Assessing The Marketing Mix Of RACV Roadside Assistance

Importance of the marketing mix in the service industry

Discuss about the RACV Roadside Assistance Marketing.

RACV Roadside Assistance is a company that helps the motorist and the vehicle owners in the services of their vehicles in case of any mechanical failure (@RACV, 2018).

One of the basic models for marketing and implying the concept of marketing theories is the implication of the marketing mix technique in the process. The importance of Marketing Mix in the business of any type of sector is of great importance including the sectors related to service industry (Gordon 2012). RACV Roadside Assistance is associated with the 4 P’s of marketing in every sense of the service sector marketing mix theories. The 4 Ps of marketing are Price, Product, Promotion and Place (Singh 2012).

Price – The price of any service plays a major role in the marketing and success of an industry and brand in the service sector. RACV Roadside Assistance is one of the major companies in Australia that deals with the various types of mechanical services related to cars and their services (Riaz and Tanveer 2012). The price point of the brand is one of the major positives as it is comparatively affordable than then other brands of the sector. The weightage of the price point of the marketing mix is high in case of the said brand.

Product – The services offered by the RACV Roadside Assistance is one of the major plus points of the company as it offers an array of various products in the service sector. The different types and varieties of products majorly make the customers go for the services related to the brand and not for the competitive companies (Huang and Sarigöllü 2014). This makes sure that the brand have a comparative advantage over the others. The weightage of the product point of the marketing mix is high in case of RACV Roadside Assistance.

Promotion – Promotion plays a major role in the profit and sales of any sector and RACV have a moderate level of marketing promotional style. Being one of the oldest brands in Australia, it does not feel the need to do adequate marketing due to the popularity level which can hamper the brand in future (Posner, Williams and Posner 2015). It needs to gear up on the marketing part in order to gain advantage over the others. The promotional point of marketing mix of RACV Roadside Assistance is low to medium in the service sector.

Application of the 4 Ps of marketing to RACV Roadside Assistance

Place – Place of any service industry plays a vital role in the marketing of a brand. If the brand and the services have a good place of existence, there is a possibility that the brand will get competitive advantage over other brands in the sector. RACV Roadside Assistance is located at convenient locations all across the country providing a decent place of working in the marketing mix of the brand (Bernhardt, Mays and Hall 2012). Still, there is scope of improvement in the number of places that can have service point so that all the places can get access to the service. The place point of marketing mix of RACV Roadside Assistance is medium to high in the service sector.

There are certain recommendations that are to be implied on each of the Ps of the Marketing Mix of RACV Roadside Assistance Company to make the whole aspect of marketing mix perfect for the company. The recommendations for each of the 4Ps of the marketing mix are as follows –

Price – One of the basic recommendations in terms of price is the various offers and discounts that can be given to the loyal and new clients to promote the business concepts. Loyalty bonus can be provided to the old customers to retain them and not deviate to other brands of the same genre.

Product – Product can be improved and should be made more inclusive to make the whole affair more customer-friendly (Jordan 2014). Customer service in terms of the products should be improved at large to make sure that the product variation improves with time.

Promotion – Promotional part of the company should be improved to a great extent to make the whole brand more convenient to the customers and make new customers get to know about the brand in a short time. Social media can be implied in various forms to increase the promotion part of the brand.

Place – The places that are not inclusive under the service of RACV Roadside Assistance should be included under the arena of the brand to make the brand reach a greater number of customers within a short period.          

One of the major shortfall that RACV Roadside Assistance has is the amount of promotion and offers that the brand offers its customers as a result of which the customers are opting for the competitive brands in place of this. Another reason of customer dissatisfaction that has affected the brand is the number of places where the brand gives services to its clients which is considerably lesser than what is required in the current situation and demand of the customers.

Benefits and negatives of RACV Roadside Assistance’s marketing mix

In case of the promotion and offers problem of the brand, some major recommendations can be given that can help the brand to achieve the level of business that it has the potentiality to achieve but is lacking at some points. The brand can start offering membership cards to all the loyal customers which will provide them with yearly discounts at all services and products purchased by the customers (Tran 2017). The cards and the coupons can also make them earn reward points that will enable them for cashback. In such ways both the problems can be solved at one effort as the customers will be the source of promotion for the brand at personal level and social media channels when they will receive the different amount of facilities from the brand. Moreover, the various types of promotional instincts like sharing the brand on social media and recommendations from other clients can also help the new customers earn some kind of benefits that will lure them for future.

In case of the place problems, then the customers can establish various kinds of service points in different parts of the country for the better convenience of the customers. The customers need not come to a specific place for their services which will attract newer customers from various other places of the country (Kim and Ko 2012). In addition, home services can also be introduced by the company to make sure that the customers get the desired services of their cars at their homes which will save them from the hassle of taking their cars for servicing purposes.

When I assessed the marketing mix of RACV Roadside Assistance and analysed the 4Ps of marketing in association with the same, I came across certain benefits and negatives of the brand that needs to be assessed to make sure that the brand reaches heights of success. The positives of the brand in terms of marketing mix is the price, products and place point that gives the brand heights of success. There are certain aspects of the marketing mix that needs to be improved in order to make the company have better opportunities for the same. RACV Roadside Assistance provides a number of benefits to the customers and clients on the basis of a number of opportunities and marketing strategies that the customer has. When analysed the marketing mix and the 4 Ps associated with the same, I found that the company is faring well in relation to the other companies but needs improvements in some sectors which can be done in the same.

References

@RACV. (2018). RACV | Roadside Assist, Car Loans, Insurance & Travel. [online] Available at: https://www.racv.com.au/ [Accessed 4 Jul. 2018].

Bernhardt, J.M., Mays, D. and Hall, A.K., 2012. Social marketing at the right place and right time with new media. Journal of Social Marketing, 2(2), pp.130-137.

Gordon, R., 2012. Re-thinking and re-tooling the social marketing mix. Australasian Marketing Journal (AMJ), 20(2), pp.122-126.

Huang, R. and Sarigöllü, E., 2014. How brand awareness relates to market outcome, brand equity, and the marketing mix. In Fashion Branding and Consumer Behaviors (pp. 113-132). Springer, New York, NY.

Jordan, C., 2014. RACV takes a global approach to road safety. Journal of the Australasian College of Road Safety, 25(3), p.56.

Kim, A.J. and Ko, E., 2012. Do social media marketing activities enhance customer equity? An empirical study of luxury fashion brand. Journal of Business Research, 65(10), pp.1480-1486.

Posner, H., Williams, S. and Posner, H., 2015. Marketing fashion: strategy, branding and promotion. Laurence King Publishing.

Riaz, W. and Tanveer, A., 2012. Marketing mix, not branding. Asian Journal of Business and Management Sciences, 1(11), pp.43-52.

Singh, M., 2012. Marketing mix of 4P’s for competitive advantage. IOSR Journal of Business and Management, 3(6), pp.40-45.

Tran, H., DIGITAL COUPONS TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL LLC, 2017. Service provider system and method for marketing programs. U.S. Patent 9,842,337.