99

le
The Services Marketing Triangle (or Services Triangle) shows the key actors involved in
marketing a service business. It also shows the key marketing activities that occur between
those actors.Before we look at the model it is important to note that we are only concerned
with the marketing of services. The model does not apply to products. We define services
using these criteria:L

9Intangible: you cannot see, taste, or touch them.

9Inseparable: you cannot se9parate production from consumption.

 Perishable: you cannot store them, save them, or return them.
 Heterogeneous: you cannot mass produce them as they are unique.
Examples of services include hotel rooms, flights, and health club membership.

Services businesses are marketed on promises. These are the promises we make to
customers and whether we keep or fail to keep those promises. The Services Marketing
Triangle is a visual strategic model. It reinforces the importance of people in a company’s
ability to keep its promises.

The Serv9ices Marketing Triangle

The Servic9es Marketing Triangle is shown in the following diagram. It shows the key

marketing a9ctivities that happen between the key actors within services businesses. O

Each actor works together to develop, promote, and deliver a company’s service. As you can
sOee from the diagram we represent actors by the points of the triangle. Our actors are:

 Company: refers to the leadership team of the company in question.

 Employees: refers to all employees, including subcontractors who deliver the
company’s service.
 Customers: refers to all customers and potential customers of the company.
The lines between the points show the different types of marketing that must occur:

 External Marketing: occurs between the company and its customers.

1
99

 Internal Marketing: occurs between the company and its employees.

 Interactive Marketing: occurs between the employees and the customers.

External Marketing9

Companies use exter9nal marketing to make promises to customers. External marketing is

any communication t9o customers (or potential customers) that happens before service
delivery starts.

Forms of external marketing include:

 Advertising

 Personal selling9

 Public relations (PR)

 Direct marketing

We use external marketing to achieve many aims including:

 Creating awaren9ess.

 Setting price expe9ctations.

 Setting service leve9l expectations.

 Informing customers if any prerequisites that must be in place before they can use
the service.

Internal Marketing

Within a services business, we view employees as internal customers. They are a market
which we must please first a9s a company. The leadership team should be focused on
satisfying its employees so that they want to better serve customers.

Internal marketing involves motivating employees to work as a team to make customers

satisfied. This is obviously true for customer service representatives. It can equally be
applied to all employees. This results in everyone, at all levels of the organization, being
empowered to deliver great customer service.

2
99

Key components of internal marketing include:

 Motivating employees

 Teaching customer satisfaction techniques

 Communicating compan9y goals regularly

 Management of change9

 Training staff on how to u9se the company’s services

 Good pay and working conditions

Interactive Marketing

Interactive marketing occurs whe9n employees and customers interact. It is here where the
promises made during external marketing are either kept or broken by employees or sub-
contractors.

Each significant interaction between an employee and a customer is known as a service

encounter.
Interactive marketing is important because it establishes both short-term and long-term
satisfaction. That is, if the customer is satisfied with the service they received in the short-
term, they are more likely to be satisfied over the longer term.

Services Marketing Triangle Example

To wrap things up let’s consider a s9imple example, that of a luxury hotel.

First, let’s consider external marketing. A luxury hotel may want to educate custoOmers
through advertising and public relations. Here, they will want to inform customers that their
rooms have the fine(((n Airline where the flight attendants themselves are frustrated with
the company. You, as a customer, will land up with the poorest services.

Hence, training employees, building value and trust, and empowering employees are some
of the ways that the company can make their employees a positive influencing force for the
customers.

3) Company to systems

3
99

To keep customers happy, efficient and productive systems need to be developed. Imagine
your bank in the 1960’s where eve9rything was done by paper. If you wanted to transfer
money, you will have to fill many forms, and the recipient had to fill many forms. Ultimately
it was aO tedious process.

However, due to advanced systems, nowadays you can not only transfer money to others
sitting at home, you can practically do 80% of the banking work sitting at home from your
laptop. That’s the importance of systems in a service marketing triangle.

4) Customers to systems

Although building systems are important, these systems should be most useful to
customers. Taking the same example of banking systems above, it is surprising that even
today when you go to a bank, there is a queue. Look a9t retail stores. There’s always a big
line to check out.

The interaction between customer and system is critical to build the service brand. Taking
the examOple of E-commerce systems, when the customer is promised various service
advantages, and when he fails to return a product due to system errors or logistics errors,
he becomes dissatisfied with the service.

For a company, it is important not only to build systems, but ensure that the systems
comply to the customers and give excellent experience to customers.

5) Employees to system

Not only do systems leave customers frustrated, they also leave the employees frustrated.
Imagine a McDonald’s where orders taken at the front desk are not reaching the kitchen. Or
imagine a service center, where althou9gh you have entered a grievance, the employee is
not getting your complaint and hence not calling you. Ultimately it is the employee on
whom you are going to get angry!!

In one of the consumer durable companies i know, the systems were top of the line, but
they had so many processes with regards to outstanding and inventory, that a simple order
pr9ocessing took 20 minutes. This same company had at least 1 lakh dealers and
distributors. So Oimagine the continuous delay in order processing and the pressure on
employees due to this system issue. The system was working excellently, but it was creating
friction between the employees and the system.

BOoth, Employee motivation, and the empowerment of employees depends on the type of

system you hand over to your employees. If the systems are very good and your employees
are able to make good use of it, you will get very happy and satisfied customers.

6) The most important relationship in the service triangle – Employee to Customers

4
99

The employee to customer interaction 9is also known as the “moment of truth” or “critical
incidents”. A single customer can become dissatisfied with the way the employee treated
him. Or that single customer can buy a lot of material from the same store, because the
employee treated him or her like a king or queen.

That’s the difference your employees can create when they interact with customers. There
are companies which are high in the customer satisfaction index, just because their
employees are well-trained and are empowered to take their own decisions. More
importantly, these employees are ingrained with the habit that “Customer is king”.

Once your employees starts treating the customer as if they are really king, the whole
service tria9ngle gets completed, and you will get the best results from all processes
employed.

How to market with the service marketing triangle?

There are 3 types of marketing which happen within the service marketing triangle

5
99

1. Internal marketing – Marketing from the company to the employees

2. External marketing – Marketing from the company to the customers
3. Interactive marketing – Marketing between the customers and the employees

1) Internal marketing in the service triangle

Holistic marketing is most used when internal marketing is in effect. An advertising firm

alwa9ys tries to keep its own employees motivated. They are given a hell lot of parties and
outings just so that they are in a jovial mood. And they need to be in a jovial mood because
the rest of the times they are using their creative brains very hard to give the ultimate
service to their customers.

Furthermore, these same advertising companies empower their employees to take the right
decisions in front of customers. This empowerment goes a long way in building motivation
and confidence.

And that’s what internal marketing based on the service triangle is all about. Building
confidence and motivation in your employees, so that they build excellent relationships with
the en9d customers and the company gets the money.

2) External Marketing

Marketing from the company to the customers. This is the most common type of marketing
which we, as customers, encounter in the market. The various types of service marketing
can be advertising, sales promotions, public relations, direct marketing, or more
prominently, internet marketing in today’s age.

3) Interactive marketing

The marketing which happens on a retail store, in a restaurant, in a mall, in a bank, or in any
format where the customer comes in touch with the employee, is known as interactive
marketing. This marketing within the service triangle happens between the customers and
the em9ployees.

Interactive marketing is also a strong way to influence customers. It is most commonly used
to help customers come to a decision with regards to their purchase decision. If a retail
executive has received orders that he has to liquidate stock of Samsung, he will only tell you
the positive things about samsung and try to convert your decision into buying Samsung.

The various forms of interactive marketing include personal selling, servicing the customer
and interacting with customers on social media or other such interactive platforms.