Service Marketing Communications

By OMER PERVEZ
The 5 W’s of Service Marketing Communications

• Who is our target audience?

• What do we need to communicate and achieve?
• How should we communicate this?
• Where should we communicate this?
• When do the communications need to take place?
Who is our target audience? (Target Audience Decision)

• The target Audience

• Prospective customers target segments
• Current customers : users of the service
• Employees as secondary audience
What
are our objectives? (Communications Objectives)

Strategic Objectives: Tactical Objectives

• Pre-purchase stage:
Position and
Manage the customer search and choice
differentiate the process.
• Service encounter stage:
brand and service Guide customers through the service
encounter
products . • Post-encounter stage:
Manage customer satisfaction and build
loyalty
How should this be communicated? (Message
Decisions)

Challenges of Service Communications

• Problems of intangibility
Abstractness / Generality / Non-searchability / Mental impalbility
• Strategies to address intangibility
Advertising tactics to address intangibility (including showing consumption
episodes, documentation, and testimonials)
 Tangible cues
 Metaphors
Where should this be communicated? (Media Decisions)
Communications Mix for Services from Three Key Sources
• Marketing communications channels
- Traditional media (e.g., TV) - Online media (e.g., search engine
advertising)
• Service delivery channels
- Service outlets - Frontline employees - Self-service delivery points
• Messages originated from outside the organization:
- Word-of-mouth, social media - Blogs and Twitter - Traditional media
coverage
When should communication take place? (Timing
Decisions)

• Map timing against Service Communications Funnel

• Use Media plan Flowchart
Budget Decisions and Communications Program
Evaluation

• Objective-and-Task Method
• Other budgeting methods (e.g., percentage of revenue,
matching against competitor spent)
• Map performance against overall and specific objectives
along the Service Communications Funnel.
Ethics and Consumer Privacy

• Don’t make exaggerated promises or use deceptive

communications
• Respect and protect consumer privacy
Corporate Design

Ensure a unified and distinctive visual

appearance for all tangible elements of the
firm and its services
Integrated Marketing Communications

Integrate communication across all channels to

deliver a consistent message, look, and feel
Specifying service Communication
Objectives

Strategic Service Communications Objectives

 Building a service brand
positioning it
its service products against competition.
Specifying service Communication
Objectives

Tactical Service Communications Objectives

Tactical objectives relate to shaping and managing customers’

perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and behavior during any of the
three stages of the service consumption process
communications objectives

Customer Acquisition
• Move customers along the key stages of the sales funnel
• Build awareness, knowledge and interest in the service or brand
• Compare a service favorably with competitors 'offerings
• Encourage potential customers to purchase
• Create memorable images of brands and services
• Stimulate and shift demand to match capacity
communications objectives

Service Encounter Management

• Familiarize customers with service processes in advance of use
• Guide customers through the service process
• Manage customer behavior and perceptions during the service
encounter
• Manage quality perceptions
• Cross sell and upsell services
communications objectives

Customer Engagement
• Manage customer satisfaction
• Manage service quality perceptions
• Build loyalty
• Encourage WOM (offline and online)
• Encourage referrals
• Build a brand community
Problems of Intangibility

• Abstractness (do not have one-to-one correspondence with

physical objects)
• Generality (not specific enough)
• Non-searchability (cannot be searched or inspected before
they are purchased)
• Mental impalpability (Many services are complex, multi-
dimensional, or novel)
Overcoming the Problems of Intangibility

Abstractness
• Capture and show typical customers benefiting from
the service
• by smiling
• satisfaction at a staff member going out of his way to
help.
Overcoming the Problems of Intangibility

Generality
• System documentation (Document facts and statistics about
the service delivery system)
• Performance documentation (Document and cite past service
performance statistics)
• Service performance episode (Present actual service delivery
being performed by the service personnel)
Overcoming the Problems of Intangibility

Non-searchability
• Consumption documentation
• Reputation documentation
Overcoming the Problems of Intangibility

Mental impalpability
• Service process episode
• Case history episode
• Service consumption episode
Overcoming the Problems of Intangibility

Overall
• Tangible Cues Commonly used strategies in advertising include the
use of tangible cues whenever possible, especially for services that
involve few tangible elements.
• Use Metaphors Some companies have created metaphors that are
tangible in nature to help communicate the benefits of their service
offerings and to emphasize key points of differentiation.