Chapter 6

Promotion & Service

Promotion is used to communicate information about goods and services to target
market customers facilitating the exchange process.

Promotion plays an important role in informing, educating, persuading and reminding

customers. This role is very critical in services because of high degree of
intangibility.

Promotion is used as a tool of communication informing customers about services to

target market audiences. It facilitates the exchange process. Effective
communications are needed to inform customers about their role in the service
delivery process. For example, customers need to know where ATM cash dispensers
are located and how they work, or how to make reservations for a restaurant or a seat
at the theatre.

There have been issues such as how promotion is to be ‘promoted in services’ which
have characteristics such as intangibility : cannot be separated from person or seller:
cannot be transported or be stored : standardization is not possible : and services are
perishable.

Ways in which service may be promoted include :

o Promoting the environment of the service Organization

o Promoting the effects of the service
o Promoting the Organization

Purpose of Promoting:

 To make people aware of product and take interest in the services organization
 To differentiate service offer and service organization from other competitor.
 To communicate the benefits of the service available
 To build and maintain an overall image of the service organization
 Persuade the customers to buy or use the service

However, the purpose of promotion may vary from service to service and emphasis on
any of the above points maybe noted.

The ultimate purpose of any promotional effort is to sell the service through
informing, persuading and reminding.
Today’s consumers of services receive communications from a far richer variety of
sources- servicescapes, customer service department and everyday service encounter
and interactions with employees.

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 Communications and the services marketing triangle

Internal Marketing:
Vertical Communication
Horizontal Communication
External Marketing
Company Communication :
- Advertising
- Sales Promotion
- Public Relations
- Direct Marketing

Interactive Marketing
Employees Personal Selling
Customers
Customer Service Center
Service Encounters
Servicescapes

There are two types of marketing communication. External marketing communication

from the Company to the customers and include the traditional communication
channels as shown.

Second, interactive marketing communication involves the message that employees

give to customers through channels as personal selling, customer service interactions,
service encounter interactions, and servicescapes. A service company must be sure
that these interactive messages are consistent both among themselves and with those
sent through external communications.

The third side of the triangle, internal marketing communications, must be managed
so that communications from the company to employees are accurate, complete and
consistent with what the customer is hearing or seeing. For example, Bank advertises
frequent and quick changes to meet competitive offerings , but the bank’s teller’s
training in the new offerings did not keep pace with the changes in advertising. As a
result, customers came in expecting new accounts and rates to be available, and
employees were embarrassed because they hadn’t been informed.

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The promotion tools used in the service are mainly

 Advertising- any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of

services by an identified individual or organization.

 Personal selling- personal presentation of services in a conversation with one

or more prospective purchasers for the purpose of making sales.

 Publicity- non-personal stimulation of demand for a service by obtaining

commercially significant news about it in any medium or obtaining favorable
presentation of it in any medium that is not paid for by the service sponsor.

 Sales promotion- marketing activities other than advertising, personal selling

or publicity that stimulate customer purchasing and use and enhance dealer
effectiveness (e.g discounts, coupons).

 Point of purchase communications: It includes displays, posters, signs that are

designed to influence choice at the point of purchase.

Criteria for selecting specific promotion technique

A careful thought should be given in deciding whether or not a specific type of
promotion can contribute usefully to marketing strategy. Each situation must be
examined on its merits. The promotion techniques should be considered against the
flowing criteria:

1. Overall marketing objectives.

2. Nature of the service
3. Characteristics of target consumers.
4. Nature and attitudes of intermediaries.
5. Activities of competitors.
6. Cost effectiveness.
7. Integration with other marketing elements
8. Requirements for effective implementation.
9. Measurement issues
10. Legal considerations.

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 Advertising

Point of
purchase Personal
communicat Promotional Selling
ion Mix

Sales
Publicity Promotion

Promotional Mix

Guide lines for Services Promotional Management:

Promotional management is the practice of coordinating the various promotional mix
elements, of setting objectives for what the elements are intended to accomplish, of
establishing budget that are sufficient to support the objectives of designing specific
programs (e.g. advertising campaigns) to accomplish objectives of evaluating
performance and of taking corrective action when results are not in accordance with
objectives. In the following sections we will describe the guidelines for major
promotional tools :

ADVERTISING

Large sums of money is now being spent in Advertising especially (in the banking,
building societies, travel) Although , it is considered that advertising alone will not
influence the consumer, personal interaction is also necessary.

Guidelines for Advertising for an effective promotion :

a) Use Clear, Unambiguous Messages:

Basically advertising agencies should try to communicate the service’s depth,
quality and level of services provided in simple written or illustrated form. Some
service use symbols or pictures to help convey the advertising message. All that is
required is a simple, clear message which neatly encapsulate the richness and
dimension of service offerings.

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 b) Emphasize the Benefits of Service:
Ads should focus on the benefits that the service offers. The benefits stressed
should be in line with benefits sought. The benefit appeals in Ads should therefore
be based on a clear understanding of customer needs.

c) Only Promise what can be delivered

The promise of benefits which can be obtained through service use should not be
unrealistic, raise excessive expectations in customers and be incapable of delivery
by the service organization. Service organizations must be able to fulfill
advertising promises. It is better to ensure that the minimum standard of service
promised is achieved so that, when it is exceeded, customers will even be more
pleased.

d) Advertise to Employees.
Employees are particularly important in many people-intensive services and in
many services where the interaction between service employees and customers is
central to customer satisfaction. This means that employees are a potential
audience for service advertising. Advertising is an important tool for reaching
employees and motivating and influencing them on how service should be
provided.

e) Obtain and Maintain Customer Co-operation in the Service Production

Process
Customers play a role in the production and performance of many services. In
services like Gyms or Hospitals the customer frequently plays an important role in
production. Therefore conceiving the fact that well conceived advertising will thus
focus on how to obtain and maintain the compliance and co-operation of the
customer in service production.

f) Build on Word-of –mouth Communications

Word of mouth includes to persuade satisfied customers to let others know of their
satisfaction; develop material that customers can pass on to non-customers; direct
advertising campaigns at opinion leaders; encourage potential customers to talk to
existing customers.

g) Provide Tangible Clues Service advertisers

It is advantageous to translate the range of intangible attributes of a service into
something more concrete. This more concrete communication evidence can act as
a surrogate or a metaphor for intangibility. Well known personalities and objects
(e.g buildings, machineries, vehicles, or celebrities like Mou, Moushumi) are
often used to provide tangible evidence about services that the services themselves
cannot provide.

h) Develop Continuity in Advertising

Service organizations can help overcome two disadvantages –intangibility and
service product differentiation through using consistent and continuous symbols,
themes, formats or images in their advertisements, e.g British Airways ‘Fly the
Flag” Campaign. This brought about efficiency, progressiveness, status, prestige,
importance, and friendliness.
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 i) Remove Post-purchase Anxiety
Consumers usually are subjected to doubt/ questioning regarding their services
purchases. In service marketing more effort must be spent in reassuring the buyer
of the soundness of choice. For example , advertisements of hospitals often
depicts the pictures of cured and satisfied patients.

Basically, there are five roles for advertising:

i. Creating the company’s world in the mind of the customer.

(activities, specialty and values)

ii. Building an appropriate personality for the company.

(long term efforts to mould the customer’s mind for a favorable
opinion about the organization)

iii. Identifying the company with the customer.

(The company’s image and service should be relevant to the needs,
value and attitude of the customers).

iv. Influencing company personnel on how they deal with customer

(Service advertising needs to represent and reflect company employee’s
views and be understood by them if they are to support company’s
marketing effort.)

v. Helping to open doors for sales representatives.

(Favorable customer predispositions towards a company and its
services can help sales representatives call on prospects)

PERSONAL SELLING

Here the service marketing organization use the term ‘professionals of the specialism’
to describe their functions. Guidelines for service selling includes:

i. Develop Personal Relationships with Customers

Good personal contacts between employees and customers can lead to mutual
satisfaction. The image portrayal that advertisement supports must be added to the
personal interest of the Service organization.

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 ii. Adopt a Professional Orientation

The customer must have the confidence in the seller’s ability to deliver the
expected results. A professional approach to business can assist this process.
Seller’s service means people have to be thoroughly competent in their jobs as
sellers. The seller’s appearance, actions, behavior and attitudes must conform with
customer’s views of how professional sales people are expected to conduct
themselves.

iii. Use Indirect Selling; Create derived demand

Create derived demand by measure like promoting and selling related goods and
services and helping customers use existing services more effectively and
efficiently.
The airlines can sell holidays, sell tourist attractions, Gas and Electricity Boards
sell appliances to boost gas and electricity sales. Indirect selling may take
different forms :

Use referees, testimonials and opinion leaders in customer choice process :In
many services the customers may rely on others for help and advice. Sellers go for
direct selling by exposure of these sorts of referees, source of advice, opinion
influencers and influential

Self selling: Informal method of gaining exposure may be used like speaking in
public, involvement in community affairs, membership of professional organization
and attending conferences and courses.

iv. Build and Maintain a Favorable Image

Image building and maintenance is an important element in service marketing. The

intangibility in the service indicates that reliance must be made on subjective
impression and reputation of the organization. Important users or/ non-users may use
word of mouth to spread the word about the specialties that the service organization
may offer. The personal selling effort contributes to the overall image of a service
organization. Customers may judge a company by the quality of its sales people. The
courtesy, efficiency, attentiveness and skill of sales people will contribute to and
enhance the image formed; supplemented by the other methods of image creation like
advertising and publicity.

v. Sell Services not Service

In selling core services, organizations can benefit by having a range of support

service surrounding the core service e.g package holiday, provide a convenient
example of how a range of service can be rolled into one straight forward purchase.
Insurance companies, airlines, banks, and retail organizations have extended the range
of services offered .

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 vi. Make Purchase Easy

Service products may be conceptually difficult for customers to understand. If a

customer agrees to buy a service he/she has to go to the service outlet. It may involve
search cost, time cost, and psychic cost. An intending customer may not be interested
to visit the service outlet later on. Therefore it is imperative that some innovative
devices be developed to make the purchase easier and instant.

PUBLICITY
There are three types of appeal of publicity:

 Enhance Credibility with new features and stories than directly sponsored
reports
 Resort to off guard methods: Publicity is presented as news rather than as a
direct attempt to sell or advertise which may catch potential users off guard.
 Dramatization: Publicity is there for dramatizing a service or service
organization.

Publicity task includes press relations, product and service publicity, organizational
communications (internal and external), lobbying and providing a general information
role for an organization.
The major decisions in publicity;
 Establish objectives
 Choose the publicity messages and vehicles
 Evaluate the results

Publicity is important in many service organizations. One advantage it has for smaller
service organizations with small marketing budgets as it can be a cheap method of
gaining exposure. Yet it can be a potent tool for building awareness and preference in
the market place.

SALES PROMOTION

Here we can be innovative to offer any type of Benefits (monetary and non-monetary)
to the customers and announce it is the advertisement / or through personal
communication.

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Service Communication Problems
Discrepancies between service delivery and external communications, in the form of
exaggerated promises and/ or the absence of information on service delivery aspects
intended to serve customers well, can powerfully affect consumer perceptions of
service quality The factors that contribute to these communications problems include :

 Inadequate management of service promise

 Elevated customer expectation
 Inadequate internal communication
 Insufficient customer education

Again the difficulties can be seen in the light of :

 Service industry
 Nature of service

Difficulties with Service Industry

Lack of Marketing Orientation
Some organizations do not realize that the practice of marketing would offer in their
industries. Sometimes firms consider themselves as producer of services and not as
organization serving customer needs. Managers are untrained and lack marketing
knowledge for promoting service.

Professional and Ethical Constraints

Sometime tradition and customs prevent from promoting “service”- and may be
considered as bad taste or inappropriate. For example no Bar-in-law, renowned
physician, C.A firm are seen to promote their firm in our country.

Small scale of many service firms

Many of the service operations are small scale i.e one-man business. Because of
smaller operation, they may not afford promotion costs.

Nature of Competition and market operation

For some services, nature of competition and market competition may not encourage
them to go for promotion.
Example : Fewer number of specialist in particular field ( e.g cardiologist, C.A)

Limited segment coverage by the service firms :

Many services are offered locally to cater the needs of the local or selected segment of
the market. But by ‘Promotion’ we generally visualize a very wide coverage activity.
Mass media like news papers, TV, Radio, Internet etc. are used for promotion.
It is of small use to inform the customers of Teknaf or Tetulia that a modern Hair
style shop has started operation in Dhanmondi, Dhaka.

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Difficulties due to Nature of Service:

(i) Consumer attitude :

* Services are perceived by the customers as being more ‘Personal’ than ‘Goods’.

* Service providers can not guarantee the ‘standard’ all the times.

* Probability of customers’ dissatisfaction from service bought is more frequent

than tangible products.

Therefore, all the times there might be a GAP in between the ‘Promise’ offered
in service promotion and the expectation of the customers.

(ii) Varied needs and motives for service purchases :

A ‘Product’ may cater only one need. A service firm caters diverse needs.
For example : A Beauty parlor may offer services :
 Simply to become attractive
 Beautifying bridal service
 Special occasions
 Hair skin care

It becomes difficult to identify the customer motive to buy the service. In a

situation where we lack knowledge about motives, promotion becomes difficult.

(iii) Buying process

In consumer buying process, the buyer collects information from different

Sources, he sees the product himself and then makes a decision. So
physical presentation of the product is important in product promotion.
But in service, as we cannot present the service physically, the buyer
himself decides to buy an intangible good or he is much influenced but
word of mouth communication.

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GUIDELINE FOR MANAGING MARKET COMMUNICATION:

Some general guidelines or rules of thumb for managing market communication can
be identified. The guidelines are:

1. Direct communication effort to employees: All advertising campaigns

and other mass communication efforts are planned for various segments of
existing and potential customers, and are also directed to employees.

2. Capitalize on word of mouth: Good word of mouth makes customers

more receptive to external market communication efforts.

3. Provide tangible clues: Communicating about a service, especially to an

audience of potential customers, becomes very difficult. Therefore, it is
frequently a good idea to try to make the service more concrete.

4. Make the service understood: Service is intangible so special attention

has to be paid to making the benefits of a particularl service clearly
understood.

5. Communication continuity: There has to be continuity in communication

efforts over time.

6. Promise what is possible: It is necessary to promise what the service

provider can deliver. They must avoid over-promising in managing
market communication.

7. Build up Image :
A favorable and well known image, corporate or local, is an asset for any
firm. Image has an impact on customer perceptions of the communication
and operations of the firm in many respects.

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