Marketing Service

Marketing can be described in several ways. It can be viewed as a strategic drive for senior management, as a series of functional activities performed by line managers (such as product policy, pricing, delivery, and communications), or as a customer-driven orientation for the entire organization.

This book aims to integrate the three perspectives, also to recognize that the function of service marketing is much broader than the activities and performance of the traditional marketing department, requiring closer cooperation between salespeople and those managers responsible for the operations and human resources.

The service sector of the economy can best be characterized by its diversity. Service organizations vary in size, from large international corporations to fields such as airline banks. Insurance Telecommunications hotel chains and freight forwarders, to a wide variety of small locally owned and operated businesses. Including restaurants, laundries, taxis, opticians and numerous business-to-business services. Facilities that operate with a franchise.

Many services are interested in the distribution, installation and maintenance of physical objects, including operations as diverse as retail and warehousing, computer installations and automobile repair, office cleaning, and lawn and garden maintenance. Governments and non-profit organizations are also in the business of providing service, even though the degree of this commitment may vary greatly from country to country, reflecting both tradition and political values, in many countries, schools, hospitals, and museums are public property, or operate on a non-profit basis, but there are also versions of each type of those institutions that do have profit-making purposes.

The better understanding of service marketing has not only led to greater sophistication of marketing in traditional service industries, but has also had a significant impact on management practice in service-oriented manufacturing industries, at the same time, most service marketers would readily recognize that you have also learned many from the experts in service operations and human resource management.

Privatization

The term privatization was created in Great Britain to describe the policy of making nationalized industries private property again. The transformation of service operations such as national airlines, telecommunications services and natural gas facilities to private service companies, has led to a restructuring, cost reduction and a more focused posture in the market, when privatization is combined with A loosening of regulatory barriers, to allow entry of new competitors, as in the case of the telecommunications industry in Britain, the implications for marketing can be extremely considerable.

Government agencies have often obtained similar results at the local level, when they have outsourced certain services (such as trash removal) to private companies, another type of change occurs when non-profit organizations, especially hospitals in the United States, switch to a profit making position.

Computerization and technological innovation

New technology is radically altering the ways in which many service organizations do business with their customers, as well as what happens behind the scenes. Today, perhaps the most powerful force for change coming from the integration of computers and telecommunications. Companies that operate information-based services, such as financial services companies, are seeing the nature and scope of their businesses totally transform due to the advent of national (or even global) wire transfer systems including the World Wide web.

Technology makes it easy to create new or improved services. It allows the reengineering of activities such as taking orders and making payments, encourages companies to maintain more constant standards through centralized customer service departments, encourages them to replace staff with machines for repetitive tasks, and encourages greater customer participation. in operations, through self-services.

Manufacturers as service providers.

Service centers within manufacturing companies are transforming many well-known companies in fields such as computers, automobiles, and electrical and mechanical equipment. Supplementary services are designed to assist in the sale of equipment. Including consulting, credit, transportation and delivery, installation, training and maintenance, they are now offered as profit-seeking services in their own right, including with clients who have decided to purchase competitive equipment.

Implications and opportunities for service marketers

In many industries, especially transportation and financial services, there is a convergence of various elements, such as a gale, a new moon or heavy rains, to produce a storm surge that will destroy the organizations whose management tries to maintain the status quo.

Marketing opportunities in franchises.

The creation of franchise chains is transforming industries that were previously characterized by small units, a local orientation, and the absence of professional management skills. Despite the fact that franchises retain some of the characteristics of individual entrepreneurs, many of the Key marketing tasks are now in the hands of professional staff at the chain's headquarters. Certain activities previously unnecessary and out of the reach of an individual entrepreneur have become important as well as feasible.

The need for a focus on competitive strategy.

Sellers define a market as the set of all current or potential buyers of a fundamentally particular product. However, it is usually unrealistic for a company to try to attract all buyers in that market. Or at least to all buyers in the same way. In most cases, buyers, regardless of whether they are individuals or corporations, are too numerous, too dispersed, and too varied in terms of their needs, purchasing behaviors, and consumption patterns. Furthermore, different service companies vary widely in their abilities to serve different types of customers, hence, instead of trying to compete in an entire market, perhaps against superior competitors,Each company must adopt a market segmentation strategy, identifying those parts or segments of the market that it can best serve.

Identification and selection of target segments.

A market segment is made up of a group of buyers who share common characteristics, needs, purchasing behaviors or consumption patterns. Effective segmentation must group segment buyers in ways that result in as much similarity as possible in the relevant characteristics within each segment but differ in those same characteristics between each segment.

A target segment: it is the one that a company has chosen among all those in the broader market. With frequencies, the segments that constitute the target The segments that constitute the target are defined based on various variables. For example, a department store in a specific city could target residents of the metropolitan area (geographic segmentation) that have incomes within a certain range (demographic segmentation) who value the personal service of well-informed employees and who are not very price sensitive (both reflect segmentation based on expressed behavioral intentions and attitudes) because competing retailers in the city would likely target the same customers as well,department stores would have to be positioned in a way that creates a distinct appeal; Appropriate characteristics that should be highlighted might include a wide variety of merchandise categories, a breadth of selection within each product category, and the availability of supplementary services such as advice and home delivery.

An important aspect of marketing for any business is recognizing that some market segments offer better opportunities than others. Target segments should be selected not only based on their sales and profit potential, but also in relation to the company's ability to match or exceed competitive offerings targeting the same segments.

In order to select the target segments and to design effective positioning strategies, managers need insights into how current and potential customers within different market segments value the various components (or attributes) of a service. For example, what level of quality and performance are required for customers to give different attributes? How well do competing products meet customer requirements? Is it possible to redesign an existing product so that it better meets customer needs and is superior to competitive offerings?

Nature and importance of the services.

Marketing of products and marketing of services are essentially the same. In each case, the marketing staff must select and analyze their target markets and go on to create a marketing program around their marketing mix variables; the product (or services), the price structure, the distribution system and the promotional program. The tactics and strategies used in marketing a conventional product are often inadequate for marketing services.

Definition and scope of service areas.

Services are separate identifiable and intangible activities that meet the needs and are not necessarily linked to the sale of a service product. To produce a service can not ……. the use of the tangible product. However, when it does require there is no transfer of rights (permanent property to those tangible products)

Example:

• Product marketing: when we see an ad that says house for sale. Service marketing: when we see an ad that says rooms for sale.

Some statistics on services can be confusing because it is increasingly difficult for products and services in our economy.

Rarely do you find situations in which product involvement whatever they are. Most services need support products. It is this product - service mix that really increases its importance in the economy.

Importance of services

The US industrial economy evolves to the point where it is becoming the world's leading service economy. Almost one-fourths of the non-farm workforce is employed in promoting services. I work them in the arreadse services. Characteristically, they hold up better during a crisis than jobs in merchandise-producing industries. Almost half of consumer spending goes to purchasing services, characteristically staying higher during a crisis, than jobs in merchandise-producing industries. Almost half of consumer spending goes to the purchase of services, a booming aspect of the service economy is ramping up considerably more than the prices of most products.

Examples:

• By taking the car or TV to review when services are said to account for nearly half of consumer spending, you understand the economic importance of services. This figure does not include the vast amounts spent on business and industrial services. In any case, expenses for business services have risen more rapidly than expenses for consumer services. The growth of business services can be attributed to the fact that businesses are increasingly complex, specialized and competitive as a consequence, management has been forced to call experts who provide services such as research, tax, advertising, labor relations and many more areas.

The pace of growth has not been uniform across categories of consumer services. As income rises and lifestyles have changed, the demand for certain services has grown relatively faster than for others.

Example:

• Movie attendance declined when individuals switched to television. Public transportation service expenses increased relatively as people used their private cars less.

To capitalize on a growing service economy, many product manufacturers have diversified into services. Some retailers have done the same.

Example:

Sears, Roebuck now has 40 non-merchandise offerings, including an insurance company (allstates), a sales tax accessory company, a car sales manager, a finance agent (Dean Witter) and a real estate agency. Some other apartment stores for dental, legal consultants who provide services to clients. Other apartment stores also sell house cleaning, accessory insurance, and sales tax and driving class.

Characteristic of the services.

The spatial nature of the services derives from several distinctive features. These produce special marketing opportunities and needs, also often result as strategic marketing programs, which are substantially different from those found in product marketing.

INTANGIBILITY: Since the services are essentially intangible, it is impossible for customers to obtain a sample (taste, feel, see, hear or smell) of the services before purchasing them. This feature of the services presents certain restrictions in a marketing organization. The burden falls primarily on a company's promotional program. Sales forces and the advertising department should focus on the benefits to be gained from services, rather than highlighting the service itself.

An insurance company can promote the benefits of the service, such as the guaranteed payment of a child's higher education expenses, or a retirement pension of a certain amount of money per month. Telephone companies explain how users can eliminate cost of sales and inventory by making long distance calls.

INVISIBILITY: frequently, the services cannot be separated from the seller, in addition, some services must be created and promoted simultaneously.

Example:

Dentists can create and promote almost all of their services at the same time from a marketing point of view, invisibility often means that direct selling is the only possible channel of distribution and a vendor's services cannot be sold. in too many markets. This characteristic also limits the scale of operation of a company, someone can repair only a certain number of cars in a day or treat a certain number of medical patients. As an exception to the invisibility feature, the service may be sold by a representative of the creator. Seller.

Example:

A travel agent, a rental agent, an insurance agent can represent and help promote the service that will be sold by the institution that produces it.

HETEROGENEEDED: it is possible for a service industry, and even for a service seller, to stabilize the total production, each "unit" of service is somehow different from other "units" of it.

Example:

An airline does not provide the same quality of service on every trip.

Another complication is the fact that it is often difficult to judge the quality of a service / of course the same can be said for some products. It is particularly difficult to predict the quality before purchasing the service. Therefore, service companies must pay particular attention to the “product-planning stage of their marketing programs. From the outset, management must do all it can to ensure quality continuity by maintaining high levels of quality control.

EXPIRY AND OSCILLATING DEMAND: services have a high expiration date and can be stored.

Example:

• Unused electrical power Empty stadium seats Mechanics out of work in a workshop Represents businesses that are lost forever.

In addition, the market for services fluctuates considerably by season, by day of the week, by hour of the day.

There are some notable experiences of this generalization.

In life insurance and salute, for example, the purchase service, but it is withheld by the insurance company (the seller), until it is needed from the buyer or the beneficiary. This retention constitutes a type of storage. The communication of expiration and oscillating demand presents difficulties of promotion, price and product.

Planning of the executives of the service company. In some companies they may look for new uses for the idle capacity of the plant out of seasons. Through advertising and reduced rates for transit executives, they can show consumers the benefits of using the city's transportation facilities during off-peak hours. In an attempt to level the demand the telephone company offers lower rates during the night and on weekends.

The concept of marketing and service marketing.

The growth of services has generally not been due to the development of marketing in the service industries, but rather to the maturing of our economy, and our recent standards of living. Traditionally, the executives of our service companies have not been oriented within marketing.

The marketing profits of service companies have not been imaginatively remarkable for innovations in service marketing, they usually come from companies associated with the product. Some reasons for this lack of guidance can be identified. Undoubtedly, the intangibility of services creates more marketing difficulties for service sellers than for products. In many service industries (especially professional services) vendors consider themselves producers or creators and not marketers of services. Another reason is that general management does not yet understand

1. what is marketing Its importance in the success of a company.

These executives seem to equip marketing with sales and fail to consider another part of the market system.

Nor do they effectively coordinate their marketing activities. Many service companies lack an executive whose sole responsibility will be marketing; the vice president of marketing's counterpart in a product manufacturing company, there are exceptions to these negative generalities, as some extremely successful service companies have adopted moderate marketing techniques, such as holiday lnn, avis, pacific sotweast, airlines organizations, and national liberty.

A strategic program for the marketing of services.

Due to the characteristics of the services (intangibility) for example, the task of developing a complete marketing program of a service industry is often difficult, however, as in the marketing of products, management must first define its marketing goals and select its target markets right away, management must design and implement strategies for the marketing mix to reach their markets and meet the goals set.

Analysis of the target markets.

The task of analyzing a company's target markets is essentially the same, whether the company sells a product or a service. Marketers of services must understand the population and income components (demographic factors) as they affect the market for services; increases in disposable income and discretionary purchasing power mean a growing market for healthcare, insurance and transport services.

Planning and development of services.

New services are as important to a service company as new products are to a product trading company. Product development and planning has its counterpart in the marketing program of a service industry. Some service companies have effectively increased their mixes by working in coordination with companies that sell related services on some services that for products packaging, color, labeling and style are almost non-existent in service marketing.

The price of services.

In the commercialization of services there is nowhere greater need, imagination and managerial skill than in the area of ​​prices. Earlier it was noted that services are extremely expired, generally they cannot be stored and demand varies a lot frequently. All the characteristics influence the prices to complicate the situation even more, the client can postpone the purchase or even carry out some services himself (repairs to the car and the house, in some service industries the private seller will establish a price, but it must be authorized by a regulatory agency, however this price regulation should not suppress the opportunity to set prices in an imaginative and skillful way, to increase profits.

Distribution channels for services.

Traditionally, most services have been sold directly from the product to the consumer or industrial user. No intermediaries are used when the service cannot be separated from the seller. Or when the service is created and marketed simultaneously.

There is only one other frequently used channel, which includes a broker agent. Some type of agent or broker is used in the marketing of finance, travel deals, hobbies and home rentals, sometimes the retailers are trained in the production of the service and then franchised to sell it. The use of intermediaries is another way of applying distribution. Some banks have arranged for companies to deposit the employee's paycheck directly into their bank accounts. In this way, the employer becomes an intermediary when distributing the services of a bank.

Promotion of services.

Personal selling, advertising and other forms of promotion are used extensively in the marketing of services. However, it is very difficult to create a promotional program around the intangible advantages of the services.

For many years, advertising has been used extensively in many service areas, for example: housing, home operation, transportation, recreation, and insurance. What is new is the use of advertising by the professional services industries among other lawyers, accountants and doctors. Previously, professional associations in this area had banned advertising based on unethics.

As an indirect type of promotion, doctors, lawyers and insurance agents can actively participate in community affairs to put their names in front of the public.

The promotional program of a service company should have three goals:

1. Provide the advantages of the services in the most attractive way possible distinguish what is offered from what the competitors offer create prestige, since the company is marketing, reputation is vital

The promotional effort of a service company can even be more efficient if the salesperson can relate it to something tangible. Perhaps with a different color like Hertz does or a symbol like Banamex's.

The future of service marketing and the changing service environment.

The rise of the services company in the 1980s was accompanied by a significant increase in competition in many service industries.

This competition is encouraging by several factors.

Chain store organization types supersede freelance or small-scale types in many areas including health care, auto repair, beauty salons, dental services, and real estate brokers.

Need for higher productivity.

The boom is also accompanied by a deterioration in the quality of many services in general. Service industries have been plagued by mismanagement, inefficiency, and low productivity. This inefficiency (and the need to increase productivity also reduced the health of the entire economy. Perhaps the key to increasing efficiency in service industries is for management to adopt a manufacturers' attitude. The concept of better service delivery Traditionally it has been associated with the effort to help others.The four manufacturing strategies that are applied to service industries to increase productivity are: mechanization, assembly line standardization, Specialization and consolidation in the organization.The use of mechanization to apply labor has increased the output for workers in laundries and service establishments as diverse as:

1. Fast food retail sales. Several service companies have made their workforce more productive through specialization of effort. The medical field contain large number of specialists. Consolidation as a means of improving productivity is practiced when the main airline (TWA, United, Continental adds hotels to its service mix.

Growth prospects.

It is certain that services continued to increase their share in the consumer market, as has happened during the last 410 years. This prediction seems reasonable to a period of economic decline. Demand for business services must also continue to expand as businesses become more and more complicated and as management recognizes the need for service or business specialists. These optimistic predictions should be viewed with some caution, since both internal and external forces in the service industries could limit growth in these areas.

The search for a competitive advantage.

In the service sector, every day there are more portal competencies, which is why organizations or companies try to differentiate their products from others.

In consumer-oriented industry such as banking, insurance, hospitality and education, growth is slower.

Companies must be selective between attention to their customers and distinctive in the way they are presented to them.

The needs of a competitive strategic approach.

Each company must adopt a market segmentation strategy identifying those parts of the market that they can best serve.

Each buyer is a separate segment since they have different needs and characteristics, therefore their objectives for each buyer.

Most service industries don't make micro-targeting worthwhile.

That is why they try to achieve an economy with all their clients in a single market.

Mass adaptation: is what is achieved by offering a standardized product but adopting supplementary services in order to suit buyers.

Identification of a target segment:

A target segment is the one that a company chooses from the entire market. An important aspect of marketing is knowing that some service sectors create greater opportunities than others.

The markets that are taken as objectives are selected not only based on sales but also on the ability of a company to fight the competition.

Development of a service concept:

For a specific segment:

• An investigation is necessary to identify an attribute of a service are those indicated for a segment. It is not possible to generalize so much, the personnel who provide the services that the same individuals can establish different priorities such as: For the purpose of using the service. Make decisions At the time of employment If you are using the product alone or with a group and who makes up that group.

Importance versus determining attributes.

Consumers make their choices between optional service offerings based on perceived differences, but the attributes that distinguish competing services are not always the most important.

It must be determined which are the determining attributes, when this is known, a positioning campaign must be developed.

This strategy is quantified and another is qualitative for the price (it is somewhat quantitative)

Creation of a competitive position.

Positioning: is the process of establishing and maintaining a distinctive place in the market.

Positioning not only applies to businesses or companies, but also to public and non-profit organizations that you want to share to find customers.

Repositioning: involves changing the existing position. Lets review some features of the service.

Advertising content positioning VS product positioning.

The position reflects the way in which consumers perceive the performance of the product in specific attributes in relation to that of one or more competitors.

• When consumers sand frames, it is recognized which are the preferred ones, which ones they remember and how they are positioned. Many sellers associate positioning with communication elements, eg: advertisements, promotions, advertising. It consists of gaining image and associations for products of similar brands in order to distinguish them in the mind of the consumer.

The role of positioning in the marketing strategy.

This is of great importance as it mixes market analysis and corporate and competition analysis.

The development of a positioning strategy can take place at different levels depending on the nature of the organization if it is:

• A multi-service, multi-location branch A specific service branch For a specific service offered at that branch.

Steps in developing a positioning strategy.

1. Market analysis:

It is important to know what is the amount of demand and where it is located.

On the other hand, you can segment the market and make an evaluation of the demand for each segment.

With research we can find not only the needs of consumers but their position against the competition.

1. Corporate analysis:

In this, human resources are analyzed. Like manpower and knowledge. The physical assets of the organization.

Besides the limitations, restrictions and values ​​and goals such as: profits, growth, preferences, professionals.

1. Competitive analysis:

Here the competition is analyzed that can give an idea of ​​its weak and strong points and its opportunities that it has before those weaknesses.

Development of positioning maps.

It is a graphical way of representing consumer perceptions about optional products. In a map it is usually limited to two attributes, when more than three dimensions are required to determine the performance of a product, it is necessary to draw a series of separate graphs for a visual presentation.

Portfolio concept

It can be said that it is the set of financial instruments that an investor has to the series of loans that a bank has made.

In financial services, the goal of portfolio analysis is to determine the mix of inventions, own resources, or risk needs and preferences.

Applying it to service businesses with an established customer base. By knowing the annual value of each customer category as well as the representative ratios for each category within the customer base, managers can project the progressive value of all those customers against future revenue streams.

Paths conducive to growth.

Service businesses can grow into one or more of the following categories:

1. Attract new customers Get regular customers to buy more Get customers to buy a higher price Reduce the rate of turnover Ending non-profit or unsatisfactory relationships and replacing them with new customers who are better adopted the demands of the company.

Customers as part of the product

The segmentation strategy is not only framed in the services that are consumed individually but also in groups, eg theaters, hotels, airlines and stores.

Customers have influences both on the image of the organization and on the services themselves.

Performance management

Performance management is concerned with getting the best possible performance out of each available capacity unit over the long term in turn tries to derive some profit from perishable capacity units.

(efficiency in generating returns)

The role of marketing

1. Identify the main market segments Forecast the business volumes that could be obtained from each segment at a specific price level. (supply and demand) Recommend the business mix; at each specific point in time, in terms of maximum income Provide objective sales force, specific sales, in a specified time for each segment Set guidelines for the prices to be charged in each segment at specific points in time Monitor the performance over the time evaluated, the reasons for having achieved higher or lower performance than predicted.

Demand management.

Most services are unable to take inventory of their finished products. This absence of inventories does not matter when demand levels are relatively stable and predictable.

However restricted service companies have problems as they face swings in demand.

Services that involve tangible actions with your possessions are more likely to be subject to capacity restrictions than information-based services.

However, in the latter case, similar capacity problems can occur when customers are forced to go to a location for service delivery as in the case of live shows.

There are actions that managers can take to adjust capacity and balance to demand levels.

1. Schedule downtime during periods of low demand, hire hourly employees, rent or share extra equipment facilities, provide employees with Inter training. functional.

Strategies for managing demand.

You must face four conclusions

• demand exceeds maximum available capacity with the result that a potential business may be lost demand exceeds optimal capacity level demand and supply are well balanced at the level of optimal capacity demand is below optimal capacity and resources available are not used to their full capacity

Information on demand

it is required to know:

• historical data on the level of demand including variations example: of prices and other variables forecast of demand for each segment data of segments by segments solid cost data, to distinguish the fixed and variable expenses in the organizations of multiple locations and the demand of each location consumer attitudes customer opinions regarding the quality of service

Excellent service is the foundation of excellent marketing. When service is excellent, business management is easier, and price hikes are better tolerated because customers see that service is valuable. Advertising is more in line with the reality of the service provided and benefits from the reinforcement of positive word-of-mouth communication. Sales people have confidence in services and therefore sell them more easily.

To vigorously market a low-quality service is to undermine the future of a firm; more customers are tempted to try the service, but then find out for themselves that they were wrong, what then does the company do? The thesis of this book is that excellent service marketing begins and ends with excellent service.

Fundamental Papal Marketing Director.

In service businesses, the most efficient marketing managers turn this activity into a line function. His philosophy is to help the organization become a marketing institution, rather than marketing to the organization.

Don't try to create a large independent marketing department. A service business only needs a few marketers who understand the culture of operations and keep the organization focused on customers.

The chief marketing officer has three key leadership roles to play in helping to create and sustain a marketing institution. These roles are permanent - they may change in grade but not in substance as the marketing mindset of the firm evolves.

First role: architect of change.

The fundamental idea of ​​marketing is to make a good match between the organization and its markets. As markets change, so must the organization. Nothing is eternal in the commercial environment: not cultural values, not demographic structure, not the economy, not technology, not competition, not political climate.

A key role for service firm marketing managers is to help redefine the strategic direction of their business in response to changing market conditions. Market-sensitive strategic change is essential for institutional renewal. Good examples are the Girl Scouts of the United States, who changed their approach to preparing girls for housewives and now prepare them for a professional career.

Second facilitating role of marketing.

Marketing directors of service firms have to take advantage of the real fact that the employees who provide the services are those who are closest to the customer and therefore are in the best position to be business managers. A primary role of the marketing manager is to facilitate the provider-to-consumer service marketing process on the ground.

Marketing managers can facilitate this activity throughout their organization in at least three ways:

First, they can continually work to educate administrative and non-administrative staff on the nature, purpose, and applications of marketing.

Second: the marketing manager has to strive to make it easier for employees to practice this role, the best marketing managers focus on giving employees the tools they need to be efficient business managers. For example, these executives help create:

• customer information feature, which employees can use to better understand customer needs Operational systems that speed up routine transactions and free up employees to sell other services Internal training and communication services for employees become more competent and customers feel more confident.

Third, the marketing manager must be a tireless and visible champion of quality service in the organization. Outside of the CEO, no one in the company has as much stake in service quality as the chief marketing officer. As we have already stressed, excellent service makes all other aspects of service marketing more powerful, and more service makes them less powerful.

The marketing manager has.

• Be the advocate for excellent service within the company Help show the way to improve service Assess the impact of service quality on all marketing decisions and make sure those decisions support the best of quality, not undermine it.

Third role: image manager.

A third critical role for marketing managers is institutional image management. Helping the company conform to its environment and facilitating marketing efficiency at the point of contact with customers directly contribute to building a positive image of the company. But the intangibility of the services obliges the seller of services to use all possible means to establish a distinctive and lasting identity of the company.

The quality imperative.

Quality of service is the foundation of service marketing. A high-quality service of credibility to the sales force and advertising, stimulates word of mouth communications, realizes the perception of customer values ​​and raises the morale and loyalty of employees and customers alike. Quality of services is not a separate discipline from service marketing; is the central part of this. Companies that do not provide good service cannot be successful in the commercial environment, no matter how conspicuous their advertising may be, due to the more visits their sellers make. The offers from your advertising and from your salespeople only serve to persuade more people to experience poor service and teach themselves how to avoid that firm in the future.

The essential of the quality of a service is its reliability that the promised is fulfilled. The company that routinely does not deliver what they promise, that are not trustworthy, that frequently make mistakes lose the trust of their customers and the trust of the customers is the most valuable asset of a service company.

Think big, act small.

THINK BIG:

In the 1990s, the best-run service organizations will think big but act small. Thinking big is partly having a world vision, partly learning without borders, and partly moving forward. Globalization affects all service firms, even when company management has no intention of competing with abroad. In reality, the free movement of goods, services and ideal throughout the world today influences more than ever the expectations of customers, their tastes and their options. Furniture stores in Philadelphia are affected by IKEA entering the market and popularizing self-assembled Scandinavian design furniture. Domestic airlines in the United States are affected by the high levels of services from foreign companies such as Singapore Airlines and SAS.The local furrier is affected by the Galeries Lafayette de Paris announcing an international toll-free number to sell "fake fur" in the United States.

ACT SMALL.

Acting small is as important as thinking big. It is the opposite of acting in bureaucratic ways. Carolyn bursteins of the Federal Quality Institute notes four characteristics of bureaucracies.

• Management by rules Functional structure of the organization Internal approach Deliberately impersonal treatment of clients.

Rather, acting small involves a very small manual of rules, an undivided organizational structure that encourages quick responses, an external focus on customer needs, and both the internationally personal customer. This means taking advantage of the opportunity of direct communication with the end customer by providing a creative, sincere and personal service. Acting small does not mean artificial or programmed personalization. Indeed, research by surprenal and solomon revealed that stereotypical personalization reduces customers' confidence in employee skill.

Modernized service.

Computer-friendly services can be modernized by eliminating or automating manual functions. Combining machines with human energy can accelerate the provision of a service and facilitate access to it. Servers are exempt from boring and repetitive functions that computers perform better, thus improving productivity in the provision of routine services and allowing a wider range of personal services.

The Chemical Bank has developed a banking system at least based on the Genesis personal computer that serves the various groups of employees who have direct contact with customers. With a Genesis result, personal loan decisions (and even check writing) can be made in five minutes.

Personalized service.

Service marketing in the 1990s is characterized not only by a high-tech, high-touch strategy, but also by high-touch through high-tech. Computer-based systems that give necessary information about customers (or their possessions) to the right service providers and at the right time provide the opportunity to customize the service in a cost-efficient way. Computer technology is the primary weapon for creating level three relationship marketing strategies.

Technology will allow large service companies to offer their customers an undivided experience, yet their service employees will have literally millions of data on hand. It will train companies to provide their clients with the personal service that was once the key to success in quality operations carried out by service entrepreneurs.

High aspirations for quality services and habits.

The quality improvement process is difficult to initiate and sustain. Much has been said about quality improvements but it is not so easy to find real changes. All the industries are progressive companies, but most of the companies are still in the stage of "talking about improvement" rather than it is the stage of "cultural change". Many observers of the quality of services scenario in the United States are skeptics. One of them said:

While there is now a revival of emphasis on quality of services, I do not expect most firms to make effective improvements. It's too much of a commitment for them. I compare the process of improving the quality of services to the problem of getting on a diet. There are many books on diet, actually, perhaps there are more books on diet than on any other subject. Out of the money. At any given time, 25 percent of America's adults are on a regimen and yet. We are not losing weight as a nation. A fundamental change will have to take place, perhaps starting with a crisis for US companies to change.

Title: "MARKETING OF SERVICES"

Contributed by: HERNANDO REALES A. - [email protected]

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