Services Marketing: Characteristics, Strategies, and Principles

This paper explores the nature of services and gives the difference of services to products and services. It delves into the basic elements of services marketing, marketing strategies, and principles. It also discusses the roles of relationship marketing and customer service in service marketing.

Running Head: SERVICES MARKETING 1
Services Marketing
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

Running Head: SERVICES MARKETING 2
Abstract
Services marketing is the marketing based on the relationship and value of a service or a product.
It may be used to market a service or a product. In the modern world there has been an increased
dominance of the services in the market. Service marking has become a topic of interest. The
world economy has become a service economy. The main reason for this development is because
of services to be considered the characteristic of developed economies in the world. This shift is
attributed to change in the meaning of goods and services in the market. Goods are no longer
regarded as separate from services. Service are nowadays regarded as the most important part of
the products. His paper explores the nature of services and gives the difference of services to
products and services. In addition, the paper devolves in the basic elements of services
marketing. The marketing association tells that al developing nation must move from agricultural
system to the industrial system and adopt the services sector as the main development to the
economy.
Services Marketing
Characteristics of services
The main four characteristics of service business are: Intangibility, perishability, inseparability
and variability. Intangibility of services is prior to their purchase. Products have tangible

Running Head: SERVICES MARKETING 3
characteristics that enable the customer to have their taste before purchase Services on the other
hand a Lovelock, Wirtz & Chew (2009)re intangible. Services cannot be consumed or had a taste
until they are purchased and used. With services customers may have a feeling that they are
having a purchase decision without having all the information about the purchase. The
customers’ referrals and testimonies are the best way to reduce the intangibility of services.
Secondly, services Lovelock et al. (2009) are inseparable from the providers. Services are unique
in their nature because they are provided and consumed as the same place and the same time.
Wirtz, (2012). The inseparability of services means that customers and consumers of service
have high expectations on how the services are provided. This can lead to either satisfaction or
disappointment on the side of the buyer of the service. Better provision and solid service process
is the best way to solve this challenge. Bateson & Hoffman (2011)
Services are highly perishable. They cannot be stored and sold for the same time in the future.
The best way to solve this challenge is by managing the supply and demand of services. This
allows the service provider to maintain the same level of customer service at different demands
and the same time improve productivity. Hair, Celsi, Ortinau, & Bush (2008)
Finally, the provision and the quality of a service vary with many factors. The qualities of a
service depend with the person providing the service, the place the service is being provided and
the time the service is being provided. Hair et al. (2008)
Marketing of Services
The service business must to build a great market for their service. The Business manager must
employ the main core element to make sure that the service being provided maintains a market.
The service business must improve their offering to improve its market. Blythe (2008).The
service market cannot last long provide its offering is badly flawed. The offering of the service

Running Head: SERVICES MARKETING 4
must meet the desired level of customers. The provider of the service must meet the standards of
surpass their standard to remain relevant in the market. Kotler & Armstrong (2010). Customers
usually compare the offering to the competitor in term of extended hours of offering,
accessibility of the service and the prices of the service.
The Managements of service businesses must discover better ways to enhance the experiences
of customers to make sure that they create a win-win situation between the operational savings
and value added services. Kotler et al (2010). Service customers love responsiveness and give
the services high marks. The progressive offers to customers of services give the services the
advantage over the competitors. Kotler et al (2010).
To increase the market of a service, the service offering business need to offer the customers the
self service. The main goal of this is service excellence though they must create a situation that
the customers will be willing to do it themselves. Indeed if the self-services is for the benefit of
the customers, the customers will be more than ready to take on the work and even pay more for
the services. Wilson et al (2012).
Service business is the employee intensive industry. This brings the need to improve the
employee management systems to improve the market of the products. Top management should
give careful attention on the work force in training and performance management of the
employment.The management should improve the customer and employee relationship to
improve the company’s service market. McColl-Kennedy et al (2015).
The roles of relationship marketing and customer service
Relationship marketing has the ability to increase superiority value to customers that helps in
maintaining long term customer relationship. The relationship marketing has the ability of

Running Head: SERVICES MARKETING 5
attracting customers to activities that concern and enable them take care of them. Hoffman &
Bateson (2001). The main importance of the relationship marketing is maintaining the relations,
relations between the business and customers and business and its micro-environments including
the advertisers and intermediaries. Hoffman & Bateson(2001).
Value is considered to the main aim of relationship marketing and its ability to provide
superiority value to its customers. It is used as the main competitive advantage of service
businesses over their competitors. The ability has become a means of differentiation and key to
the riddle of how to find s a sustainable market for services to the customers. Lovelock, Wirtz &
Chew (2009). Customer satisfaction is the main way to make sure that the customers remain
loyal to the business and relationship marketing is the best way to achieve this. A satisfied
customer is supposed not to defect but to stay loyal to the company for a long period of time and
to buy more and more often than other, not so loyal, customers do. Lovelock et al.(2009).
Service Market strategies
In marketing terms, service marketing uses fully focused marketing strategy. A service business
provides a very limited range of services to specific, market segment Scarborough, (2016). A
narrow market focused business dwells in a narrow market segments bus large and wide market
range services. Business focuses on large geographical markets. Lovelock & Patterson, P.
(2015).
Secondly, service focused strategy also is another marketing strategy used by the service
businesses. Service focused markets focuses on narrow range of services but deals with broad
markets. The business reaches small and narrow fields of discount but reach large geographical
areas. Many service providing business try to reach a large an broad markets and provide large v

Running Head: SERVICES MARKETING 6
variety of services. Large variety of business should group customers to a way that results to
similarity and reach large geographical areas. Bateson, & Hoffman,(2011).
Many services businesses are small scaled businesses and use large marketing strategies and
techniques. Since services are provided by the people, The employees also play a very big role in
marketing. The training, motivation and helping them in satisfying the customers is a very
important strategy of marketing by services businesses. Hair, Celsi, Ortinau, & Bush,(2008)
Physical evidence is also a very good marketing strategy for service businesses. A service
company needs to demonstrate it services to the customers physically since the customers and
consumers need physical evidence and presentations. In addition, service marketers need to
differentiate their product to the consumers by developing, delivering and quality to the
consumers. Hair et al. (2008)
Services marketing principles
Service marketing marketers make sure that the service has blogs. Blog posts solve the
customers’ problems. The customers reading the blogs about the quality of the service help
advertising the service and this helps injecting the service to the market. Secondly the customer
service can be another principle for service marketing. Blythe, (2008). Service business that
focuses to better customer services positively affects the market of the services. It gives the
business the competitive edge as the customers are reached and the advertising costs are reduced.
When the customer care of the business is better that the competitors it bring the trust of
customers to the business. Hair et al,(2008).

Running Head: SERVICES MARKETING 7
Conclusion
Service Marketing has increased to be important to the recent global economies. Most companies
nowadays use services marketing in the intangible services to create solutions that are required to
increase and expand marketing of products and services. Service marketing required
considerations of marketing elements. Service marketing requires Physical evidence and
Employees considerations to increase its marketing. Services are economic activities whose
outputs are is not tangible. They are consumed when they are provided there and then. Service
marketing has grown exponentially in a few years and has greatly benefited the the service
producing companies.

Running Head: SERVICES MARKETING 8
References
Lovelock, C. H., Wirtz, J., & Chew, P. (2009). Essentials of services marketing.
Wirtz, J. (2012). Essentials of services marketing. FT Press.
Bateson, J. E., & Hoffman, K. D. (2011). Services marketing. South-Western.
Hair, J. F., Celsi, M., Ortinau, D. J., & Bush, R. P. (2008). Essentials of marketing research.
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Higher Education perspectives. Journal of the Academy of
marketing science, 23(4), 236-245.
Blythe, J. (2008). Essentials of marketing. Pearson Education.
Kotler, P., & Armstrong, G. (2010). Principles of marketing. Pearson education.
Wilson, A., Zeithaml, V. A., Bitner, M. J., & Gremler, D. D. (2012). Services marketing:
Integrating customer focus across the firm (No. 2nd Eu). McGraw Hill.
Lovelock, C., & Patterson, P. (2015). Services marketing. Pearson Australia.
Lovelock, C. H., Wirtz, J., & Chew, P. (2009). Essentials of services marketing.
Scarborough, N. M. (2016). Essentials of entrepreneurship and small business management.
McColl-Kennedy, J. R., Gustafsson, A., Jaakkola, E., Klaus,e P., Radnor, Z. J., Perks, H., &
Friman, M. (2015). Fresh perspectives on customer experience. Journal of Services
Marketing, 29(6/7), 430-435.
Bateson, J. E., & Hoffman, K. D. (2011). Services marketing. South-Western.
Hair, J. F., Celsi, M., Ortinau, D. J., & Bush, R. P. (2008). Essentials of marketing research.
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Higher Education.
Blythe, J. (2008). Essentials of marketing. Pearson Education.

Running Head: SERVICES MARKETING 9
Fisk, R. P., Grove, S. J., & John, J. (2008). Interactive services marketing. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin.
Gummesson, E. (2007). Exit services marketing-enter service marketing. Journal of customer
behaviour, 6(2), 113-141.