When the Gap Model of Service Quality is applied to Place there are many areas of marketing strategy that need to be taken into account. First, there is the need to ensure the Place or location does not cause the need for service recovery completely on its own. This can happen if the variation in quality of locations varies so significantly that customers perceive big differences in expeie3nces between floors of the club Pacha for example. As the website and club have shown through marketing, each floor is unique yet of consistent high quality in terms of sound systems and seating, lighting and dance floors. All of these factors or place service to differentiate the club overall but also create the potential of ensuring expected and perceived service stay consistent with each other. The necessity of service recovery is reduced when each floor of the club has the same level of quality associated with it as well. The VIP Service the club offers on the floor that overlooks another can be used in marketing to accentuate the exclusivity of the club and underscore its unique value as well. All of these factors work together to minimize any variation in perceived vs. expected service delivery, in addition alleviating the potential for service recovery being necessary. Place is one of the most powerful marketing attributes that can be used for ensuring consistently of expectations are set and met. Using accuracy in promotions is key to making gaps in service quality be minimized. The club's owners could further define areas of the club for special occasions and have testimonials from customers on their YouTube channel as well. The use of social media to underscore the value of its location would also be extremely useful as well.

Promotion

While Place is the most potentially strong factor in determining the expect of differences in the Gap Model of Service Quality, promotion is the single greater catalyst of initially setting accurate expectations or not. This factor in the marketing mix is the one most responsible for making service recovery efforts required in many service- and experience-based businesses as well. In the enthusiasm to promote a service business including a nightclub, businesses will often over-state the quality of service, food, location and quality of the experience overall,. Experiences are intentionally heightened to get customers in the door and seeing the nightclub, restaurant or entertainment event often without any thought about how these expectations, often very high, can be met. The role of promotion is to honestly set expectations and put the voice of the customer into the promotional programs so they resonate with accuracy and authenticity. When a promotional program deliberately creates an incorrect picture or series of expectations, it invites the need for service recovery (Ha, John, 2010). Promotion can also be a strong delineator of customer vs. provider gaps as well, in addition to defining the parameters of expected service vs. perceived service. All of these factors of the Gap Model of Service Quality also enter into the equation of how Promotion is used as marketing variable as well.

Promotion has actually been responsible for closing the gap between perceived and expected expectations as well, especially in experienced-based businesses. This is accomplished by relying more on the actual experience selling itself, not over-committing or selling more of an experience than the club or venue can really deliver. The closing of the gap between perceived and expected perceptions is also accomplished by using promotion as a means to connect with, not push messages to, customers. There is a big difference about using promotion to start a conversation with a customer and push a message on them. This mentality of using promotion to start a conversation is a strategy that Club Pacha needs to consider more often as their promotion today is more like a bullhorn than intent to listen.

Price

The single greatest marketing variable that determines the perceived quality level of a business, nightclub, product or service, price is the catalyst of many expectations being set exceptionally high yet not being delivered on. The perception of price carries with it an implicit assumption about quality as well. Club Pacha is on the pricey side for drinks and entrees, and very expensive for a dedicated floor. For this, the club needs to consider what additional value they can deliver. The high price connotes and contributes to their perception of being exclusive, yet also sets into motion...

This is an excellent baseline, yet the many potential areas of where club Pacha can fail in terms of achieving all the expectations they have set is still highly risky given the image they are choosing to create (Marsella, Stone, Banks, 2005). While promotion is a powerful marketing attribute in defining the distance between perceived and expected service, price can quickly also do this and define the level of service delivery only by its relative position against competitors in the same market. Price is the one marketing variable that equates across all substitute entertainment and experiential-based businesses that a potential club Pacha customer would consider. Due to the power of price it must be used more as a means to close the gaps in the Gap Model of Service Quality by being used for managing expectations so they can be exceeded.
People

The people or employees of Club Pacha also need to be integral to the promotion and place aspects of the value proposition for the club. People are the critical link across each of the five gaps throughout the Gap Model of Service Quality. They are the force that either underscore and make more relevant the promotion, place and product value propositions or make them more relevant and at a loss of credibility. People put the entire marketing mix into motion and either strengthen it or make it weaker with their attitude and performance over time. People are also the deliverers of service recovery as well, with the focus on alleviating the dissatisfaction customers have over time. The people in the club working must also be focused on how best measure perceived vs. expected service as well. On this one dimension, it is critical to hire people who are excellent listeners and can ascertain when expectations are either being met and exceeded or not.

Finally, people are critical for communicating the level of commitment the management staff of club Pacha has to their satisfaction and enjoying the experience being there. The use of the Gap Model of Service Quality is also critically important for ensuring that the training program for employees is well tuned to the current and future expectations of customers as well. The use of the Gap Model to teach situational leadership is also important for each department that operates the club as well. All of these aspects of people as a major part of the marketing mix and the ability of the club to set and achieve expectations over the long-term. The people component of the marketing mix must be focused on service recovery quickly and thoroughly to keep customers loyal and willing to spend their evenings and special occasions in the club as well.

Physical Evidence

Comparable to location, physical evidence of the club encompasses all aspects of the decorations, music systems, scents, tastes, and the layout of each specific floor,. The physical evidence also needs to be coordinated with all other aspects of the marketing mix to support the unique value proposition and differentiation fo the club effectively. The physical evidence also must connote brand and convey the emotion of the club effectively as well. To do this, there has to be a concerted focus on how best to create an effective coordinated and well-defined theme to unify the entire club. At present, the club is using colors to unify their value proposition, yet there is significant room for improvement in using physical evidence to close gaps in service.

Using the Gap Model of Service Quality to evaluate the physical evidence of the club, the management team at club Pacha needs to consider how to bring this aspect more into alignment with the broader marketing messaging. The physical evidence is broken and going in separate sections at the present time, and there needs to be a more concerted approach to bring the exclusivity and elegance so prevalent in other parts of the business to be consistent with the overarching messaging being used today. The need for managing the entire marketing mix to also make better use of physical evidence once it is consistently defined needs to be accomplished. If there is one aspect of the marketing mix that is not consistent at this point, it is physical evidence at times contradicting the overall value proposition of the…