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IMPLICATION OF
MARKETING

SERVICES
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 INTRODUCTION

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Services Marketing | BBA Sem V | BBA- 305 |
Present topic will helpful to know and apply resulting marketing
implication of services with regard to their classification

Book:
Valarie A Zeithaml, Mary Jo Bitner, Dwayne D. Gremler and Ajay
Pandit, Services Marketing, Integrating Customer Focus Across
the firm, Mc Graw Hill Education
Pp 21-24

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▪ Theunique features of services have

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Service Marketing MS 217 7/3/2018
their associated implications in the

Services Marketing | BBA Sem V | BBA- 305 |

matter of Marketing.

▪ It is these implications that actually

render service marketing a specialised
task.

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 INTANGIBILITY

It refers to a total lack of a service’s

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characteristics before and (often) after it is

Services Marketing | BBA Sem V | BBA- 305 |

performed. The term was first used in 1963
(Regan).It is the most radical characteristic
of services, where from the others emanate.
Example – Mobile Network providers like
Vodafone | Airtel | Reliance etc.

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 MARKETING IMPLICATIONS

▪ Great marketing skills in tangibilising intangible offerings, i.e.,

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Service Marketing MS 217 7/3/2018
in surrounding them with “hard” peripheral attributes

▪ Technical superiority and long term vision in new service

Services Marketing | BBA Sem V | BBA- 305 |

development, in order to protect a service from its non- patentability

▪ Special pricing know-how, i.e., what is the cost of a service?

▪ Creative communications skills, i.e., what message to communicate?

▪ More on subjective impressions and less on concrete evidence

prescribing standards because of the intangibility, in assessing
the quality of a service, the customer relies of quality in a service
situation is also difficult.

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 IMPLICATIONS OF INTANGIBILITY

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❑ Services cannot be inventoried

Services Marketing | BBA Sem V | BBA- 305 |

❑ Services cannot be patented

❑ Services cannot be readily displayed or

communicated

❑ Pricing is difficult

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 CRITICISM TO THEDISTINGUISHING
POWER OF INTANGIBILITY

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▪ The inability of customers to physically

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evaluate services is also the case in some
goods
▪ Repeated use of a service nullifies
intangibility
▪ Many goods have intangible elements too

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 INSEPARABILITY

▪ It refers to the simultaneous production and consumption of

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services.
▪ The production process of services has been called “servuction”

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process (Eiglier and Langeard, 1977)
▪ The customer is present when the service is produced
▪ The customer plays a role in the servuction and the delivery
process
▪ Customers interact with one another during the servuction
process and may be affected (positively or negatively) by this 14
interaction.

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 IMPLICATIONS OF SIMULTANEOUS
PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION

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▪ Customers participate in and affect the

Services Marketing | BBA Sem V | BBA- 305 |

transaction
▪ Customers affect each other
▪ Employees affect the service outcome
▪ Decentralization may be essential
▪ Mass production is difficult
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 MARKETING IMPLICATIONS

▪ Mass production of services is difficult.

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▪ No significant economies can be earned from centralization of

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operations, since the service must be produced at the convenience of
customers (temporal and physical)

▪ Service quality depends highly on what happens in real time, i.e.,

during the service encounter.

▪ Since customers have a vital role in the servuction and delivery process,
the service provider needs great skills to train them how to play their 16
role.

▪ The service provider must prove excellence each time the service
is produced.

▪ The service provider needs skills in order to tackle disruptions in the

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servuction process, caused by problem customers.
 THE HETEROGENEITY OF SERVICES

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It refers to the potential for high variability in the
performance and

Services Marketing | BBA Sem V | BBA- 305 |

The quality of services caused by the interaction between
the service employee and the customer.

The performance of the employees delivering one same

service varies:
- between different hour zones of the day.
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- from employee to employee
- from service company to service company

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 IMPLICATIONS OF HETEROGENEITY

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❑ Service delivery and customer satisfaction

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depend on employee actions

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❑ Service quality depends on many
uncontrollable factors

❑ There is no sure knowledge that the service

delivered matches what was planned and 20
promoted

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 MARKETING IMPLICATIONS

▪ Need to develop service blueprints (Shostack, 1977), i.e.

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a production line approach to the servuctionprocess
▪ Ability to find a balance between

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standardization and personalization during service delivery
▪ Ability for real time detection of which side of the encounter
causes service failure

▪ Need for a mechanism of timely servicerecovery

▪ Skillful selection and motivation of appropriate front-line
employees.
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▪ Criticism to the adequacy of heterogeneity as a line of
demarcation between goods and services Not all services are
heterogeneous, not all goods are homogeneous .

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 PERISHABILITY
It refers to the fact that services cannot be saved, stored, resold or

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returned i.e Difficulties in synchronising supply and demand for

Service Marketing MS 217 7/3/2018

services

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 Mar MARKETING IMPLICATIONS

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❑ Need for developing an as accurate as possible demand
forecasting mechanism.

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❑ Need for a creative plan for capacity utilization.

❑ Need for the implementation of strategies and actions

to accommodate malcontent customers from non-returnable
services.

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❑ The perishable or un-storable character of Services accentuates the risk and

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uncertainty that is generally associated with any business.

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❑ It enhances the problem of demand-supply mismatch. In the first place,
fluctuation is particularly striking in services. Added to that, service supply
cannot be easily increased or decreased so as to match the changes in
demand.

❑ As a combined effect of the perishability factor and the fluctuating nature of

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demand , service marketing has to face special problems in product planning,
capacity planning and scheduling & pricing.

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 INTERACTION BETWEEN SERVICE
PROVIDER AND CONSUMER

• The requirement of close interaction between the service provider and

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the consumer limits the choice for the consumer.

Service Marketing MS 217 7/3/2018

Consumers are generally left with fewer of alternatives in services. They also

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find making the selection from out of the limited alternatives more difficult
here compared to a product buyingsituation.

• All the concepts, principles and techniques of marketing apply equally to

product and service marketing. Service marketers have to develop and offer services
that meet the needs of the customers just as product marketers have to do.
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Also, service marketers have to score over their competitors just as product
marketers have to do. Naturally, all basic principles of marketing should apply
equally to product and service marketing.

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