Chapter 9, Services marketing
Intangibles → services and other experience-based products that cannot be touched.
Marketing actions
- Mission statement → example: we seek to be the best provider of quality
- SWOT analysis → organizations strengths and weaknesses
- Objectives → increase the number of season-tickets holders
- Marketing strategies → which target market it wishes to attract
Services → acts, efforts or performances exchanged from producer to user without
ownership
- Intangible, but needs to satisfy needs by providing pleasure, information or
convenience
- Intangibility → the characteristics of a service that means customers can’t see, touch
or smell a service. Marketers try to overcome the problem of intangibility by
providing physical cues to reassure the buyer (furnishing, logos, uniforms)
- Perishability → characteristics of a service that makes it impossible to store for later
sale or consumption (use it or lose it).
Capacity management → representing the process by which organizations adjust
their services in an attempt to match supply with demand.
- Variability → the characteristics of service that means that even the same service
performed by the same individual for the same customer can vary. Service providers
and customers vary.
- Inseparability → the characteristics of a service meaning that it is impossible to
separate the production of a service from its consumption.
Service encounter → the interaction between the customer and the service provider
Disintermediation → removing the middleman and thus eliminating the need for
customers to interact with people at all
The goods/services continuum
- Most products are a combination of goods and services
Goods-dominated products → companies that sell tangible products still must provide
supporting services
Equipment or facility-based services → some products include a mixture of tangible and
intangible elements. Services need expensive equipment
- Operational factors → clear signs and other guidelines must show customers how to
use the service
- Locational factors → location influence decision
- Environmental factors → create an attractive environment to lure customers
People-based services → the intangible end of the continuum are pure people-based
services. Professions that provide services for others.
Core service → benefit that a customer gets from the service.
, Augmented services → additional service offerings that differentiate the firm from the
competition
Extension on traditional marketing mix
- People → people often play a significant role in the customer experience
- Process → procedures, mechanisms and routines that are put in place by
organizations in a bid to deliver value to the customer.
- Physical evidence → the environment where the services is delivered and can also
include any tangible cues relating to the service on offer.
Service encounter
- Social elements (employees and customers) → employees represent the
organization. Actions, words, physical appearance, courtesy and professionalism
reflect the value of an organization
- Physical elements (services and tangibles) → services cape → the environment in
which the service is delivered
Service quality attributes
- Search qualities → product attributes that the consumer can examine prior to
purchase
- Experience qualities → product attributes that customers can determine during or
after consumption
- Credence qualities → product attributes we find difficult to evaluate even after
we’ve experienced them
SERVQUAL → a popular instrument to measure consumers’ expectations and perception of
service.
- Tangibles → physical facilities and equipment’s and the professional appearance of
personnel
- Reliability → the ability to provide dependably and accurately what was promised
- Responsiveness → the willingness to help customers and provide prompt service.
- Assurance → the knowledge and courtesy of employees and the ability to convey
trust and confidence
- Empathy → the degree of caring and individual attention provided to customers
Gap analysis → a measurement approach that gauges the difference between a customer’s
expectation of service quality and what actually occurred
1. Between consumer expectations and management perceptions → when firm’s
management don’t understand what its customers’ expectations are in the first
place
2. Between management’s perceptions and quality standards that the firm sets →
firms develop written quality goals
3. Between established quality standards and service delivery → employees do not
deliver the service at the level specified by the company
4. Between service quality standards and customer expectations → a firm makes
exaggerated promises or does not accurately describe its service to customers
Intangibles → services and other experience-based products that cannot be touched.
Marketing actions
- Mission statement → example: we seek to be the best provider of quality
- SWOT analysis → organizations strengths and weaknesses
- Objectives → increase the number of season-tickets holders
- Marketing strategies → which target market it wishes to attract
Services → acts, efforts or performances exchanged from producer to user without
ownership
- Intangible, but needs to satisfy needs by providing pleasure, information or
convenience
- Intangibility → the characteristics of a service that means customers can’t see, touch
or smell a service. Marketers try to overcome the problem of intangibility by
providing physical cues to reassure the buyer (furnishing, logos, uniforms)
- Perishability → characteristics of a service that makes it impossible to store for later
sale or consumption (use it or lose it).
Capacity management → representing the process by which organizations adjust
their services in an attempt to match supply with demand.
- Variability → the characteristics of service that means that even the same service
performed by the same individual for the same customer can vary. Service providers
and customers vary.
- Inseparability → the characteristics of a service meaning that it is impossible to
separate the production of a service from its consumption.
Service encounter → the interaction between the customer and the service provider
Disintermediation → removing the middleman and thus eliminating the need for
customers to interact with people at all
The goods/services continuum
- Most products are a combination of goods and services
Goods-dominated products → companies that sell tangible products still must provide
supporting services
Equipment or facility-based services → some products include a mixture of tangible and
intangible elements. Services need expensive equipment
- Operational factors → clear signs and other guidelines must show customers how to
use the service
- Locational factors → location influence decision
- Environmental factors → create an attractive environment to lure customers
People-based services → the intangible end of the continuum are pure people-based
services. Professions that provide services for others.
Core service → benefit that a customer gets from the service.
, Augmented services → additional service offerings that differentiate the firm from the
competition
Extension on traditional marketing mix
- People → people often play a significant role in the customer experience
- Process → procedures, mechanisms and routines that are put in place by
organizations in a bid to deliver value to the customer.
- Physical evidence → the environment where the services is delivered and can also
include any tangible cues relating to the service on offer.
Service encounter
- Social elements (employees and customers) → employees represent the
organization. Actions, words, physical appearance, courtesy and professionalism
reflect the value of an organization
- Physical elements (services and tangibles) → services cape → the environment in
which the service is delivered
Service quality attributes
- Search qualities → product attributes that the consumer can examine prior to
purchase
- Experience qualities → product attributes that customers can determine during or
after consumption
- Credence qualities → product attributes we find difficult to evaluate even after
we’ve experienced them
SERVQUAL → a popular instrument to measure consumers’ expectations and perception of
service.
- Tangibles → physical facilities and equipment’s and the professional appearance of
personnel
- Reliability → the ability to provide dependably and accurately what was promised
- Responsiveness → the willingness to help customers and provide prompt service.
- Assurance → the knowledge and courtesy of employees and the ability to convey
trust and confidence
- Empathy → the degree of caring and individual attention provided to customers
Gap analysis → a measurement approach that gauges the difference between a customer’s
expectation of service quality and what actually occurred
1. Between consumer expectations and management perceptions → when firm’s
management don’t understand what its customers’ expectations are in the first
place
2. Between management’s perceptions and quality standards that the firm sets →
firms develop written quality goals
3. Between established quality standards and service delivery → employees do not
deliver the service at the level specified by the company
4. Between service quality standards and customer expectations → a firm makes
exaggerated promises or does not accurately describe its service to customers
