THOMAS COOK TRAVEL AGENCY

Thomas Cook Travel Agency



Thomas Cook Travel Agency

Marketing communications between the service firm and its customers can take many forms, some of them highly creative. In a competitive environment, effective communications play a vital role in marketing strategy, moving new customers through the purchase-decision process and helping to reinforce brand preference among existing customers. (Doganis, 2007)

Developing a communications strategy for intangible services differs in important respects from advertising and promoting physical goods. Guidelines for action need to reflect the special characteristics of services. Many of the differences distinguishing services from goods have important implications for marketing communications. (Jacobs, 2002) The six most relevant differences are: Intangible nature of service performance, Customer involvement in production, Services are harder for customers to evaluate, need to balance supply and demand, Importance of customer-contact personnel, reduced role for intermediaries.

The Company's Profile In Editorial Of Different Media

For Thomas Cook Travel Agency, marketing communications tools are especially important because they serve to create powerful images and a sense of credibility, confidence and reassurance. Through the use of brand names, unified and recognizable corporate- design elements and well- executed services capes, Thomas Cook Travel Agency can give visibility and personality to their intangible service offerings. (Parasuraman, 2005)

Each of the different communication elements described above is a potentially powerful tool that can be used to create and promote a distinctive corporate brand or product identity. It can also be used to communicate with current and prospective customers and sell specific products. Marketing communications, in one form or another, are essential to a Thomas Cook Travel Agency's success. Without effective communications, prospects may never learn of a service firm's existence. People might never know what the company has to offer them or hose to use the products to the best advantage. Customers might be more easily lured away by competitors and competitive offerings and there would be no proactive management and control of the firm's identity. (Berry, 2005)

Intangible Nature of Service performances

Recognizing that service is a performance rather than an object means that ways have to be found to make the service more concrete and to clarify what the performance can do for the customer. Service providers should use tangible cues whenever possible in their advertising campaigns, especially for low-contact services, which involve a few tangible elements.

At a very basic level, some companies have succeeded in creating a tangible, recognizable symbol to associate with their corporate brand names. For instance, many companies employ animal motifs as physical symbols for their services. For example, the mouse dear for the Malaysian Bank Negara. (Parasuraman, 2008)

More important is making the message itself easier to grasp. Creating metaphors that are tangible in nature makes intangible claims more concrete. Thus, Fuji Bank presents a mountain motif to suggest corporate solidity, and Air India uses the Centaur as a symobol of movement and speed.

Communicate Desired Quality Standard and Regulation Changes

Although there are universal standards for airline quality and operations, it is not uncommon to have different interpretation between companies when it comes ...