Services marketing.

Services marketing
• The importance of service marketing.

• Characteristics of services marketing.

• The extended marketing mix for services.

• The importance of people.

• Service quality.
The important of service marketing.

• Services are the distinguished from

products mainly because they are
generally produced at the same time as
they are consumed and cannot be stored
or taken away. An enhanced marketing
mix needs to be deployed.
 Characteristic of
services marketing
 Intangibility…..
• Refers to lack of
physical substance.

• Involved with services

delivery.
This insubstantiality is a
continuum
 Owner ship
• Services do not result in the transfer of
property.

• An item of service provision is defined by

the length of time it is available.
 A service cannot be
separated from the provider of
the service

The performance of a service

often occurs at the same
moment as its consumption
 Perish ability
• Services can not be stoned
Managers need to change the services in
their availability (capital, labor force …) for the
period of time to meet customer needs
 Heterogeneity and variability
It is difficult to attain:
• Precise standardization of the service
offered
• Influences or control over perceptions of
what is good or bad customer service
THE EXTENDED MARKETING
MIX FOR SERVICES
 The additional elements
4Ps are extended for services to make 7Ps,
including:
 Product
 Price
 Place
 Promotion
 People
 Process
 Physical evidence
 The additional elements
(cont’d…)
• People provide services: wrong service ->
spoiled service
• Services are provided through process
(number of sequential steps): spoiled
service can appear at any step in the
sequence
• Physical evidence (ambience) can be a
maker or spoiler of the service
 The additional elements
(cont’d…)
An alternative approach identifies 4 extra
Ps:
• Personal selling
• Place of availability (operations
management)
• People and customer service
• Physical evidence
 Personal selling
Personal selling is very important in the
marketing of services, because of:
– The greater of perceived risk
– The greater uncertainty about quality and
reliability
Personal contact with a competent,
effective representative may provide the
necessary confidence when consumers
seek reassurance
 Place of availability
• Place of availability is really covered by
the distribution system
• There are special problems for services in
operations management
Place of availability (cont’d…)
 The level and quality of service are sensitive to
the processes by which services are delivered.
There are 3 key factos:
• Capacity utilisation
• Managing customer contact
• Establishing objectives within the non-for-profit
sector
 Minimising exposure to negative feedback, and
promoting the dissemination of positive
messages about the service are important
 People and customer service

• To satisfy customers, the physical

presence of people is a vital aspect
• Customer orientation is needed in all
sectors organization activity
 People and customer service
(cont’d…)
Evidences of customer orientation on the part of
staff include:
• Appearance
• Attitude
• Commitment
• Behaviour
• Professionalism
• Skills
• Discretion
 People and customer service
(cont’d…)
• The staff role in adding value is very
crucial when improve higher level of
customer contact
• The delivery of the service and physical
presence of the personnel involved are
completely inseparable
 Physical evidence
• The remedy for intangibility of the product
is physical evidence
• Physical evidence may:
 Associate with the service itself (e.g: credit
cards)
 Buid up by identification with a specific
individual
 Incorporate into the design and
specification
The importance of people
Service marketing organizations
have to emphasize:
• Selection and training

• Internal marketing to promulgate the culture of service

within the firm

• Ensuring conformance with standards:

– Behavior
– Dress and appearance
– Procedures
– Modes of dealing with the public
 Con’t…

• Mechanising procedures where possible

• Constantly auditing personnel performance and

behavior

• Extending the promotion of the service and its

qualities into the design of service environments
and the engineering of interactions between staff
and customers and among the customers them
selves.
COMPONENTS OF SERVICE
QUALITY
Service Quality
 Definition
• Service quality is the totality of features
and characteristics of that service which
bears on its ability to meet customer
needs.
• Quality can only be defined by customers
 Improving service quality

Two ways:

• Higher sales revenues

• Improved productivity and reduced costs

Grönroos' Service Quality model
 COMPONENTS OF SERVICE
QUALITY
• Two principal components

• Mediating influence

• Major determinants

• Methods to improve
 Two principal components
• Technical quality: What the customer is
left with, when the production process is
finished.

• Functional quality: How the customer

receives the technical quality in the
interactions between customer & service
provider & other customer.
Mediating influence
Image: View of the company
 Major determinants
2 major quality dimensions:

- People

- Infrastructure and process

 People
7 factors:
• Reliability
• Responsiveness
• Communication
• Credibility
• Competence
• Courtesy
• Understanding customers’ needs
 Reliability
Accuracy and Dependability
Getting it right in the first time
 Responsiveness
• Ability to address all issues
• Willingness to deal with customer’s
queries
 Communication
• Non-technical language
• Easily to access informations
 Credibility
• Honest
• Trustworthy
• Willingness to share negative references
 Competence
• Understanding product range
• Interpreting the needs of the customers
Courtesy
• Polite
• Respectful
• Friendly
Understanding customers’
needs

Use customer record to know customers’

need
Infrastructure and process
3 factors:
• Tangibles
• Security
• Access
 Tangible
• Physical evidence: Report, Inspection
• Quality of fixtures
 Security
• Private
• Confidential
• Restriction to access customer database
 Access
• Fair queuing system
• Avoid customers’ irritation
• Pleasant relaxing environment
 Methods to improve
• Develop customer orientated mission statement
• Support for quality improvement initiatives
• Regular customer satisfaction research
• Monitor standards and communicating results
• Establish systems for customers complaints and
feedback
• Encourage employee participation
• Reward excellent service