Learning Diary 1 of Service Marketing

Submitted By: Submitted To:

Sanchita Bharali Mr. Irfan Ullah

PGDBM 2nd year

Roll No. 62

Class 1

Date 6/10/2010
It was the first class of Service Marketing. Today we discussed about the necessity to study service
marketing separately, what is a service, its characteristics and the prominent ways of classification. It is
necessary to study service marketing separately because of characteristic of service. For every product
service is associated with it. We have learned that service sector business is in constant growth state
because of increase in buying power of customers. More than 50% of India’s GDP comes from service
sector.

We also learned about the different characteristics of service. These are Intangibility, Heterogeneity,
Perishable and Inseparability of service from service provider. In service sector, the difference
between customer and consumer narrows.

Today we also discussed about the prominent ways of classification of service. Some of them are based
on

 Degree of tangibility of service

For example: Service of a consultant is highly intangible in nature while service in restaurant can
be called as mixed service. Similarly service provided with a air cooler is more of tangible in
nature

 Whether the service is directed towards the customer or his possessions

For example: Hair cut is performed on the customer but servicing of bike is directed towards the
bike i.e the possession of the customer.

 Time and place of service delivered

 Level of standardized vs. customized

 Formal vs. informal service

Class 2

Date 7/10/2010
Today’s class started with the discussion of STP i.e. Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning aspect of
services. We discussed about the different commonly used segmenting variable of service marketing such
as type, age, gender, income, attitude towards risk etc.. For example if we take type as segmenting
variable then we can broadly segment the market on the basis of institutional buyer and individual buyer.
Again institutional customer can be segmented on the basis of volume of purchase, paperwork involved
etc.. market can be segmented on the basis of age also such as kids, teenagers, adults, senior citizen.

Today we also discussed about another segmentation method called socio-economic classification. This is
a grid which collects which combine information about a customer’s occupation and education level.

Class 3

Date 20/10/2010
In today’s class we discussed about positioning of services in different service sector market such as
hotels, airlines, railways, education, hospitals etc. In case of airlines, one factor for segmentation can be
types of fliers’ i.e business fliers and individual flier. Usually business fliers want more facilities and
services. After segmenting, airlines decide their target customers and position themselves as required. For
example, King Fisher offers two types of air line service. One is King Fisher Red and the other one is
King Fisher Class. The Red targets individual customers while the Class targets business customers. It
positions itself well in both the sectors by offering different facilities.

In railways, one factor for segmentation can be age. In education sector, merit and income are two factors
those work together to segment the market. On the basis of this segmentation, Royal Business School’s
target is different from the target of Gauhati University’s

We also took examples of different health drinks and their positioning strategies. Complan positions itself
as health drink for growing children while Boost positions itself as energy drink for sportspersons. On the
other hand, Bornvita always positions itself as drink that sharpens brain.

Class 3

Date 20/10/2010
Today we discussed a very interesting case of The Annapurna Dabbawalla Company Ltd. It was a unique
case describing not only how effectively and efficiently the Mumbai’s Dabbawalla operate but also the
kind of Teamwork display by those illiterate and semi-literate Dabbawalla. We discussed how these
people have been providing service for nearly 130 years with accuracy rate of better than Six Sigma
Standard. We also discussed about the characteristic of service of Dabbawalla, their logistic system, their
coding system and segmentation method of the market.

Service of Dabbawalla is highly intangible since their service is restricted only to carriage as they do not
prepare food. Their service is heterogeneous in nature as services of two different Dabbawalla differ from
one another. It is inseparable from Dabbawalla. It is perishable in nature as it depends upon time of
delivery. Dabbwas must deliver on time i.e. the lunch hour of their customers otherwise it won’t work.

The dabbawalls has a unique coding system that helps illiterate and semi-literate Dabbawallas to deliver
dabbawas in their respective place. They use both color and numbers/letters for coding.

From this case we learned how a well defined business model and logistic system, dedicated workforce
and teamwork can make business a success.