A Report on Managing Service Delivery for Marketing Agencies

This report provides a comprehensive overview of managing service delivery within the context of marketing services. It begins by highlighting the importance of service quality and the factors influencing customer switching behavior, such as pricing, service failures, and ethical issues. The core of the report focuses on the service quality model, identifying five key gaps that can lead to unsuccessful service delivery: the knowledge gap, the standards gap, the delivery gap, the communications gap, and the perceptions gap. Each gap is thoroughly examined, detailing how discrepancies between management perceptions, service standards, service delivery, external communications, and customer expectations can negatively impact service quality. The report uses examples and references to illustrate these gaps and offers strategies for their management, ultimately emphasizing the determinants of reliability, assurance, responsiveness, empathy, and tangibles to improve service delivery procedures. The report concludes by reiterating the significance of addressing these gaps to ensure customer satisfaction and successful marketing service delivery.

Running head: MANAGING SERVICE DELIVERY
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STUDENT NAME:
STUDENT ID:
TOPIC: MANAGING SERVICE DELIVERY
DATE: 3-04-2019

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Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Managing customer expectations...............................................................................................................3
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................6
References...................................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
Business requires marketing services from agencies that enhance business operations and sales
volume. Managing service quality is an important criterion that an organization needs to take
care of, as customers can switch services due to several factors. The eight categories identified
with service delivery gaps are pricing, core service failure, inconvenience, service encounter,
response to service, involuntary switching, competition and ethical problems that leads to
customer switching behavior. The five potential gaps can lead to failure and unsuccessful service
delivery, specifically for a marketing agency or an organization offering marketing services to
customers.
Managing customer expectations
Service expectations depend on several factors such as past experiences, advertising influence,
such as television advertisement and word of mouth. Perceived service is compared with
expected service by customers, causing potential gaps in the service delivery process. Customers
are dissatisfied if the service expectation is high but the quality of the service received is low.
The service quality model is presented with five gaps that may cause unsuccessful service
delivery (Parasuraman, Valarie & Leonard, 2013).
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Source: (Parasuraman, Valarie & Leonard, 2013)
The five gaps identified are service gap, policy gap, communication gap, delivery gap and
knowledge gap that can cause problems in expected service delivery and thus, such gaps should
be identified and taken care of by any service delivery organization (Kotler, 2008).
1 Gap between management perception and expected service
Management perception differs from expected service delivery and it is possible that customers
will want different services and have different expectations from the management. Therefore,
there is always a gap between management perception and expected service. The service gap

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exists due to lesser interactions with customers, not understanding the needs of customers, etc.
For example, a company expects marketing services from an advertising agency, but the type of
marketing service that is provided may be different from what clients/customers expect. Hence,
it is important to understand customers’ preferences (Kotler, 2008).
2 Gap between service standards and management perceptions
Service standards are set and managed differently according to the perceptions of the
management. Thus, the gap between service standards and management perceptions creates
issues with expected service delivery (Parasuraman, Valarie & Leonard, 2013). Management
perceptions may not be able to accurately gauge customer needs and fail to set appropriate
standards for performance.
3 Gap between service standards and service delivery
There is a gap between service delivery and service standards. This gap is identified due to
factors such as lack of teamwork and knowledge, and inadequate HR policies in the organization.
In this case, service specifications are not clear to employees, therefore causing problems with
the instruction and management of service delivery. There are conflicting scenarios that reflect
that can cause an organization to fail while ensuring effective service delivery (Verhoef &
Leeflang, 2009).
4 Gap between external communications and service delivery
Expectations of consumers may cause problems while delivering services. Customers have high
expectations due to advertisements and company representations. Due to this reason, service
deliveries are unable to fulfill and meet customer expectations. Therefore, poor external
communication creates a gap causing unsatisfactory service deliveries for customers.
5 Gap between expected service and perceived service
The gap between perceived service and expected service fails to deliver effective results. In this
case, the management sets high standards in the company while the delivered service may not
always reveal expected results due to factors such as different expectations of consumers and

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past experiences. Other factors such as word of mouth and personal preferences are connected
with the expectations of customers (Lusch & Webster, 2011).
Conclusion
The service quality model represents five potential gaps that can deliver effective services for
customers only if the organization’s management take care of the same. Thus, reliability,
assurance, responsiveness, empathy, assurance, and tangibles are the five determinants that are
emphasized to improve service delivery procedures.

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References
Kotler, P. (2008). A framework for marketing management (6th ed.). Toronto: Pearson Prentice
Hall.
Lusch, R., & Webster, F. (2011). A Stakeholder-Unifying, Cocreation Philosophy for Marketing.
Journal Of Macromarketing, 31(2), 129-134.
Parasuraman, A., Valarie A. Z., & Leonard L. B. (2013). A Conceptual Model of Service Quality
and Its Implications for Future Research. Journal of Marketing, 44.
Verhoef, P., & Leeflang, P. (2009). Understanding the Marketing Department's Influence within
the Firm. Journal Of Marketing, 73(2), 14-37.