Integrated Service Marketing

Triangle
Dr. Poonam Madan
 The Services Triangle
and Technology
Company

Technology

Providers Customers

Source: Adapted from A. Parasuraman

 Three Types of Marketing
in Service Industries
Compan
y

Internal External
marketin marketin
g g

Cleaning/ Financial/
maintenance banking Restaurant
services services industry
Interacti
Employees ve Customers
marketin
 The Services Marketing Triangle
Company
(Management)

Internal External
Marketing Marketing

“enabling the “setting

promise” the
promise”

Employees Interactive Marketing Customers

“delivering the promise”
Source: Adapted from Mary Jo Bitner, Christian Gronroos, and Philip Kotler
 Three types of interdependent marketing
in service industries

• Internal marketing
• External marketing
• Interactive marketing

M K
 Internal marketing

– Marketing conducted by a service firm to train and

effectively motivate its customer contact
employees and all the supporting service people
to work as a team to provide customer
satisfaction.
 INTERNAL MARKETING
• The Internal Marketing Concept states that the internal market
of employees is best motivated for service-mindedness and
prepared for customer- oriented performance by an active,
goal-oriented approach where a variety of activities and
processes is used internally in an active, marketing-like and
coordinated way. In this way, internal relationships between
people in various departments and processes (customer contact
employees, internal support employees, team-leaders,
supervisors and managers) can best be enhanced and geared
towards service oriented management and implementation of
external relationships with customers and other parties.
• Internal Marketing is the management philosophy of treating
employees as customers.
• The objective of Internal Marketing is to create, maintain and
enhance internal relationships between people in the
organisation, regardless of their position, so that they first feel
motivated to provide services to internal customers as well as
to external customers in a customer-oriented and service-
minded way, and second, have the skills and knowledge
required as well as the support needed from managers and
supervisors, internal service providers, systems and technology
to be able to perform in such a manner.
• Such internal relationships can only be achieved if employees
feel that they can trust each other, and above all, trust the firm
and its management to continuously provide the physical and
emotional support required to deliver service excellence.
• If internal marketing activities are implemented purely as a
campaign, or, even worse, as separate activities without
connections to other management factors / functions, the risk
that nothing enduring will be achieved is overwhelming.
• The three pre-requisites for successful internal marketing are;
✔ Internal marketing has to be considered an integral part of
strategic management.
✔ The internal marketing process must not be counteracted by
the organisational structure of a firm or by a lack of
management support.
✔ Top management must constantly demonstrate active support
for the internal marketing activity.
• Typical internal marketing activities include;
⮚ Training – functional and technical, developing and enhancing
favourable attitudes towards service.
⮚ Management support and internal dialogue – active
encouragement, feedback, coaching.
⮚ Internal communication and information support – brochures,
memos, intranet, appropriate access to the MKTIS & SQIS.
⮚ Proactive HRM – status of preferred employer, recruitment
and selection of “service enthusiasts”.
⮚ Development of systems and technology support – internal
complaint and internal recovery systems, internal service
quality monitoring systems.
⮚ Internal market research and segmentation.
 External marketing

– Traditional marketing incorporating the 7Ps

• Price
• Product/service
• Place
• Promotion
• People
• Processes
• Physical environment
– of the services marketing mix.
 Interactive marketing

– Marketing that recognises that the perceived

service quality depends heavily on the buyer-seller
interaction.
– Emphasis on relationship marketing.
 Aligning the Triangle
• Organizations that seek to provide consistently
high levels of service excellence will
continuously work to align the three sides of
the triangle.

• Aligning the sides of the triangle is an ongoing

process.
 Making Promises
• Understanding customer needs
• Managing expectations
• Traditional marketing communications
• Sales and promotion
• Advertising
• Internet and web site communication
 Keeping Promises
• Service delivery
– Reliability, responsiveness, empathy, assurance,
tangibles, recovery, flexibility
• Face-to-face, telephone & online interactions
• The Customer Experience
• Customer interactions with sub-contractors or
business partners
• The “moment of truth”
 Enabling Promise Keeping
• Hiring the right people
• Training and developing people to deliver
service
• Employee empowerment
• Support systems
• Appropriate technology and equipment
• Rewards and incentives
 Ways to Use the Services Marketing
Triangle
• Overall Strategic Assessment • Specific Service Implementation
– How is the service – What is being promoted
organization doing on all and by whom?
three sides of the – How will it be delivered
triangle? and by whom?
– Where are the – Are the supporting
weaknesses? systems in place to
– What are the strengths? deliver the promised
service?
 Major tasks of service industries

• Service companies are faced with three major

marketing tasks; they need to:
– increase competitive differentiation
– increase service quality
– increase productivity
 Managing differentiation
• Intensive price competition has resulted in service
differentiation to increase competitiveness.

• The 3 Ps, people, processes and physical environment of

service marketing and service delivery
– form the core differential and competitive advantage.

• Service intangibility and variability means that a

consistent brand is not easily built.
 Ten key determinants of
perceived service quality (1)

• Concerned with the quality outcome of the

service
– Access
– Credibility
– Knowledge
– Reliability
– Security
 Ten key determinants of
perceived service quality (2)

• Related to the delivery process

– Competence
– Communication
– Courtesy
– Responsiveness
– Tangibles
Characteristics of service organisations
• Customer obsession
• Management commitment to quality
• High service quality standards
• Scrutinise service performance
• Good service recovery and management of disgruntled
customers
• Empowerment of employees, especially front-line staff
• Satisfy and reward employees as well as customers
 Managing Productivity
• Training and development of staff.
• Service providers can increase the quantity of service
by reducing some quality.
• Industrialise the service.
• Design more effective service delivery mechanisms.
• Customers are given incentives to substitute company
labour.
• Introduce new technology to save time and costs and
increase efficiencies.