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Summary Services Marketing - Integrating customer focus across the firm
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Summary Services Marketing - Integrating customer focus across the firm 4th edition.
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CSI EXAM 1, 5, 8, 9, 10
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CSI EXAM chapters 1, 5, 8, 9, 10 (5 same as chapter 2 in the fourth edition)
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Lectures Services Marketing
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Summary Book Services MarketingChapter 1
This Chapter has set the stage for further learning about services marketing by presenting information
on changes in the world economy and business practice that have driven the focus on service: the fact
that service dominate the modern economies of the world; the focus on service as an competitive
business imperative; specific needs of the deregulated and professional service industries; the role of
new service concepts growing form technological advances; and the realization that the characteristics
of services result in unique challenges and opportunities. The chapter presented a broad definition of
services as deeds, processes and performance, and it drew distinctions among pure service, value-added
service, service experiences and customer service. It also introduced the concept of service dominant
logic.
Building on this fundamental understanding of the service economy, the chapter went on to present the
key characteristics of services that underlie the need for distinct strategies and concepts for managing
service businesses. These basic characteristics are that services are intangible, heterogeneous, produced
and consumed simultaneously, and perishable. Because of these characteristics, service managers face a
number of challenges in marketing, including the complex problem of how to deliver quality services
consistently.
The chapter described two themes that provide the foundation for future chapters: the expanded
marketing mix for services; and customer focus as a unifying theme. It also introduced the concept of
the services triangle and the servuction system. The remainder of text focuses on exploring the unique
opportunities and challenges faced by organizations that sell and deliver services, and on developing
solutions that will help you become an effective champion and manager.
Chapter 2
The intention of this chapter was to provide understanding about how consumers choose and evaluate
services. Services posses high levels of experience and credence properties, which in turn make them
challenging to evaluate, particularly prior to purchase. The chapter isolated and discussed three stages
of consumer behavior for services, and it looked at how experience and credence properties result in
challenges and opportunities in all three stages. The three stages are consumer choice (including need
and recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives and service purchase); consumer
experience; and post-experience evaluation. Consumer behavior theories, current research and insights
for managers were highlighted in each of these sections.
Although the three stages are relevant for all types of consumer behavior in services, important
differences exist in behavior across global cultures and for groups versus individuals. Global differences
in consumer behavior were presented, particularly as they relate to service consumption. The chapter
ended with a discussion of the differences in group versus individual consumer decision-making related
to households and organizations.
Chapter 3
Using a conceptual framework of the nature and determinants of customer expectations of service, we
showed in this chapter that customers hold different types of service expectations: (1) desired service,
which reflects what customers want; (2) adequate service, or what customers are willing to accept; and
(3) predicted service, or what customers believe they are likely to get. These different levels of service
, are reflected within the customer’s zone of tolerance which establishes the variability in the service
delivery that the customer is willing to accept.
Customer expectations and tolerance levels are influences by a variety of factors. The types and sources
of these are the same for end consumers and business customers, for pure service and product-related
service, and for experienced customers and inexperienced customers.
Chapter 4
This chapter described customer perceptions of service by first introducing you to two critical concepts:
customer satisfaction and service quality. These critical customer perception were defined and discussed
in terms of the factors that influence each of the. You learned that customer satisfaction is a broad
perception influenced by features and attributes of the product as well as the by the customers’
emotional response, their attributions and their perceptions of fairness. Service quality, the customer’s
perception of the service component of a product, is also a critical determinant of customer satisfaction.
Sometimes, as in the case of a pure service, service quality may be the most critical determinant of
satisfaction. You learned that perceptions of service quality are based on five dimensions: reliability,
assurance, empathy, responsiveness and tangibles.
Another major purpose of this chapter was to introduce the idea of service encounters, or ‘moments of
truth’, as the building blocks for both satisfaction and quality. You learned that every service encounter
(whether remote, over the telephone or in person) is an opportunity to build perceptions of quality and
satisfaction. The underlying themes of pleasure and displeasure in service encounters were also
described. The importance of managing the evidence of service in each and every encounter was
discussed.
Chapter 5
This chapter presented the integrated gaps model of services quality, a framework for understanding
and improving service delivery. The remainder of the text is organized around this model of service
quality, and focuses on the four provider gaps involved in delivering and marketing a service.
- Provider gap 1: Not knowing what customers expect
- Provider gap 2: Not selecting the right service quality designs and standards
- Provider gap 3: Not delivering for service designs and standards
- Provider gap 4: Not matching performance to promises
The gaps model positions the key concepts, strategies and decisions in services marketing in a manager
that begins with the customer and builds the organization’s tasks around what is needed to close the
gap between customer expectations and perceptions.
Chapter 6
This chapter discussed the role of marketing research in understanding customer perceptions and
expectations. It defined key forms of services research, including critical studies, mystery shopping,
service expectation meetings and reviews, process checkpoint evaluations and database research.
Important topics in researching services – including developing research objectives and presenting data
– were also described. Finally, upward communication, the ways in which management obtains and uses
information form customers and customer contact personnel, was discussed. These topics combine to
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