Mansoor Danish – Impact of Covid19 on Education and Service Marketing
AI: Summary ©
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted business and education services, with service marketing being a crucial part of business processes and creating loyalty for customers. The importance of physical environments and promotions in enhancing customer experiences and improving marketing mix is emphasized. The shift towards online admissions has led to a greater need for teachers to develop their skills and improve their workload, and physical environments are becoming more flexible. The success of marketing in preventing the spread of COVID-19 and the importance of technology in promoting businesses is emphasized. There is a need for more digital marketing and a webinar on startups and COVID-19 exposure.
AI: Summary ©
Salam aleikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim Al hamdu lillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah
Hello everybody, this is monsoon daanish And I welcome you all to the second webinar in the business webinar series.
In sha Allah, Allah Allah in today's session, we will be discussing about the impact of Corona on the education and the service marketing sector. And we are extremely honored to have with us sister Salima Musharraf, who is a lecturer at the International Open University for the department of the Business Administration.
Before we begin, and before we invite her to make a presentation, I would like to remind you that the Islamic online university and now called the International Open University is conducting a series of business webinar every weekend. So you can join us every Saturday, as we address different issues pertaining to Business and Business Administration and the impact on these businesses after the Coronavirus.
Last week we discussed
about
a very pertinent topic
which was the impact of COVID in the business sector.
This week we are discussing about the service marketing sector insha Allah in the next week, we will be discussing about business communication, how would business communication change because of the new norm which is COVID.
And like this, we have a series of webinar which is lined up every Saturday, we will also be joined in by a special guest rather Ashraf Muhammadi, the director of EDA investments Mumbai from India. He will be speaking about Sharia compliance in the field of share markets. Many of you might be savvy investors and you would like to know about share market and investing in sharemarket. And how do you know what is halal and what is not? We will also be joined in by another guest, brother Abdul Rahim, who is a farmer entrepreneur. And he will talk about how and what are the different businesses you can begin in this market? What are the new options that you have?
So all of this is going to come up every weekend. Stay tuned, follow us on the Facebook page. Do subscribe to our YouTube channel. And remember, you can visit the IRS website and check out the series of programs that we offer to you from Islamic studies, to Islamic banking and economics to psychology to Business Administration to education to it so on and so forth. You can check it out for yourself. However now, without further ado, I would like to request sister, Salama Musharraf to make her initial presentation and we will take the question answers if there are any at the end of the session. So Salama Michelle riff over to you.
So many common Emma's Deborah Carter who does our color hair brother, Montreal daanish for the lovely introduction, without wasting any time I'd like to jump into our webinar immediately, like the use of say after like weather once with Annie said, I'm going to talk about the impact of Corona on education service marketing. I've been associated with the teaching field for about two decades now and Hamdulillah. And I've seen a lot of changes especially during this time during this Corona time period where there are a lot of changes that have been brought in to the the educational system. So what I would like to discuss this basically what service marketing is and then the impact
on
paying for education. So let's start
Not with it with art was
smaller handed to him and hamdu lillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah, while only as Habibi, Why mine, brother French, Spanish has already told you that we are in the business web series, and I am part of the Department of Business Administration.
We are going to start and we've done the introduction, we'll go on with the marketing mix, and then service marketing. And then we'll discuss the impact of COVID on education service marketing, and then we'll conclude with a little bit of q&a session. So for those of you who might be very new to the topic, or we would like to know basically, what a service is, when you want to discuss what services marketing is, obviously, you have to first find out what the robot services actually are. So do we
know that services are those economic activities offered by one party to another most commonly employ time based performances to bring about desired results. So basically, we talk we all know about certain products, we know that there are tangible goods and then in economics or for business, we discuss intangible products, which are the services. Now why are services important today, very important, because not only are most services dominating most of the economies of the world today, but you also see that the services sector is growing very rapidly. Now, obviously, based on the fact that this is growing,
there is a need for
to market the products and service marketing, you must 60% of the gross domestic product worldwide. And it is now generating most of the new employment that is occurring in all the countries of the world, especially the developed economies.
Since it's obviously such a growing field, there is the strongest growth area for marketing. And it is the services marketing becomes a very, very important part of the business
processes today. Now, service marketing basically could be divided into there is the traditional approach. And then there is the extended marketing mix. For those of you who may know about the marketing mix, we're basically talking about the basic product marketing mix. For those of you who don't know about it, the marketing mix is a term where you actually which is employed for actually marketing products from their production, right down to the end consumer, or using the product through promotion, through its pricing way to sell the product, etc. So these four product pricing promotion and placement, basically form the traditional product marketing mix. With services,
there's an extension in the marketing mix, which is the people process and the physical evidence. Now, what are the seven P's of marketing and why are they needed, I just told you what the seven P's are, they generally call the seven P's because of obviously, the first letter starting with P, the need for the extension is because of the high degree of contact between the service providers and its customers, you know that people are obviously consuming services. It's not like a like a coat which you consume. And there is the end of it, what happens is that pay for services, there needs to be a direct contact between the producer and the customer. And therefore there is it's a very highly
visible, visible nature of the services product, there is a very, it's very evident the kind of services that need to be provided and because of the fact that there is a simultaneity of the production and consumption, which means that while the service is being produced, it's most probably at the same time that it is being consumed, is why the seven piece of service marketing are so important. For instance, I spoke about education. Let's say I'm delivering this webinar to you right now. I'm the producer and you're the consumer you consuming it, while it is in the process of production. So, we will take the seven piece one at a time and then we will apply to education. Now
the seventh the first key of the service marketing mix and the traditional marketing mix is product. Now in the case of services, like I just told you that the product is not tangible, it is intangible, because of the fact that it is intangible it means that there are so many different diverse ways in which people would like to consume the this product this service basically, then it is it also means that there
are different ways in which it needs to be produced, and for it to reach the consumer so that the consumer satisfaction is at its peak. Now, because there is such a great scope of customizing these services, we need to consider every single customer and the requirements before even we actually go into providing them the service.
The problem that arises is that if you're customizing too much, what will probably happen is that you will be compromising on the service of quality. Again, you know that if there's a policy universe University, where there are hundreds and 1000s of students, and few teachers, or let's say, there is a very small amount of faculty, what would eventually happen would be that there would be a compromise in the service. So, which is something that when you will have to promote a product, you need to ensure that there is a particular standard that is maintained for the provision of the service. Therefore, as the last point states, the particular care has to be taken in designing the
way that the services are offered, we then move on to the next p, which is price. Now, price means simply basically, in general terms, when you buy a product from the market, you pay a price for it, when you buy a service, you pay a price for it. On the producer side, it's a very difficult decision to set a price for service. Why because you do not have the different costs of production at war, for a product in a product, you know that, okay, I've spent up so much of labor, so much on overhead costs, and so much of raw material, and you aggregate that, and then you put up or let's say, a certain profit margin on it and us set the price for selling the product in the market. But
obviously for the services, it is difficult because even though the labor costs and overhead costs are there, there is the cost of the service, puzzle provision, and the quality of the service that needs to be considered as well. So when you see a university or university will not just charge for the overhead costs, but also obviously the environment that they're providing to the students the quality of education that they are providing, etc. If I quote another example, a restaurant, when you go to a restaurant, you do not just pay for the food, you also pay for the ambiance. So, just like that, in the education services, there has to be a certain standard and there has to be a
certain quality of education that is important, but is it a high quality or a low quality, it is difficult to set a price based on a service because it is not so tangible.
The next piece plays basically where is the service being provided. Now, the service should be provided in such a place where it is not only is the accessible to the consumer, but it is also convenient for them to access that service, so that they are left with a good experience. Now, again, if the producer does not take care of where are they providing this service, what is going to happen is they may let's say set up a college or university in a far flung area where there might not be so much of
density of population. Now, if that happens, it may be convenient for the people living there, but for the people coming from the cities that may not be that convenient. So, you see that the place is of pivotal importance, because and it plays an important role because it will affect the overall consumer tastes for the service. Right. We then move on to the next P which is promotion. Now promotion generally means our people understand it as advertising. Advertising is just one component of promotion. Promotion basically encompasses many different aspects, such as discount offers, such as sponsorship and different other offers that you may see in different marketplaces. And what is
the purpose for them in the traditional mix, the purpose to is to create a brand loyalty. Similarly, the services sector would also want to create the the certain brand loyalty of the customers for their product. Why would they want to do that? Because there are so many different people offering so many identical services that obviously they want their service to set apart from many different other services so that not only to people, new customers, or new sales occur, new people access the service, but also the ones who
have already tried the service, they get a good experience, and they would be willing to try the service again and again. So, as the first bullet point states brand loyalty is since a service offering can be easily replicated, promotion becomes crucial in differentiating a service offering in the mind of the consumer. Now, when there are so many different services, and they're all providing the same thing, a consumer has many different options to employ, and to satisfy themselves with brand loyalty, like I said, with sets the business apart, or will set the particular service apart from all the others, so that they would be able to
be, as the Word says, All as the word is itself loyal to that certain brand. Now, this would attract new market segments, a segment is a small proportion of the entire market. So when we talk about a market segment, we're talking about the proportion of sales from the entire market up so the businesses would want to attract new market segments to their particular services, so that they again, can get a greater revenue as compared to the other service providers.
People now this is the extended marketing mix, right? If we talk about people, what does it mean? Now the people they truly it means the people that work within an organization, the employees, its frontline workers, Now you would think but that's pretty much similar to a traditional market may Yes, it is. But under services you know, that the people who are employed for providing the services the people who deal with the customers play the most important role in accessing the you're in promoting the business to the customers. Therefore, we say that it's a defining factor, this is the people are the ones who will actually
ensure that the customers either keep on coming or run away from the business and obviously since nobody wants people to run away from their business, they will employ the best people possible. Now, sales the people or the employee workforce, the frontline workers basically plays such a crucial role it is very important
alright.
Y'all
no that happened are important that the business or service business business, treat the people that work with the customers in the best possible way? And how do they do that, by ensuring that the people that they have employed are actually the best people for that particular service? And again, how do you do that by developing the personnel by making sure that you're providing the customer service personnel with the
resources in terms of training in terms of interpersonal skills, to ensure that they are able to not only convey what the business culture is to the consumers, the fact that they are a willing and competitive enough to do the best job possible and the fact that they would not only just satisfy customers, but also retain customers for a perfectly customers satisfied experience and so, that again, you capture those people and make them loyal to your particular service.
We then move on to process now, what does the term process mean? Process is the way in which anything takes place right. So the process under extended marketing mix is the way in which services deliver to the end customer and how is that done by marketing the service. What you do you ensure that not only is a good standard of service provided once but every single time that the customer comes back to the company to the business, you providing them repeatedly, the same high standard
Quality of Service. Um, it may have occurred with you many times that you've tried out a service, you liked it, you use it. And then after a certain period of time, you say, Ah, I think they've just, you know, messed up with the services, we don't want to continue with them anymore. And what happens, you will at that point, think about a competitor service. And you would probably call try that out, which is what businesses don't want. Therefore, they need to ensure that the high quality standards are maintained, even in services, which are important to the customers. Now, in a lot of places, basically, because this is so important, they make a kind of a blueprint, which is sort of,
you could say, a draft, or the SOP standard operating procedures for people to follow. And people
would have to follow those when they are interacting with the customers I
if you call up certain companies, you hear the CSRS and if you call them 100 times, like me having to call certain services, a billion times in a year, do tend to recognize the same phrases, the same words, the same responses that the gift certain query. And what happens is that you actually learn what they're about to say to you. Now, why does that happen, because for the company, they need to ensure standardize services. So I hope you do understand why the process part is important, before we move on, and let's now move on to the physical environment. Now, this is pretty easy. And it's quite self explanatory. The physical environment literally means what is physically around you,
again, the facilities that are being provided, along with the service. Now, you don't really just want
less, if you want the service, you don't really just look at the service. But you could also look at the personnel and which is why they're giving you the service. And then what you also see the environment in which the service is provided to you. So therefore, we see here that the physical environment incorporate certain tangible elements into their offerings to enhance customer experience. Now, to think about that, in the educational sector, compare public school with the private school.
Just think for a second about the services that are provided. And the infrastructure that you see in a public school as compared to a private school.
be uncertain, tells you the very reason why private schools are much more popular than public schools in most of the countries of the world, because obviously, the facilities that are provided along with the service are very, very important. For instance, if you're providing education, you having a workplace classroom, or maybe having multimedia within the classrooms, those are the physical environment, right, those are important because they go along to make or to complete the entire marketing mix. And this is obviously another extension of the traditional marketing mix. And therefore, the physical environment becomes a very crucial factor as well as the other two
components to make a proper a complete marketing mix.
Now, service marketing is impacted by changes in the external environment, which would make certain existing practices outdated and require the redesign of fundamental processes. Now, there are different ways in which that could happen, like government policies, social changes, business trends, advances in information technology, and internationalization. Now, you can so vividly see that in today's world, the external environment has had a very, very critical impact on education and its service marketing, not just education, but also so many different products, and so many different services. What has happened is that the entire way in which education is being provided
has changed. People have moved from physical classroom teaching to online teaching, do you not see what's the great amount of what a great change what a great change has occurred in the way that this service is delivered? And what is the reason I'm not going to go into the pitch of the bullet points in detail because it says short webinar. So for this, you can access our courses on the international Online Open University. There are many different courses and many different questions that you may have answered if you access it
courses there, you can go check out our website or our YouTube pages, and you will see that there would be a lot more information and inshallah if you join the courses then obviously, you can get a more expansive idea about the different products. Now, the in the
excuse me are the image
the performance is measured for a certain service is by seeing that whether there is a reduction in the amount in the
number of times there is a service failure, whether it has increased in productivity, or whether there is increased customer satisfaction or not, once again an area that I'm not going to delve into too much, because right now, I want to go on to discussing the impact of
Corona on ko or COVID-19 or education service margin, which is giving you a certain idea, right.
Okay, now, if you see the impact of Corona on education, service marketing, like I just discussed, the first one that comes to you, right at the top of your head, is the fact that there is greater use of distance learning, you see that people are using online tools and using those to access education. Furthermore, initially, you know that in a lot of places, I
actually did not fully attain degrees in certain classrooms settings, as much as they did the distance learning distance learning. Fact, a degree obtained through distance learning is not even credited in many places, they do not accept it.
And it becomes very difficult for those people who would like to continue with their academics from a distance learning program to a physical learning program. But now with a sudden change because of this pandemic, that spread, you see that not only is the greater use, but also greater acceptability for of distance learning programs. And therefore, you see that people are rushing to different software's online in order to acquire knowledge. Now, this year you see is we know that we have zoom, we have Microsoft Teams, we have Google meet, and we have many other software's that are available for free, and then you can have extra services if you pay for them. Now, what has happened
is that in a lot of educational services, the way that they have to now sell their service or to get the service to reach the customers requires less teachers. Now, what do you see a direct impact on the people? Which P is it affecting the people? All right. Can you guess what does the greater use of automation? How does that impact? Which P does that impact?
Yes, think?
Very good process, right? The fact that you're actually using more automation means that the process of imparting knowledge has changed. And other thing that has happened is like we discussed earlier on, that the companies need to ensure that the teachers develop their skills. See, this is the people part again, the teachers had to learn many new skills. There are imagine we're not just talking about education and developed areas, but less developed areas as well, right? Areas that really don't have access to proper Internet services, people who may not be aware of different certifications, or even different software's everywhere in the world, people have had to change the
way in which education took place, if they are already aware of the software's if they're already aware of the different certifications that are there. There people have used those skills in certain areas, again, you see a different type of distance learning. What is that the process part has changed? where let's say in a less developed country like Pakistan, there is a channel which will which shows within the school timings that were followed earlier on the same subjects that were being important to students at this at different
time slots. So you see what has happened because of this Corona is that the entire process of the service marketing has changed. There's a greater need for the BLS really is a virtual learning experts, people who are obviously very, very savvy in the way that software's and courses need to be developed online, and how they need to be imported customer or consumer engagement. And then you see that there are more flexible timings. This is one thing that is very, very attractive to a lot of people. The fact that instead of going and working in this inner inner place from let's say, nine to five, you can now work from home. And a lot of places are now accepting flexible timings. So what is
happening is that people are probably more productive now, in a lot of places that having to
there being required to put in extra hours as well, because of which a lot of people are not really very happy. But what has happened is that this has actually been able to take the entire service marketing towards different level.
Okay, we then move on to our next slide.
Continuing with the impact of Corona on education service marketing, we see that the schools now are the colleges or the universities now are more aware of providing a good physical environment to the students and the teachers, they need to be more aware of more hygienic methods. For instance, the entire process has changed how, you know, this colleges, the universities have to provide hand sanitizers ensure that there is running water in the toilets, or, you know, hand washing solutions, you know that a lot of places don't even have that, especially the less developed economies. So that's another impact of Corona on the education, service marketing, then again, enabling social
distancing within the physical space. Now, when the educational institutions reopen, as have started reopening, in many places, they service marketing would be successful only if they can ensure a social distancing between the physical space within the classrooms. Now, where we have certain institutions, where students were trapped in a classroom, like sardines in a tent, Now, then.
What change if they don't, there is a lot of being lost their market segment. And because of this, because if they are successful, and they do a good job, that from word of mouth is helping them to market this themselves. And obviously, people who are still fearful of this disease would flock to those places where the the hygiene standards and the safety standards are met, the SOPs are met again, then you see, we're running out a little bit of time. So I'm going to speed up a little bit, we see that the fee structure the fee payments, and the fee structures have advocated. Now the fees are a source of revenue for the for those schools, which are obviously, business providing service,
what has happened is that a lot of p of these businesses had to change the pricing of their services. And what you see obviously, the overhead costs are cut down, the physical employee costs have been cut down because a lot of people have let go of their employees sadly, so but it has happened. And so what has happened there pricing has to change the and in these days where the parents are unable to on a lot there, you see that people are more
they're more attracted to places which would give them a better fee structure. So a lot of places have started waving off their admission fees, especially because admissions will now be taking online are given again that the results for the colleges have just come out for a levels etc. So you see that there are fee payments which are online the selection which is online, and so forth, and then you see that in order to attract customers where they will few scholarships offered before. Now there are a lot more scholarships offered. So we then
would I would like to while before I close this do
Just want to tell you and before I move on to the q&a session would want you to know that if you want to join the IU program, there's a lot more that you can learn about the services marketing, you can connect with us on our Facebook page and do remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel, you could get answers like the what are the pre purchase, service encounter and post encounters changes stages and their impacts in service marketing? How should the services be distributed? The How to businesses enter the cycle of failure, mediocrity and success, what are the different service call or service qualities that are there for services etc. So, before I end this, I would like to open
the
gate for question and answers. And I would like to see we have a few minutes if there are any questions that are coming. If not, then we will just close the session.
Thank you so much. Sister Salama Mushara for your presentation. May Allah subhanho wa Taala portrayed and Baraka in your presentation, and to all the people who took time out and listen to the presentation. If you have any questions, you're requested to please put it forward in the YouTube Live Chat.
And of course, if there are no questions, we will be wrapping up the session. And while you people figure out if you have any questions or not, this is a very important topic that Salima Musharraf has made a presentation on if you see the entire service sector is going to change. And the best part of the service sector is that while we're talking about shifting of the entire processes, from brick and mortar setup, to a digital setup, at the same time, you will have sectors like the airport industry, you will have service sector like the medical facilities, the hospitals, the nursing homes, the form of services offered by them will also change. You can digitize a lot of airport
facilities, right you can't ask people to digitally travel from one place to the other, they still need to physically come in contact service points are there. But we will see how
diverse and how robust the whole system is going to get going forward from here on. So we're going to see all of that inshallah Allah in the coming few days and weeks and years. And as I was making a presentation last week and I mentioned to all of you who joined that any one of us who thinks that this is a temporary phenomena and we will soon come out of COVID and things will go back to normal. This is the new normal, we need to come to terms with reality. The reality is what we are living right now, this impact is going to be bringing about new changes in our system. Okay. I'll quickly take a couple of questions which have come in there is a question from Frogmouth she wants to know
which are the skills that should be promoted in order to increase marketability of business courses. Now, I am not clear what she means you have a business courses, but if I assume that to mean educational courses, so sister Salama, she wants to knows in order to promote business programs, business courses, which are the skills which will be more important in the current market setup you know with the COVID and everything
which are the more important skills according to you, thank you so much.
He
he different skills be being a boost Kaji of team
is very important. Okay.
So you
say you have friends off using the software's the business scores that are most important I will answer what you want to know basically, the different skills that help in the virtual
worlds to
be the college.
Oh, we are unfortunately not able to hear you clearly sister Salima.
Okay, just repeat myself. What I was saying was that for those courses, if I'm understanding the question correctly, and you're talking about what skills are necessary for the promotion of business courses, right, obviously, you need to have
As the most important factor, according to me, would be technology, you would have to be able to promote the technology that is required
imparting education and be able to apply it to the different levels of education that are being important.
have answered the question. Yeah, thank you so much. So, Salima has told us that the most important thing going forward will be the use of technology. So it's extremely important that we equip ourselves better in handling technology, and probably courses which are dealing with technology will have a very important role going forward. Okay, there is another question,
which is on what's the best and the cheapest market platform to use for a startup business? This particular question, I will not take it up because I think this is more appropriate for what Mr. Abdul Rahim will be doing on the first of September. On the 12th of September, we have another webinar, which will come with Mr. Abdul Rahim. He will be talking about startups. And I think that will be a more appropriate question to address to him.
There's another clarification to Solomon, just in case you might want to provide the lady who asked the previous question. She says when she mentioned business courses, she was referring to Business Studies, from business studies perspective. So what are the important services? So I think technology certainly is one of the most important thing like you rightly mentioned.
Yes, I think we have answered the question. Okay. All right. Fair enough. There is another quick question, though, I don't know whether this falls under service or not. But she wants to know about business analysis and evaluation, evaluating of businesses, the way the current businesses are working, there will be further evaluation and analysis, which will be done. So what's your view on that? Do you think?
Or do you have any opinion on this? When offices, all businesses would have to evaluate and analyze themselves, and they have had to do that those who have been able to analyze and evaluate themselves, and then obviously made remedial measures, taking remedial measures to change their processes are the ones that are successful. So it's not an option. It's not something that businesses may have to consider, they have to consider it. Because given the external environment, as we discussed it, there are so many rapid and crucial changes that any business that does not analyze and evaluate themselves, according to these factors would actually be left out of the race.
Okay, thank you so much for that. I think I'll take one more question. And then we will wrap up or we just have another couple of minutes. Is there any particular virtual platform or online platform where people can go and visit and study to build their skills? The ones which are talking of like technology, etc?
Yes, sir. Yes, there are many different
websites offering such courses like Coursera CE, o u, r, Se Ra. If you search online, there are many, many different multiple actually, people and organizations that are helping students and even individuals housewives, etc. Everyone to develop the skills, these particularly like Coursera has a free courses, a lot of free courses to offer.
Okay, thank you so much BarakAllahu fee for your time and for answering all the questions. There is another question and I will answer that question. The lady wants to know, Are you are you a faculty? Yes, sister, Salima Musharraf is a faculty in the department of the Business Administration. She teaches the course education, service marketing, and I must also invite all of those who are listening to visit the IOU website. The website detail is right up on your screen. And you can join the business administration program we have a series of programs to offer. We have courses on degree which is a four year program. We have a associate degree program, which is a two year program. We
also have certificate programs, which run for you for a year, you're invited to join the program. I am the head of the department for the business administration Munsell daanish And I'm thankful to masala Musharraf, who took time out to join the session today and be part of it. Thank you so much Mr. Salama, I would like you to have the last word and conclude the session Baraka low Fico.
Yes, I just like to use
Like
has mentioned you must always it poses many of you could relate to it so we hope to see you there in sha Allah Tala and if you have any other questions you can leave them in the chat box and maybe we can answer them later for you with that semana de la mama Baba humbug Asha Lila
like Google or lake or Santa Monica, what's up