Term Paper

on
Integrated Service Marketing Communication

Course Name: Services Marketing

Course Code: 421

Submitted To:
Dr. Rajia Begum
Professor
Department of Marketing
University of Dhaka

Submitted By:
Group: 14
Section: ‘B’
23rd Batch
Department of Marketing
University of Dhaka

Date: February 01, 2021

Group Number: ‘14’
Group Co-Ordinator: MD. Abir Hassan
Group Profile
ID Name Mail ID
204 MD. Ali Rizvi alirizvi135@gmail.com

205 Arfatul Islam Jinna jinna041@gmail.com

207 Abdullah Al Mahabub mahabub.aam@gmail.com

209 Shawon Rahman Supti thisissupti@gmail.com

211 Shah Md. Zubair rafisr881@gmail.com

212 Ahmed Shouqi Salvee salvee4587@yahoo.com

215 MD. Abir Hassan hassan.abir215@gmail.com

216 K.M. Shahidul Islam Raju rajuhassan583@gmail.com

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 Letter of Transmittal
To
Dr Razia Begum
Professor,
Department of Marketing
Faculty of Business Studies
University of Dhaka

Subject: Submission of Term Paper on Chapter 14.

Dear Mam,
We have the honour to state that we are the students of B.B.A (4th year, 1st semester) of the
Department of Marketing. We have conducted an assignment on your course. We have
gathered a lot of unknown facts which are related to this assignment.

We, therefore, you would be kind enough to grant our assignment and oblige thereby.

Sincerely,
Group No: 14
23rd batch,
Department of Marketing
University of Dhaka.

~2~
 Acknowledgement

We express our deep gratefulness and praiseworthy to Almighty Allah and then to our parents
for giving us every assistance in the way of our life.

We would like to express our heartiest gratitude to our honourable course teacher Professor
Dr Razia Begum for giving us such an excellent opportunity to make this assignment.

Group No: 14
23rd Batch
Section-B
Faculty of Business Studies
University of Dhaka.

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Contents
Letter of Transmittal ............................................................................................................................ 2
Acknowledgement ................................................................................................................................. 3
Chapter Opening Case ......................................................................................................................... 6
Summary................................................................................................................................................ 7
The Need for Coordination in Marketing Communication .......................................................... 7
Communication and service marketing triangle ............................................................................ 7
Key Service Communication Challenges ........................................................................................ 7
Five Categories of Strategies to Match Service Promises with Delivery. ..................................... 9
Answer to the Discussion Questions .................................................................................................. 17
1) Think of another company that provides integrated service marketing communications. Is
the company’s campaign as comprehensive and as integrated as Hotels.com’s campaigns
mentioned in earlier? ...................................................................................................................... 17
2) Which of the communication gap is easiest to address in the company? Which one is the
hardest to address and why? .......................................................................................................... 17
3) Review the five strategies for achieving integrated service marketing communications . 18
4)What are the most effective Internet advertisements I have seen? Why are they effective? 19
Advertising on social networks .......................................................................................... 19
Banners ................................................................................................................................ 19
Pop-ups................................................................................................................................. 20
Advertising on blogs ........................................................................................................... 20
E-mail marketing ................................................................................................................ 20
Advertising on blogs ........................................................................................................... 21
Really helps you to investigate your market. .................................................................... 21
Measure absolutely everything. ......................................................................................... 21
Think about the goal of Internet advertising.................................................................... 22
Utilize a good call to action................................................................................................. 22
5)Using the section on managing customer expectations, put yourself in the position of your
professor, who must reduce the amount of “service” provided to the students in your class. Give
an example of each strategy in this context. Which of the strategies would work best with you
(the student) in managing your expectations? Why?................................................................... 22
6)Why are social marketing media like Facebook and YouTube so important in-service firms?
Are they important in product firms?........................................................................................... 23
7) What other strategies can you suggest for leveraging consumer-generated media? ............ 24
8) What other strategies can you add to the customer education strategies. What types of
education do you expect from service firms? Give an example of a firm from which you have
received adequate education. What firm has not provided you with adequate information? . 25
Solution to Chapter Ending Case ...................................................................................................... 27

Figure 1: Services Marketing Triangle ............................................................................................... 7

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Figure 2: Five Major Approaches to Overcome Service Communication Channels ..................... 9
Figure 3: Service Branding Model .................................................................................................... 13
Figure 4: Managing Customer Service Expectation ....................................................................... 14
Figure 5: Managing Internal Communication ................................................................................. 16
Figure 6: PESTLE Framework ......................................................................................................... 28

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 Chapter Opening Case
Integration of offline and online communication channels is the proper way of advertisement.
Hotel.com a online travel site is the perfect example that has integrated offline and online
communication channels efficiently. They use two types of communication channels to attract
customers.

1. Offline channels (Television, Newspaper, print ads, outdoor advertisements etc.)

2. Online channels (E-mail, online banners, social media, website etc.)

They try to give customers a different experience of travelling. They provide "virtual vacation"
approach to attract new customers. This approach is basically a 3-D augmented reality-based
campaign. People can get a unique feel of visiting ten cities through a computerized system.
This campaign also gives customers huge information about hotel.com that helps to establish
their brand. Key factors underlying the success of hotel.com are-

1. Both the offline and online media provide same message to the customers.

2. They collect email of the customers who visit their website.

3. They use customer database to reach customers through e-mail or newsletter.

4. They target a particular group provide an effective offer (i.e. for business travellers they
provide loyalty program, for family vacation they provide family-friendly destinations).

5. They also provide Facebook or Twitter icon to give opportunity to log in.

This efficient integration of both offline and online channels results in high valued brand. As a
result, the company has obtained more 270 million of responses and 236 articles from
journalists and bloggers.

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 Summary
The Need for Coordination in Marketing Communication
Marketing communication is more complex today than it used to be. In past, consumers
received marketing information about goods and services from a limited number of sources,
usually mass communication sources such as network television and newspapers. But today's
customers receive information from a variety of sources. Any company which use multi-
channel to disseminate information should be certain that customers are receiving unified
information.

Communication and service marketing triangle

Figure 1: Services Marketing Triangle

The first component is external marketing communication which includes advertising, sales
promotion, public relation, direct marketing. The second component is interactive marketing
communication which includes personal selling, customer service centre, service encounters,
social media, services capes. The third component is internal marketing communication which
includes vertical communications, horizontal communications.

Key Service Communication Challenges

Discrepancies between what is communicated about service and what a customer receives or
perceives that she receives can powerfully affect consumer evaluation of service quality. The
factors that contribute to these communication challenges include service intangibility,

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management of service promises, management of customer expectations, customer education,
internal marketing communication.

1) Service intangibility
Services are performance rather than objective; their essence and benefits are difficult to
communicate to customers. During purchase customers clearly cannot see the differences
among services. After purchase consumers have trouble evaluating their service experiences.
Banwari Mittal described these difficulties associated with intangible by dividing it into five
properties, each of which has implications for service marketing communication. In his view,
intangibility involves incorporeal existence, abstractness, generality, nonsense ability, and
mental impalpability

2) Management of service promises

A serious problem occurs when companies fail to manage service marketing communications-
the vows made by the salesperson, advertising, and service personnel-and service falls short of
what is promised.

3) Management of customer expectation

Appropriate and accurate communication about services is the responsibility of both marketing
and operations.

4) Customer Education

Service companies must educate their customers. If customers are unclear about how service
will be provided, what their role in delivery involves, and how to evaluate services they have
never used before, they will be disappointed.

5) Internal Marketing Communication

Multiple functions in the organization, such as marketing and operations, must be coordinated
to achieve the goal of quality service provision.

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Five Categories of Strategies to Match Service Promises with Delivery.

Figure 2: Five Major Approaches to Overcome Service Communication Channels

1) Addressing Service Intangibility

Approaches to address service intangibility are

(1) Advertising and other communication strategies that communicate service attributes and
benefits to consumers.

(2) Strategies designed to encourage word-of-mouth communication.

If service companies recognize the challenges, they face due to intangibility, they can use
selected strategies to compensate

❖ Use narratives to demonstrate the service experience

Many services are experiential, and a uniquely effective approach to communicating them
involves story-based appeals. Showing consumers having realistic and positive experiences
with services is generally more effective than describing service attributes, particularly because
the attributes themselves are often intangible. Research has concluded that consumers with
relatively low familiarity with a service category prefer appeals based on stories to appeals
based on lists of service attributes. An example of this is a campaign in which someone
experiencing a situation in which a State Farm agent is needed simply calls out, “Like a good
neighbour, State Farm is there,” and an agent instantly appears to take care of the situation.

❖ Present vivid information

Effective service marketing communication creates a strong or clear impression on the senses
and produces a distinct mental picture. One way to use vivid information is to evoke a strong
emotion such as fear. A print example of vividness is shown in an ad for the United Negro

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College Fund. The abstract themes of “limitless potential” and “chance to achieve” are made
vivid by a photograph of a mind filled with books.

❖ Use interactive imagery

One type of vividness involves what is called interactive imagery. Imagery (defined as a mental
event that involves the visualization of a concept or relationship) can enhance recall of names
and facts about service. Interactive imagery integrates two or more items in some mutual
action, resulting in an improved recall. Some service companies effectively integrate their
logos or symbols with an expression of what they do, such as the prudential rock—the rock
symbolizes strength and stability. The accompanying photo shows an advertisement for The
Travelers Companies Inc., a provider of property-casualty insurance, that demonstrates
interactive imagery. The umbrella symbolizes protection and reassurance, an appropriate
symbol to identify an insurance company.

❖ Focus on the tangibles

Another way that advertisers can increase the effectiveness of service communications is to
feature the tangibles associated with the service, such as showing a bank’s marble columns or
gold credit card. Showing the tangibles provides clues about the nature and quality of the
service.

❖ Use brand icons to make the service tangible

In the fast-food and insurance industries, one answer is to create a recognizable brand icon that
represents the company and generates brand visibility. One of the most enduring service brand
icons is Ronald McDonald, the red-and-yellow clown that represents McDonald’s and its
children’s charity, the Ronald McDonald House. Advertising icons are even more critical in
industries in which the service is complex and difficult to understand.

❖ Use association, physical representation, documentation and visualization

Leonard Berry and Terry Clark propose four strategies of cannibalization: association, physical
representation, documentation, and visualization. Association means linking the service to a
tangible person, place, or object. Physical representation means showing tangibles that are
directly or indirectly part of the service, such as employees, buildings, or equipment.
Documentation means featuring objective data and information. Visualization is a vivid mental

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picture of a service’s benefits or qualities, such as showing people on vacation having fun. Our
Strategy Insight shows how marketing communication icons can be used as tangibles.

❖ Feature service employees in communication

Customer contact personnel are tangible representations of the service and are an important
second audience for service advertising.11 Featuring actual employees doing their jobs or
explaining their services in advertising is effective for both the primary audience (customers)
and the secondary audience (employees) because it communicates to employees that they are
important. Furthermore, when employees who perform a service well are featured in marketing
communication, they become standards for other employees’ behaviours. Recommendations
and opinions from other customers are virtually always more credible than firm
communications. In situations in which consumers have little information before purchase—
something that occurs far more often in services than in goods because services are high in
experience and credence properties— people turn to others for information rather than to
traditional marketing channels

❖ Use Buzz, or Viral, Marketing

Buzz marketing, also called viral marketing, involves the use of real consumers to spread the
word about products without (or without the appearance of) being paid by the company.
Sometimes buzz marketing occurs simply because customers are avid fans of the service, and
sometimes the company seeds customers with services or products. For example, when the
chain opened a midtown Manhattan outlet in 2006, it gave burritos away to 6,000 people. Even
though this cost the company $35,000, the strategy created 6,000 satisfied spokespeople.

❖ Leverage Social Media

Social media—interactive communication among customers on the Internet through such sites
as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook—are becoming avenues for consumers to exchange
information. The growth of social media is affecting many aspects of consumer purchase
behaviour. Nielsen BuzzMetrics, the innovator of this approach, gathers brand information
online by trolling millions of lines of Internet communication to find out how customers feel
about brands, how many are talking online, what issues they are discussing, how marketing is
being viewed, and how efforts to affect word-of-mouth communications are being received.
The service provides industry norms and benchmarks to the companies who buy their service
as well as real-time alerts about issues.

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❖ Aim Messages to Influencers

Improved technologies are now allowing companies to identify online influencers—those

individuals with more connections than others and therefore more ability to influence others
about services. Both researchers and research companies are developing technologies similar
to the BuzzMetric approach described earlier that can identify those people in a viral
community who are most critical to receive brand messages.

❖ Create Advertising That Generates Talk Because It Is Humorous, Compelling, or

Unique

Humorous advertisements are memorable and vivid. Over the years, GEICO has developed
many of the most humorous service commercials. Many of the ads focus on the brand’s gecko,
but other campaigns are humorous in different ways. A current campaign emphasizes different
content points, each with settings and characters that are funny. For example, ” The
advertisement features two teenagers watching Game of Thrones with their parents; Mom and
Dad can’t stop asking questions during an episode of the complicated show. The ad ends with
the suggestion that getting the app for HBO Go allows you to watch the program on your own,
without all the pesky questions from your parents.

❖ Feature Satisfied Customers in the Communication

Advertising testimonials featuring actual service customers simulate personal communications

between people and are thereby a credible way to communicate the benefits of service.

❖ Generate Word of Mouth through Employee Relationships

Research shows that customer satisfaction with a service experience alone is not sufficient to
stimulate word-of-mouth activity. However, when customers gain trust in a specific employee,
positive word of mouth results. In this research, trust was shown to be a consequence of three
aspects of the employee-customer relationship: a personal connection between employees and
customers, care displayed by employees, and employee familiarity with customers. Examples
include designing the service environment so that opportunities for interactions between
customers and employees are plentiful, using support systems (such as customer relationship
management software) to help employees remember customer characteristics, and empowering
employees to correct problems fully and quickly.

2) Managing Service Promises

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Service promises refer to the commitment articulated by service providers to the customers
regarding the service quality and the manner of delivery. To cope up with the challenge of
managing service promises, the strong co-ordination between employees and management is
required. The more the co-ordination, the more there will be effective service management. To
assure service promises by ensuring co-ordination, two actions must be performed which are
given in the following:

❖ Creating a Strong Service Brand: Once Leonard Berry articulated that branding plays a
special role in service companies. To establish a strong brand, Leonard has outlined some
elements.

Figure 3: Service Branding Model

Presented Brand is the first element found in the establishing of the strong brand image. The
company controls and disseminate through all personal and interpersonal channels. Co-
ordination in the channels results in high brand equity. Customer experience is another element
in the process of making a strong brand. It is the actual interaction with the company workforce
and other firm manifestations. No matter how effective and unified advertising is for a service,
actual experiences disproportionately provide meaning to customers. Non-controllable external
band communication involves information namely word of mouth as well as publicity. They
are very much significant as they create credibility among customers. The last but not the least
element in making a strong brand is the brand meaning that denotes the collection of customers’
associations with the brand.

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❖ Co-Ordinating External Communication: To manage the service promises to
customers, external communication can be said very effective. External communication is
the process of articulating the offering of the company to customers through various
means. To coordinate external communication, advertising, sales promotion, public
relations, direct marketing, and personal selling can be used.

3) Managing Customer Expectations

Accurately promising when and how service will be delivered is one of the most important
ways to close the communication gap. To manage customer expectations, various strategies
can be used. It is discussed in the following:

❖ Making Realistic Promises: The higher the expectation, the higher the delivered service
must be to be perceived as high quality. So, the company should make promises that are
credible and easily implementable.
❖ Offering Service Guarantees: Though many services give birth to implicit service
satisfaction guarantees, the true benefits from explicit service guarantees- an increase in
the likelihood of customers choosing o remaining with the company-come only when the
customer knows that guarantees exist and trusts that the company will stand by behind
them.

Choices

Tiered- Service
Value Guarrantee
Offering s
Managing
Expectations

Strata and
Realistic
Level of
Promises
Service

Figure 4: Managing Customer Service Expectation

❖ Offering Choices: One of the greatest strategies to redefine expectations is to

give customers alternatives for aspects of services that are meaningful; namely,
time and cost.

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 ❖ Creating Tiered-Value Service Offering: Like product companies, service providers
should offer tiered-value service. They should offer services according to different price
tiers.
❖ Communicating the Criteria and Levels of Service Effectiveness: Companies
should establish and articulate their service criteria through which customers can assess
service.
4) Managing Customer Education

Customers must confirm their roles properly for many services to be effective. To ensure it,
the below-mentioned strategies can be used:

1) Preparing Customers for the Service Process: To make the service offering success,
many times customers have to perform various tasks. And to do so, the company should
make customers ready or aware of their offering process.
2) Confirming Performance to Standards and Expectations: It often happened that the
service providers are not acknowledged even after accomplishing their service as per
customer request. So, to cope up with this, the service provider should be outspoken
towards their actions and performance to customers.
3) Clarifying Expectation after Sales: Service providers should clarify customers about
their promises as soon as the hand-off is made from sales to operations. Doing so
prevents future dissatisfaction within customers.

5) Managing Internal Marketing Communication

To match service delivery with promises is managing internal communications. Internal

communications can be either vertical or horizontal. Vertical communication can either be
downward or upward whereas horizontal communication is across the functional departments.
To manage internal marketing communication, the below-mentioned strategies can be useful:

❖ Establishing Effective Vertical Communications: Company should be successful in

establishing vertical communication. For downward communication, newsletter, email,
corporate television networks, videos and internal promotions can be effective.
❖ Establishing Effective Horizontal Communications: As this communication occurs
across departments, it is quite difficult as each department varies in terms of goals,
missions or philosophies. To establish effective horizontal communications, the
company should make communication channels among departments accessible.

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 Engaging employee’s direct interaction with each other can also result in horizontal
communications.
❖ Selling the Brand inside the Company: The task of marketing must begin from the
company itself. So, the organisation first make their employees aware of the manner of
their offerings and operation procedure.
❖ Creating Effective Upward Communication: These communication strata are also
significant because front-end employee possesses actual information regarding
customers. So, their information to management can be precious.

Effective
Vertical

Effective
Creating Cross
Horizontal
Functional
Communicati
Teams
on
Internal
Marketing
Communicati
on
Aligning Back Selling the
Office and Brand Inside
Support Staffs Company

Effective
Upward
Communicati
on

Figure 5: Managing Internal Communication

❖ Aligning Back-Office and Support Personnel with External Customers through

Interaction or Measurement: Company should form channels to facilitate the
interaction between back-office and support personnel and external customers.
❖ Creating Cross-Functional Teams: The management should make teams keeping
various functional team members together. Doing so will help every employee from
different functional departments to understand other departments’ functions and culture
and ultimately results in ineffective internal communication.

The above strategies can be very much effective in decreasing service challenges.

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 Answer to the Discussion Questions

1) Think of another company that provides integrated service marketing

communications. Is the company’s campaign as comprehensive and as integrated
as Hotels.com’s campaigns mentioned in earlier?
Bproperty is another service company which provides integrated service marketing
communications. It’s a Bangladeshi company which works like a bridge between the property
owner and the customers. In its website it gives virtual tour opportunity to the customers. So
that customers can see the apartment or commercial space which they want to purchase or take
rent without going to the actual site. It works like Hotel.com. Because like hotel.com it gives
customers a deeper experience by virtual tour and they also get all information of the property.
It also gives customers the facility to visit the property in person. Bproperty use social media
like facebook, youtube , Instagram for its marketing. It also use direct marketing. It collects
information about its potential customers. Then they approach direct marketing. So we can say
that it provides integrated service marketing communications as hotel.com.

2) Which of the communication gap is easiest to address in the company? Which

one is the hardest to address and why?
The key reasons for the communication gap are as follows:

❖ Intangible nature of the services

❖ Unavailability of the required information to make a promise
❖ Management of customer expectations
❖ Customer education
❖ Internal marketing communications

Among these communication gaps, Customer education is the easiest to address. Because a
salesperson can easily identify how many information the customer know about the product or
service. A marketer knows better about the product and after that when a marketer talk with a
customer about a product or services he/she can easily identify customer knowledge.

on the other hand, the hardest one to identify is the Intangible nature of services. Because that
product or services which nature is intangible customer cannot easily measure its value. So it
is the hardest one to address.

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3) Review the five strategies for achieving integrated service marketing
communications
❖ Address service intangibility: To overcome the service intangibility involving
incorporeal existence, abstractness, generality, non-searchability and mental
impalpability, this strategy is used. In the Goods firms, this strategy is not implemented
because goods are tangible items and this cannot be compared there. Therefore, in the
service firms, the service intangibility addressing is crucial.
❖ Manage service promises: In manufacturing physical goods, the departments that
make promises and those that deliver the marketing for promotion and sale. In services,
however, the sales and marketing departments make promises about what other
employees in the organization will fulfil. Because what employees do cannot be
standardized, greater coordination and management of promises are required. This
coordination can be accomplished by creating a strong service brand and by
coordinating all of the company's marketing. In goods firm, this is implemented.
Because goods firm is providing service with the product. Because we know that there
is no pure product and pure goods. Customers enjoy the service which is come from the
products.
❖ Manage customer expectations: Accurately promising when and how service will be
delivered is one of the most important ways to close the communication gap. Among
the most effective strategies to manage customer expectations are to make realistic
promises; to offer service guarantees, options, and tiered-value offerings; and to
communicate criteria customers can use to assess service. In goods firm, this strategy
is implemented. Because goods firm has to fulfil customer expectation by the products
it gives.
❖ Manage customer education: This is implemented better in service firms. Because
service firms have to educate their customers about their product. They have to prepare
their customers for the service process. Because if customers cannot perform their role
properly disappointment may result.
❖ Manage internal marketing communications: Internal marketing communications
can be vertical and horizontal. It can be from management to employee and employee
to management. It is implemented in goods firm. Because products also need internal
marketing communications.

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4)What are the most effective Internet advertisements I have seen? Why are they
effective?
Absolutely every business has some kind of Internet presence. They can be large or small, sell
products and services, be very specific or general. They all want the same thing: to reach the
largest number of people while investing the smallest number of resources and getting the
largest number of benefits possible. Well, there is a very efficient method for achieving all of
this while getting all your potential clients to know your business and be interested in it at the
same time: Internet advertising.

Unlike traditional advertising, Internet advertising is increasingly more accessible for every
business and enables you to quickly, easily, efficiently and affordably reach your target public.
That is why it is gaining more ground among those businesses with an online presence.

❖ Advertising on search engines

One of the most frequently used Internet advertising methods is Search Engine Marketing
(SEM), and of course, Google tops them all.

In fact, the huge technological giant has a method so you do sponsored advertising: Google
AdWords. The main benefit of this type of advertisement is that they enable improving your
website’s positioning through paid advertising. This way, for example though SEM techniques,
you can advertise your products, services or content through Google’s advertising service, or
others. Users will find you more easily since your advertisements will be displayed in the user’s
relevant search results.

❖ Advertising on social networks

It would be foolish to overlook the power that social networks have in helping you attain a
successful business. In addition, is not only effective within your digital marketing strategy but
advertising on social networks is increasingly gaining more followers thanks to its
effectiveness.

In fact, the majority of social networks offer the possibility to create advertisements right on
their platforms, whether it be promoting messages and content or creating specific
advertisements. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube are just some of them.

❖ Banners
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Banners are, probably, the best-known form of online advertising and much of this is because
they were the first advertisements to appear on the Internet.

They consist in strategically placing advertisements with different formats, sizes and designs
within a web page. Users who click on the advertisement will be taken to the site you choose.
The problem, though, is that nowadays we are so saturated with advertisements that we barely
pay any attention to them, therefore, if you want to advertise online you must first consider the
other options such as Google AdWords or advertising on social networks.

❖ Pop-ups

There is an inside: it is no doubt that you have closed dozens of pop-up advertisements while
using the Internet (probably a lot more than this) and this happens to be the norm with online
advertising and very annoying.

These are windows that pop up and take you to a website different from what you were just
looking at, and although years ago this method was quite efficient, nowadays it is becoming a
bigger and bigger no-no on the Internet.

Now, this is not related to the ever so popular online marketing resource: inserting a pop-up on
your own website, which invites users to register, subscribe or simply enter their email in order
to receive information, which is completely free.

❖ Advertising on blogs

With this, we are not referring to advertisements that appear on any blog -since this goes along
with banners or Google advertisements- but rather a type of indirect advertising, which is
usually done through storytelling and branded content, creating an advertisement around an
experience, story or reflection.

❖ E-mail marketing

For many years, this form of advertising has dominated the Internet and is no annoying,
intrusive and ineffective: mass email advertisements.

In fact, we receive so many emails per day that we have become immune to the advertising and
do not need more than two seconds to send it straight to the Spam folder. E-mail marketing has

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nothing to do with this but rather goes much further and can be considered a fundamental piece
of your digital marketing strategy.

❖ Advertising on blogs

With this, we are not referring to advertisements that appear on any blog -since this goes along
with banners or Google advertisements- but rather a type of indirect advertising, which is
usually done through storytelling and branded content, creating an advertisement around an
experience, story or reflection.

This is a relatively new method and therefore many businesses are still unaware of the
advantages.

They are effective because they are:

❖ Really helps you to investigate your market.

You can have the best advertisement in the whole universe, but if you are confusing people, it
won’t do you any good. So, investigate your market, define your target public, segment them
and make it really clear whom you are targeting in order to be able to design advertisements
that make an impact.

❖ Measure absolutely everything.

Lastly, and most importantly, measuring your advertisements’ performance in real time,
analyzing your campaigns in detail to maximize what works and change what does not, and
above all, acting accordingly because the path of your business can be changed thanks to these
metrics.

Even though the world of Internet advertising is widespread and requires time and resources,
with this introductory guide you have just finished reading you have enough to begin. You have
a world full of opportunities at our fingertips! It is up to you to take advantage.

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 ❖ Think about the goal of Internet advertising.

Defining what you want to accomplish with your online advertisements is very important in
order to be able to create effective advertisements. Therefore, decide if you want to get more
traffic, more leads, more sales, improve your brand image or whatever you’d like to accomplish
and then focus your advertisements on these goals.

❖ Utilize a good call to action.

In order for your audience to perform a determined action you must tell them. And this is where
call-to-action, or CTAs, come into play so always include them in your advertisements to
entice your audience click.

5)Using the section on managing customer expectations, put yourself in the

position of your professor, who must reduce the amount of “service” provided to
the students in your class. Give an example of each strategy in this context. Which
of the strategies would work best with you (the student) in managing your
expectations? Why?
Accurately promising when and how service will be delivered is one of the most important
ways to close the communication gap. Among the most effective strategies to manage customer
expectations are to make realistic promises; to offer service guarantees, options, and tiered-
value offerings; and to communicate criteria customers can use to assess service.

❖ Make Realistic Promises

The expectations that customers bring to the service affect their evaluations of its quality: the
higher the expectation, the higher the delivered service must be to be perceived as high quality.
Therefore, making promises about any aspect of service delivery is appropriate only when these
aspects will actually be delivered. I must promise the student that I will help them any regard
to education and provide them guideline when necessary. During this pandemic I will be
helpful to anyway according to my limitations.

❖ Offer Service Guarantees

Although many services carry implicit service satisfaction guarantees, the true benefits from
explicit service guarantees—an increase in the likelihood of a customer’s choosing or
remaining with the company— come only when the customer knows that guarantees exist and

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trusts that the company will stand behind them. I will be offering them service anytime they
are asking for. And my services will be 100% correct.

❖ Offer Choices

One way to reset expectations is to give customers options for aspects of service that are
meaningful, such as time and cost. They should be given the opportunity to choose what type
of offering they expect from mean the time of service provided should be realistic to the service
they are providing. If students understand the trade-off and are asked to make a choice, they
are likely to be more satisfied because their service expectations for each option become more
realistic.

6)Why are social marketing media like Facebook and YouTube so important in-
service firms? Are they important in product firms?
Social marketing media like Facebook and YouTube so important in-service firms
because:

❖ It helps to understand companies’ core audience’s social tendencies.

❖ Technological behavior of the customers is more useful than standard
demographics or physiographic in understanding and targeting the customers.
❖ Social media manages and communicates with customers efficiently.
❖ It is the way to use the technology to build the relationships and drive business
❖ It reduces marketing expenses.
❖ It is a way to attract the customers by sharing it to the friends and others.

For example: sheba.xyz, IPDC Finace provides every type of service available in their
respective fields.They have diffierent pages in social medias where they communicate using
the page.

Yes, they are important in product firms because it doesn’t matter if you run a small local shop
or a big national company. Social media is an essential piece of your business marketing
strategy.

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Social platforms help us to connect with your customers, increase awareness about your brand,
and boost your leads and sales. With more than three billion people around the world using
social media every month, the users and engagement on major platforms just keep increasing.

1)52 percent of social media marketers believe social media positively influences their
company’s revenue and sales.

2) The five most valuable social media platforms:

A) Facebook (89 percent)

B) LinkedIn (83 percent)

C)YouTube (81 percent)

D)Twitter (80 percent)

F)Instagram (56 percent)

3)Nearly 80 percent of companies share mostly original content on social media.

4)The most important metrics for companies are engagement (36 percent) and conversion
rates (35 percent).

5)Social media is more valuable to B2C (58 percent) than B2B companies (46 percent).

For example: Foodpanda, Shohoz are product firms who uses different pages in social medias
where they communicate using the page.

7) What other strategies can you suggest for leveraging consumer-generated

media?
Social media has been the important element for leveraging customers’ satisfaction. Consumer
generated media refers to the media that is operated by the contents of the consumers. Apart
from social media, there are existence of other strategies that can benefit the consumer-generate
media. They are discussed in the following:

a) Aiming Messages to Influencers: Individuals refer to the parties those have more
connections than others and therefore more ability to influence others about services.

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 Various technologies have been emerged to track down influencers within a
community. ‘BuzzMetric’ is one type of technology that is used to identify the
influencers. And later on, these individuals can be seeded to articulate their messages
about the services that can result in the effective consumer-generated marketing.
b) Creating Humorous, Compelling and Unique Advertising: If the advertisements
produced by the service company offers a unique content backed up by humor, then it
will create buzz among customers which will ultimately benefit the service company.
c) Featuring Satisfied Customers in the Communication: The company can circulate
the picture of the satisfied customers and their feedbacks or opinions regarding the
services they have enjoyed with the company. This will create a sense of trust among
customers to make a purchase from the company.
d) Generating Word of Mouth through Employee Relationship: Not only customers
but also the feedbacks from the customers are also important to influence the behaviour
of the prospects. To do this, the company should circulate the information or service
quality through their satisfied employees. Research has indicated that this creates a
sense of trust among customers.

8) What other strategies can you add to the customer education strategies. What
types of education do you expect from service firms? Give an example of a firm
from which you have received adequate education. What firm has not provided
you with adequate information?
Customer education is vital to perform customers accurately in the service providing process.
To further educate the customers, the company should add the below-mentioned strategies to
educate customers:

a) Increase the Number of Service Personnel: Service personnel are the people that will
articulate the pros and cons of the service and make customers fully aware of the service
process of the company.
b) Support Customers 24×7: There should be the arrangement from the company to
satisfy customers with any sort of information they intend to seek. This will educate
and aware customers.
c) Performing Customer Education Audit: Like the financial audit, the service
company should arrange customer audit after a certain period to track the customers’
feedback on the service they have attained from the company. This will enable the

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 company to work closely with the customers and make them more aware and educated
about the service quality and performance of the company.

As a customer I always expect to have an effective, sensible customer education from the
company. As service is intangible customer education is very significant. So, I aspire for
information regarding the quality of service or how the company is fulfilling the service
promise. Being a price sensitive customer, I intend to learn about the price of the service. Also,
I intend to learn about the after sales service from the service company.

As a customer, I once receive adequate information from Adonis Hairstyle Salon. As the name
implies, it is the place where people go for their hair grooming. The service company pledges
to provide customers with all sorts of information to educate a customer like me. After entering
their stores, they provide me with all sorts of information regarding the services they want to
provide me as a valuable customer. This includes the information about price, the types of
haircut they intend to apply, the types of ingredients they intend to use and every detail. Thus,
this company provided me with a higher magnitude of customer education.

BRTC can be cited as the firm that has failed to provide me with ample information. While
going on a trip, I tried to avail the information from the BRTC website about the pricing of the
routes that I want to go. But I hardly had find any information regarding the pricing. Again,
there was hardly any facility to contact with them online. So, this can be said quite staggering
firm that lacks in customer education.

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 Solution to Chapter Ending Case
Introduction:

Giordano is a Hong Kong based retailers of casual clothes. It started its journey as a retail store
in 1980 in Hong Kong by offering men's casual apparels. Giordano expanded its operation in
Taiwan in 1985 through joint venture. With a view to increasing the growth rate, Giordano
started to serve female customers in 1987. Now, Giordano has four brands including Giordano,
Giordano Ladies, Giordano Junior and blue star exchange. It has 1600 retail stores in 31
markets of Asia pacific and middle-east region. They are trying to expand their global
positioning over time.

This case is basically based on published information and quotes from different sources.
Through this entire case three aspects have been reflected.

• How Giordano should change its current positioning in market place?

• Would the past success factors remain equally critical over time or new factors are
emerging?
• Were the competitive strengths of Giordano readily transferable to other markets in
terms of entering new markets around the world?

2. Macro environment analysis (PESTEL)

Political

Pollution regulation

Tax structure

ECONOMICAL

Increasing cost of raw materials

Currency fluctuation

Labour cost

SOCIAL

Culture

Taste and preference

Convenience
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TECHNOLOGICAL

IT systems

Software technologies like Web designing, Enterprise resource planning (ERP), Point of sale
(pos)

Economic
Political Increasing Cost of Raw
Pollution Regulation Materials
Tax Structure Currency Fluctuation
Labour Cost
Legal
Legal Codes
Legislation

Social
Technological
Culture
IT Systems
Taste and Preference
Software Technologies
Convenience

Figure 6: PESTLE Framework

LEGAL

Giordano Retail Company always follows the legal codes of the country, nation, subcontinent
or territory in which it is operating.

3. Success strategies of Giordano:

Giordano has repositioned its strategies that conveyed a substantial success. There are some
factors that contributed to the success of Giordano.

• Management values and style

• Service
• Value for money
• Inventory control

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Management values and style: Giordano has created an environment where front line
managers can take decisions autonomously. This autonomy significantly minimize the
mistakes.

Service: Giordano provides quality service in all retail stores around the globe. Their ever
smiling sales staff contributes more to their service. They welcome unlimited try-ons and have
no question about exchange. The sales staffs are recruited through a proper recruitment
procedures and are trained to meet the satisfactory level of customers.

Value for money: Giordano carefully select suppliers and strictly control the cost. They also
restrict temptation to increase retail prices unnecessarily.

Inventory control: They have kept a really good and effective system which records their
inventory and sends a report to sales and distribution department at the end of the day. The
delivery of the new stock is done in the night and inventory is available before they open their
stores. This system is computerized and there different kind of flows of transmits data in
different branches. The control on stock is normally on those products whose demand is more
than other products depending on the seasonal offers provided by Giordano in different
countries.

4. Recommendation:

If Giordano wants to expand in the international market and avoid unexpected ailures from the
past, the firm should develop step by step according to the Uppsala Giordano missed some
important stage on mode of operation. This may be true for large companies, but the past proved
that this action should not do to avoid some regrettable failure. We easily recognize that the
firm should export to the new market to penetrate. Gradually expanding export from occasional
(sporadic export) to sales representatives and foreign sales subsidiary. Company should have
multiple marketing strategies and more customer appreciation program which determines the
style of Giordano. The firm needs to start with some promotion policies to increase
international market share. Giordano also needs to find out possibility of outsourcing to main
suitable costs to adapt customer service strategy for each market segment with its own external
factors such as social, cultural factors, country risks, etc.

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