Service and Service Marketing

                                         Service and Service Marketing

Services are intangible in nature, only appearing when required by the consumer, which makes the nature of this type of business very different from that of others. Some examples include the hospitality sector, consulting, appliance repair, computer support, health care, utilities, business services, real estate, legal services, and education. In all of these cases, people are being provided with a service, not a product, whether they are receiving treatment for a medical problem or learning in an elementary school classroom. Services could be of any type and can be offered by an organization either by a company, private agencies or by government.

 Another example is Information Technology(IT) is a good business service that supports many other business services such as procurement, shipping and finance.

There are number of challenges it faces while delivering :-

• Defining and improving quality

• Communicating and testing new services

• Communicating and maintaining a consistent image

• Motivating and sustaining employee commitment

• Setting prices

• Standardization and Personalization

• Coordinating marketing, operations and human resources efforts

Characteristic of a Service

Intangible-These are those services which can not seen, felt or touched. And which can not be perceived by the senses or physically possessed. It can not be readily displayed and communicated and in this pricing is also difficult. For example- waiter's job of serving the food is an intangible service, teachers providing service, musician playing music etc

Variability-In these type of services are given according to what a customer offers. Every individual is taken care of and no two service experiences are alike. And these services vary with quality  and its quality depends upon some uncontrollable factors. For example- people travelling by a airplane takes different class of services like some travel in economy class and some in business class. They choose the services according to their preferences.

Inseparability- In this the services are produced and consumed simultaneously. Inseparability requires that a consumer of a service interacts (sometimes physically) with its producer to receive its benefits. This characteristic of service make it impossible to disconnect the production of the service from its consumption. For example- service provided by a barber, beautician,doctor operating on a patient etc.

Perishability- Perashibility of service implies that service capacity cannot be stored, saved, returned or resold once rendered to the customer. In this relevant resources, processes and system of a service are assigned for delivery during a definite period in time. For example: Doctors provide service to the patients, if the clinic is closed for a week the service can be rendered to the customers the next week whereas in case of a restaurant if it is closed for a week the same food cannot be served the next week because of the perishability issue. Similarly the transportation service that an airline ticket entitles a customer to cannot be stored, saved, returned, or resold after the flight. It is also a perishable entity. When the demand is steady, then service perishability is not a problem but the service sector face a huge problem when the demand fluctuates. And as the demand fluctuates it will be very difficult to maintain the service quality.

Types of Services

Core services-Core services are nothing but that are addressed to the customer's need for a basic benefit. For example- transportation to a desired destination, a lawyer job, a doctor and teachers job.

Supplementary services- It is facilitating the services by using the core products and enhance use of the core service. And these services also help differentiating from bundles of competitors.For example- After sales support provided under a warranty that supports a core or main service.

Service Marketing

Service Marketing is a form of marketing that focuses on selling services. They can be tricky to sell, and the marketing approach for them is much different than the approach for products. Some companies offer both products and services and must use a mixture of styles; for example, a store that sells computers also tends to also help people select computers and provide computer repair. Such a store must market both its products and the supporting services it offers to appeal to customers.

When people market services, the goal is not to get customers to buy a product but to get people to do business with a particular company, often in a specific location. For example, a restaurant offers a service: it provides food to customers, both on-site and in to-go form in many cases. When the restaurant markets itself, it must convince people that it is preferable to other restaurants and that its facility is worth the trip.

In case of Head & Shoulders the association will be the customer care number printed on the shampoo bottle for consumer's feedback or for any complaints regarding the product and the official website so as to know more about the product.