Elite Hypermarket: The Puffs Predicament

This exercise details a significant service failure in 2021 at the in-house bakery of Elite Hypermarket, based in Goregaon, Mumbai, India, involving the accidental sale of puff pastries containing non-vegetarian filling to two strict vegetarian customers. The incident may provoke a social-media backlash and hence threatens to damage the hypermarket's reputation, prompting the store manager to quickly investigate and find solutions that will address the crisis and prevent similar situations in the future. Students will be challenged to apply service-management concepts to address customer grievances, improve operational processes, and communicate effectively with internal and external stakeholders.

This exercise is designed for undergraduate- or graduate-level service-marketing courses. Using a combination of discussion-based learning, role-playing, and group activities, the exercise challenges students to apply service-management concepts to address customer grievances, improve operational processes, and communicate effectively with internal and external stakeholders. After working through the exercise and assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:<br><br><ul><li>Think strategically about service recovery and customer-relationship management.</li><li>Enhance their ability to analyze and improve operational processes.</li><li>Develop skills in crafting clear, effective communication strategies during a crisis.</li><li>Gain insights into making ethical decisions that balance customer satisfaction, staff welfare, and business sustainability.</li><li>Explore strategies for compensating customers and restoring trust after a service failure.</li><li>Identify and recommend operational changes to prevent future incidents.</li><li>Develop communication strategies to handle crises and maintain transparency with both employees and customers.</li><li>Assess how managers can make swift, effective decisions in high-stakes situations.</li></ul>

• service recovery
• customer relationship management
• operational processes
• crisis communication
• ethical decision making
• service failure
• customer compensation
• trust restoration
• service blueprinting
• service gaps model
• marketing strategy
• strategic thinking
• service management
• customer grievances
• process improvement
• crisis handling
• stakeholder communication
• service marketing
• marketing