and profit margins remains same but prices vary as
per Direct Cost. Most of the contribution to Direct Cost is the product that the customer is
using. Usually, customers have inclination towards certain brands therefore they have to
vary the prices as per the MRP of that particular brand like Wella products.

Price= Direct Cost+ Overhead Cost+ Profit Margin

2) Competition Based Pricing: Usually their brand equity gives them right to charge
premium but during festive season they have to take into account the strategies adopted
by competitors. They cannot risk losing the potential customers during those seasons.
Therefore discounts and price bundles are being formed considering the offers provided
by competitors.
The store usually encounters different segments of customers for whom the values perceived
varies. Here are some of the pricing strategies that store follows to cater such customers:

Values is Strategy Description

Value is Low Discounting They give special discounts during festivals
Price especially around Diwali and Navratri to
capture market. Special discounts are also
given to college students for college events.
Odd Pricing They also use odd pricing so that the
transaction value perceived by price conscious
customer is psychologically low
Penetrating Pricing When a store opens in new territory, they offer
inaugural discounts to penetrate that market
and to establish customer base
Value is Prestige Pricing Javed Habib is a well-known brand and they
everything charge premium for their brand equity.
customer
want
Value is Market Segmentation Pricing Some services are priced based on different
quality segments. For example charges of haircut and
customer get keratin treatment prices vary based on hair
for price they length: short, shoulder and full
pay
Value is that Price Bundling They create special bundles for hair spas,
customer gets bridal services and festive services. Here
for what they various individual services are clubbed
pay together in a bundle. This way store cross sells
the services and customers get significant cost
savings.
Complementary Pricing As discuss the craftsman acts as an advisor, so
while servicing the clients they leverage
captive pricing strategies and keep pushing
customers for complementary services like nail
shaping with manicure.
Gap Model
Gap 1: The Listening Gap

This is the gap between the customer’s expectation of service and company’s understanding of
those expectations. Following is the status of the store:

 They do not spend adequate time in the market in understanding the pricing of the
competitors. This task is usually done around the festive season else the higher
premium they charge is justified by brand equity of Javed Habib
 There is proper upward communication. All the reports are sent to corporate office and
Mr. Javed Habib keeps visiting different stores to interact with employees and
understand clients
 They focus a lot on relationship building. Most of their clients are shop loyal and prefer a
particular artist. Here these artists acts as personal consultants to these clients and
recommend service offerings keeping interest of customer in mind.
 They have basic service recovery model as per best practices of industry.
There is still some scope of improving service on this front. They need to spend more time to
understand the offerings and pricings of their competitors like Lakme and Naturals. They also
need to specify or form set of recommendations to follow for service recovery.

Gap 2: The Service Design and Standard Gap

It is essentially required that store has service design and performance standards that reflects
accurately with customers perception. Following is the status of store:
 Mr Javed Habib personally interacts with customers and employees hence new services
are designed as per the feedback provided by customers and corporate office lays down
some standards that each store has to follow
 The service standards of company are highly effective and they charge premium based
on this standardized services.
 They have appropriate physical standards described. The employees have to wear
branded aprons, the store layout is designed in collaboration with corporate office, they
even take care of particulars like lightning, music, etc.
They have covered this gap appropriately.

Gap 3: The Service Performance Gap

Firms need to have standard systems, processes, policies and trained staff so that service
delivered matches the standardization and designs laid out. Following is the status of store:

 They have effective human resource policies laid down. They spend sufficiently enough
to train their employees, they constantly conduct seminars and sessions over social
media and also run Hair Academy.
 They keep educating customers via social media and especially during covid, they
request their customer to wear mask and sanitize hands before entering store. This has
also impacted their bottom line as these regular customers bring in more referrals or
socialize with other customers in waiting line.
  All the franchises are given recommendation by corporate office but given enough
flexibility to align with local markets. Therefore the alignment with service intermediaries
cannot be perfect but given the nature of business this much flexibility is acceptable.
 They have fair understanding of demand and capacity. But this is based on experience
of store manager and as most of the guidelines and furniture are fixed they cannot do
much to adjust store or cater to spike in demand.
There seems to be gap on this front but given the nature of their business this is acceptable.
What they can improve here is to use technology to predict demand and take measures
accordingly to deal with that scenario.

Gap 4: The Communication Gap

This gap deals with difference between service delivery and the service provider’s external
communication. Following is the status of store:
 Their marketing communication is well integrated. As we have previously shown the
service marketing triangle and illustrated how well they have aligned themselves to
particulars.
 Their pricing strategy takes into account the best practices of all the pricing models and
they follow certain pricing tactics to deal with different segment of customers whom
value perceived have different meanings.
They were doing great job on this front. Going forward they just need to monitor these activities
to identify any gap potentially created.

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