Marketing Operations - Fed Ex
...onsiderable savings in operating costs and customer satisfaction. There are several elements of marketing mix that are recommended for services such as FedEx. Federal Express uses them to support its strategy and its competitive position in the market. - Product (described as variety of services offered to the customer) is one of the elements. FedEx offers to the customer Sat pickups, 10:30 am deliveries, package tracing and much more, which was not offered before; - Place (distribution of services) is nation-wide. That allows them to cover much wider segment of the market; - Physical evidence (provides clue to service quality). It adds substance to the service concept. That is reached by FedEx colors, symbols, outlook of its employees (no beards, no trendy haircuts, clean-cut, etc.); - Participation (interpersonal behavior, skills, attitudes, commitment, training, etc.); - Process (FedEx successfully identified the needs in the marketplace and organized its services to fulfill these needs). To increase the volume of FedEx customers the company built a unique marketing approach to achieve the desired results. Their choice was to use advertising to reach a mass market which was never used before in this industry. FedEx used over $1 million to promote their services via television and partly through print media advertising. They started several campaigns that turned out to be enormously successful. The company’s strategy was to get attention of the people in “the mailroom or the shipping department as well as secretaries who daily make decisions about which company will be called”. The plan was to find the unique position in the minds of their customers so it would differentiate them from their competitors. The operation process of FedEx is based on “hub and spokes” concept. All packages and documents are flown to the central sorting hub before being transshipped to their ultimate destination. Also, the packages are as they say “what a person can lift”. This system allowed FedEx to have control over t...