Using Service Marketing in Establishing a Cafe-bakery in Finland

Abstract

In order to gain customer attraction and retention, service is the key to create a lasting relationship between the service provider and customer. The purpose of this thesis is to firstly analyze the customers’ expectations of several café-bakeries, their products and services. Then, the authors aim to use the data and service marketing knowledge on the future business, which is a café-bakery in the Helsinki area. The insights will be useful for attracting and retaining customers in the long run. Becoming a customer-driven business requires proper strategies of service marketing. Exceeding customer service expectations and relationship management are the major priorities of any small business to win over other competitors in the same industry. On the other hand, the number of café-bakeries in Finland is limited. Therefore, the authors mainly concentrate on the popular café-bakeries in Finland in this research. Besides, a theoretical framework for Finnish bakeries is difficult to find. As a result, the authors use general theory of bakery and update the current trends of the bakery industry in Finland.

To conduct the research, academic sources including theories about customer behaviour, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and service marketing concept were exploited. Additionally, the literature review covers Finnish habits of going to cafés, the café-bakery trend in Finland, high-lights of service marketing, history of cafe, coffee in Europe and Scandinavia, and current trends in the bakery industry. Qualitative research methods were utilized in this thesis. With the help of the observation method, data of customer’s activities and behavior at the café-bakery were gathered. Next, net scouting was used to validate and evaluate the scale of factors, which affect cus-tomer satisfaction. Finally, market survey was used to identify customers’ knowledge of the café-bakery industry, demands, expectations, and the opportunity of the café-bakery concept to enter the current market.

The outcome of this research consists of four sections, including the results of the used research methods, namely, service marketing, service blueprint, and vision for the future café-bakery. To achieve that objective, a model for the café-bakery business is selected to come up with im-provement ideas to develop better services for the café-bakery to be established and other café-bakeries in Finland. In addition, service blueprint is applied as a development method to closely study the interaction between a café-bakery and customers. This study is also valuable academically for foundation research and benefitting the café-bakery industry by offering practical impli-cations. It displays a data analysis to improve customer perceptions of existing café-bakeries and to create service innovations.