Understanding Services: Characteristics, Quality, and Marketing Strategies
This overview dissects the nature of services in marketing, focusing on their intangibility and unique characteristics such as inconsistency, inseparability, and issues with inventory. Explore classifications of services, including consumer and business services, and the distinction between core and augmented services. Additionally, we delve into service quality evaluation through methods like gap analysis and the critical incident technique. Lastly, learn the importance of internal marketing and effective service recovery strategies to enhance customer satisfaction.
Understanding Services: Characteristics, Quality, and Marketing Strategies
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Presentation Transcript
What is a Service? • Services are acts, efforts, or performances exchanged from producer to user without ownership rights • Consumer services • Business services
Characteristics of Services • The 4 “I”s of Services • Intangibility • Inconsistency • Inseparability • Inventory • Idle capacity
Classification of Services Services Tangible Intangible Recipient of Service Customer Possessions Hair cut, plastic surgery, manicure College education., TV program, counseling Dry cleaning, auto repair, housecleaning Insurance, home security service
Core and Augmented Services • Core service is a benefit that a customer gets from the service • Augmented services are additional offerings that differentiate the firm • Example: Airline transportation • Core: travel • Augmented services: frequent flier miles, sky caps, in-flight entertainment services and Internet access
Evaluative Dimensions of Service Quality • Search qualities - characteristics of a product that the consumer can examine prior to purchase • Experience qualities - characteristics that customers can determine during or after consumption • Credence qualities - attributes we find difficult to evaluate even after we’ve experienced them
Measuring Service Quality • Gap Analysis - measurement tool that gauges the difference between a customer’s expectation of service quality and what actually occurred • Critical Incident Technique - company collects and closely analyzes very specific customer complaints to identify critical incidents
Gap Analysis • Gap between consumer expectations and management perceptions • Gap between management perception and quality standards set by the firm • Gap between established quality standards and service delivery • Gap between service quality standards and consumer expectations • Gap between expected service and perceived service
Service Failure and Recovery • When services do fail, recover fast: • Apologize • Resolve the problem • Do not further inconvenience the customer • Analyze what happened to eliminate future failures
Internal Marketing The notion that a service organization must focus on its employees, or internal market, before successful programs can be directed at customers.