Ethical Implication

BUS225 Group Assignment

1. Service Blueprint

Customer actions include the choice of visiting a Calvin Klein retail store, browsing clothes and asking for recommendations from a sales representative. Visible actions performed by Calvin Klein’s sales representative include greet customers upon arrival, check for inventory, bring clothes to customers and process payment. These actions are visible to customers and one invisible action performed by the sales representative would be finding customer clothes in the back room. The support processes include inventory-tracking system, inventory in the back room and POS systems, which allow the sales representative to deliver service smoothly.

2. Introduction

Calvin Klein is one amongst the leading fashion style and marketing studios within the world. It styles and markets women’s and men’s designer assortment attire and a variety of different products that area unit factory-made and marketed through an intensive network of licensing agreements and different arrangements worldwide.

2.1 Target Market

Calvin Klein targets male and female, and the millenials. The demographics of the people that would be receiving these messages from the “My Calvins” campaign would be men and women between the ages of 15-30, not married and have a median income.

Millenials believe that the next generation of robots are not going to replace people, but instead help to improve the effectiveness and service of industries. In today’s world, to suggest that automation will eliminate the need for human workers is proving to be as ridiculous as suggesting that tablets will replace laptops.

In the industrial world, robot design is pivoting from giant mechanical arms that take up factory floors, to smaller, more collaborative bots, that are designed to work alongside people. While these collaborative bots only make up 3% of the market today, they will make up 34% of the market by 2025.

3. Trend and importance of robotics

3.1. Role of robotics

The service sector is at an inflection point with regard to productivity gains and service industrialization similar to the industrial revolution in manufacturing that started in the eighteenth century. Robotics in combination with rapidly improving technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), mobile, cloud, big data and biometrics will bring opportunities for a wide range of innovations that have the potential to dramatically change service industries. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential role service robots will play in the future and to advance a research agenda for service researchers (Wirtz et al. 2018).

Advancements in technology are radically transforming service, and increasingly providing the underlying basis for service strategy. Technological capabilities inevitably advance, firms will tend to move from standardized to personalized and from transactional to relational over time, implying that firms should be alert to technological opportunities to personalize their relationships with customers (Huang and Rust 2017).

3.2. Impact

These machines can improve efficiency, reduce labour costs and are expected to reduce the risk of injury to maintenance personnel. Locomotion is essential for these machines and this can be achieved using several methods. Despite there already being a number of pieces of theoretical research and technological developments in this area, problems related to stability, ability and autonomy still exist (Gonçalves and Carvalho 2013).

For example, the application of item-level radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in retail supply chains creates cost savings and promises large potential benefits from revenue growth. However, the economic assessment of the impact on improved store operations, labor utilization, and increased sales is still not fully explored (De Marco et al. 2012).

Products with low carrying costs are distributed between the bricks-and-mortar stores and the online store. Products with high carrying costs can be withdrawn from the bricks-and-mortar stores and made available exclusively at the online store where the inventory carrying costs are comparatively lower. This strategy assists the hybrid retailer to not only improve the profitability of its bricks- and-mortar stores but also to retain the custom of the market segment that is loyal to the items withdrawn from the traditional stores (Bhatnagar and Syam 2014).

3.3. Service profit chain

The service-profit chain model emphasizes the benefits of service quality which displays the link between employee satisfaction, customer loyalty and profitability. When a customer is satisfied with the service, it creates customer loyalty, which in turn results in profit and growth for the company. Customer satisfaction is mainly influenced by the value of services delivered to them. With good internal service quality, it improves on employee satisfaction, which results in higher productivity and it affects the external service quality provided to customers. (Hogreve et al. 2017).

3.4. The Russell Model of Affect

As an alternative explanation of incongruent findings in the literature, the purpose of the present study is to introduce the concept of hedonic versus utilitarian service context as a moderating variable in the relationship between the affect (pleasure and arousal) and perceived service quality and satisfaction. A consumer survey was conducted to test moderation hypotheses, which was analyzed with hierarchical regression equations.The results show that pleasure had stronger influences on perceived service quality and satisfaction in the hedonic service context than in the utilitarian service context. Arousal is found to influence perceived service quality and satisfaction in the hedonic service context but not in the utilitarian service context.It is likely that in hedonic related services, consumers will often use some affective criteria to evaluate service quality, in addition to the traditional service quality measures. Companies providing hedonic services should modify the content of their services or add novelty stimulus into their services from time to time in order to evoke the most desired consumer emotions and enhance satisfaction. (Jiang and Lu Wang 2006). For example, joy is conceptualized as an emotional state that is the result of strong activation in neural systems associated with positive valence or pleasure coupled with moderate activation in arousal-related neural systems.Therefore, when we have robotics in retail stores, consumers may find that it is a new and fun experience, which is also more efficient, allowing them to enjoy better service. Thereafter, they will feel happy and satisfied with the whole experience.

4. Ethical implication

4.1 Role and Impact

Virtue ethics has a positive impact on the development of company values. The theory offers restrictions to the virtue of the mind. It focuses on the character of an individual as the main element that determines ethical thinking. It plays an essential part in the creation of values among employees that later reflected on the mind of the employees. It leads to the nature of proper company ethics that focuses on the interest of the employees and customers to ensure that the adequate virtue of the company is appropriately observed.

The promotion of virtue ethics leads to the creation of satisfaction which is an elemental factor that is highly important to the customers. The development of values enables the employees to be ethically responsible, leading to the promotion of proper company intuitive goals (Vazquez 2018). The aspect leads to the creation of brand loyalty, which is a practice that comes with increased satisfaction. The promotion of practical ethics makes the preparation easy for the management as the process becomes easy to implement and understand regardless of the complications involved in the process.

Factors such as moderate and zone tolerance come with the adoption of casuist ethical theory, which entails a comparison of the current ethical situation together with the examples that are like the ethical conditions and the outcomes. They play an essential role in the presentation of the correct ethical theory. Its application in the creation of tolerance is an important issue that elaborates on the importance of ethical theories within Calvin Klein. It also applies to critical parts such as tangibility and responsiveness within the company (Morrison, et al. 2018).

4.2 Servicescape model and ethics

The servicescape model plays an essential part in addressing the relevance of utilitarianism ethics. Which the management applies in its decision making. The model is clearly defined by structures that focus on addressing the ethical theory to ensure that its maximum effectiveness is positively utilized. The division of the model into environmental dimensions, moderators, innate responses, and behavior plays a vital role in this case. The environmental aspects involved in the practice are ambient conditions that include the scent, music, noise, air quality, and temperatures (Vazquez 2018). Addressing such factors play an active role in the promotion of actual coordination within the management units to ensure that the ethical decision-making structure is adequately observed. The holistic environmental aspect of the model elaborates on the perceptions that are expected from the employees and the next appropriate step that the companies should take.

4.3 Moderators

Moderator is a part of the model that aids in the explanation of the positive implications of utilitarianism ethical theory within the company. The moderator needs to understand that the choice made typically yields the perfect benefit to most individuals, and this is the ethically correct choice (Gerde & Michaelson 2019). Employee response moderator and customer response moderators are essential aspects of the model that play a crucial role in ensuring that the ethical theory in play is fully utilized. Calvin Klein ensures that the theory of utilitarianism is clearly understood through the explanation of all the necessary practices that would facilitate positive responses.

4.4 Responses

The internal responses that the company has played an essential role in explaining the correct answers within the internal environment of Calvin Klein. It is a crucial factor that plays as a determiner as to which is the appropriate way forward. A look at the responses based on factors such as psychological, emotional, and cognitive responses that come from the company, and the psychological reactions typically entail physical fitness, movement, comfort, and pain (Floyd, Xu, Atkins & Caldwell 2013). The emotional aspect usually entails attitudes, moods, and feelings. The cognitive element involves the symbolic meaning, categorization, and beliefs. The adoption of the practices provides the correct way forward on the ethical aspect that the company can follow.

A look at the implication of the theories based on the employees and customers plays a crucial role in determining the appropriate direction that Calvin Klein could follow. Based on the situation, both the customer and employee would undergo the same assessment criteria. The activity entails considering the cognitive, emotional, and psychological responses that they would give. The reactions would determine if the company is applying the correct ethical theory in the decision-making structure (Gerde & Michaelson 2019). Ideally, positive beliefs, emotions, and comfort elaborate that both of them are comfortable with the ethical structure that the company is applying. It is a correct business structure that positively focuses on the company's needs and the appropriate ways that need to be embraced to determine the future direction of the company.

4.5 Behavior

The assessment of employee behavior plays a crucial role in determining the future direction that the company is going to take. How they behave after the theory is in place determines the future direction of Calvin Klein. Calvin Klein's positive response towards the practice is determined by positive behavior, which is highly influenced by the decision-making process (Floyd, Xu, Atkins & Caldwell 2013). The use of the right approach would lead to positive behavioral practices among the employees that focus on the real interest of the company. It is an essential practice that leads to the positive development of thought and understanding that reflects on the definite needs of the company.

5. Service failure

Many service providers may aim to provide excellent service to customers in order to enhance customer satisfaction and develop brand loyalty, however it is not an easy task due to the complexity of service delivery process and different consumer behaviour (Balaji, Roy, and Quazi. 2017). In the case of Calvin Klein, according to the service blueprint, we can see that there is service failure. If a sales representative is not well-trained enough, they may not have enough product knowledge to give recommendations to customers or to answer customers’ enquiries. Furthermore, there might be human error and communication break down at times. After the sales representative has checked the inventory system, the system may show the stock is available, however they may take a long time to locate the stock in the back room when someone else has made changes to where the stock is, and did not communicate to one another. This causes a long waiting time for customers to receive the clothes to try on.

5.1 Recommendations

Successful service recovery is essential for firms to improve on its service provided to customers and bring about good outcomes, such as customer return to buy again and promoting the brand to others. (Choi and La. 2013.) Hence we have two recommendations for service recovery.

We recommend implementing the use of robotics to enhance service flow and overall customer’s shopping experience. While the customer is browsing for clothes, the robot can showcase and give recommendations to the customer about the latest product and outfit. It can also provide the suitable size according to customer body shape. After which, the robot is able to check inventory for the item and go to the back room to get it for the customer to try on. The sales representative can focus on sharing more information about the shop products to customers, instead of spending time to locate the stock in the back room. With the assistance of robots, it shortens the customers’ waiting time and they can get to try more products which may result in more items purchased. Since there are human errors in handling payment, the robot may assist in processing payment for customers at the counter. This streamline the process and minimise human error and time waiting which result in better service experience.

Beside implementing the use of robotics, we recommend improvement in training for Calvin Klein’s sales representative. Other than the current product training Calvin Klein conducts for their employees, they should also look into enhancement in service training to increase its script proficiency as scripts consist of correct flow of service behaviors that should be displayed in a given environment and setting. With appropriate script at each specific stage of service counter, it optimises the customer experience. (Nicod, Llosa, and Bowen. 2020.) Whether it is full-time or part-time employees, they should receive sufficient training to ensure high quality of services are being delivered to customers.

Executive Summary (half a page)

References

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