Information Services Marketing

The interrelation of new technologies with information services contributes significantly to the vertiginous development of these services and to the provision of them with high added value and high quality, which is why the need to take information as a service, and within this approach to overcome the use of the classic four Ps of marketing of manufactured products as it was their origin (product, price, promotion, place).

We consider that the services, which by their very nature need a different treatment to the products, are very dissimilar from each other, which leads to the diversity of the interventions of the marketing variables, to the extent that each one show the importance in the development of relationships with man, since he, called user or employee, or in more real terms internal or external client, intervene in different ways in the provision of the service through technology. A marketing environment will also help the information units to maintain lasting and favorable relationships with their users, as the current situation of information services demands. Organizations should direct their efforts to the qualification of their specialists,but not only as specialists and connoisseurs of the service, but also as personal doers of it.

At present, new action scenarios continually appear in which the constant incorporation of new actors or work profiles is required that allow the use of new business routes suggested by emerging technologies. We are facing a business world in constant evolution. This reality forces us to incorporate new elements to readapt processes and respond to new needs.

The direction and management of information technologies, as well as their correct integration into the company's strategy are, without a doubt, some of the great challenges of the future.

Institutions increasingly rely on information to achieve success and competitiveness. High quality information services will be one of the key factors to achieve success in the field of commerce in general, which is why companies have to provide marketing solutions to their services and / or products in order to improve the way of interacting with your customers. The constant adaptation to new technologies favors the obtaining of new values that are essential to face aspects such as the increasing degree of demand of the markets.

Not only are large multinational companies facing a new economic and social system, the transformation and evolution of markets is latent in every corner of the planet, towards a globalization tending to break economic and even geographical limits. That is why the producers of information goods and services must be aware of the imperative need to satisfy their needs and that of the final consumers, who are the starting and finishing point of the institutions.

Information services must reach their consumers in an appropriate way and one of the most important areas covered by the current administration, which allows the exchange and development of these services, as well as information between organizations and consumers, is the of marketing.

This, however, applied to business, has had some drawbacks when trying to find a direct form of employment with the information services that are offered by the institutions. It can be said that most people see marketing as a new and somewhat diffuse concept. On the contrary, marketing has always existed as a social process, that is, from the moment a service is put on the market to satisfy the customer's needs until the customer makes use of it.

This consumer is the vital point for any institution, without him there would be no reason for business.

In the field of information, it is necessary to know the needs of the consumer, who compared to information services, these are increasingly sophisticated and specialized, as well as to find the best way to satisfy them with appropriate strategies. Customer service, suitable for strategies in organizations of any size, is the basis of marketing development.

In this article we refer to how information services should arise from the vision of marketing, through communication with the same client, in principle classified as promotion, aimed at satisfying consumer needs.

Today's information services must consider a more dynamic strategy, especially now when the context demands it. Therefore, Information institutions must undertake these challenges, to raise the level of their competitiveness in the international arena.

This work has a theoretical contribution, since it focuses on theoretical-rational aspects of the importance of the application of marketing to information services (1), especially in terms of the proper use of its elements, converted into a strategy that should be addressed to customers, the importance of prices, the characteristics that these services should have, the importance of the consumer for the information professional and the quality of services, among others. This article will above all have a practical significance since in a real way it teaches us how to improve the satisfaction of the needs of users in the information market,helping this to obtain an improvement in the economic performance of the companies and create conditions for the commercialization or positioning of the information services in the international market.

Service organizations are those that do not have as their main goal the manufacture of tangible products that buyers will have permanently, therefore the service is the object of marketing, that is, the company is selling the service as the central nucleus of its offer to the market.

Concepts and definitions.

What are the services?

"The Services are all those identifiable, intangible activities that are the main object of an operation that is conceived to provide the satisfaction of consumers' needs." (2) "A service is any act or function that one party can offer to another, which is essentially intangible and does not result in any property, its property may or may not be linked to a physical product." (3) "It is any activity or benefit that one party offers to the other, is essentially intangible and does not end with the property of the thing "(4)" It is that activity that relates the company with the client, so that he is satisfied with said activity "(5) Service involves task-oriented activities, other than proactive selling, which include interactions with customers in person, via telecommunications, or by mail.This role should be designed, performed, and communicated with two goals in mind: customer satisfaction, operational efficiency. (6)

Analyzing these definitions we can see that most of the authors refer to the term “activities” in their conceptualization, taking the most significant parameters of the exposed authors, it is the opinion of the author of this work that:

"Information services are a range of activities that allow information to be added to information, to be transformed by the user into knowledge, and in this way satisfy the user's needs"

From a marketing point of view, both goods and services offer benefits or satisfactions, both are products.

What is marketing?

It is a total system of business activities to plan, set prices, promote and distribute the products that meet the needs to target markets to achieve the goals of the organizations. (4) Process of planning and execution of the conception of communication and the distribution, as well as the fixing of prices of ideas, products and services, for exchanges that satisfy the individuals and the objectives of the organization (7) “Marketing is a total system of commercial activities, aimed at planning, setting prices, promote and distribute products and services that meet the needs of potential consumers "(6)" Marketing is the processinternal of a society through which it is planned in advance how to increase and satisfy the composition of the demand for products and services of a commercial nature through the creation, promotion, exchange and physical distribution of such merchandise or services ”(3) Marketing is the set of activities aimed at achieving, with benefit, consumer satisfaction through a product or service (6) “Marketing is having the right product, at the right time, adapted to demand, at the right time and with the fairest price (8)

From the above definitions, it follows that marketing focuses on the wants and needs of the consumer. Do what the consumer wants instead of doing what we as an organization want.

Marketing of information services.

Marketing of information services is based on three pillars (9):

The target market The positioning The marketing mix, the latter consisting of service, quality, technology, staff, costs and communications.

Relationship of marketing with information services.

The marketing relationship with information services has evolved through three stages:

I-Opposition between Marketing and the information services sector.

Marketing techniques were developed in the area of tangibles, thinking that these techniques would not be effective in this sector. This stage is known as the stage characterized by the point of view of supply, against the point of view of demand.

The product is different in the structuring process of the production process, clientele, among others. The service user has different motivations and different needs. The product establishes the insurmountable difference of tangibility.

Information units on many occasions do not see themselves as service producers but rather as companies that had nothing to do with the rather well-spoken transformation of service provision.

II- Adoption of marketing by the information services sector.

This process occurs when these units of information move from the sales approach to the marketing approach, that is, the most important thing is not the product itself but the market, the consumer, the customer.

It is very difficult for a customer to separate product from service.

For example, when a medical journal is sold, what do we sell? The printed paper or information? Or when we buy a book, what do we buy? The book or the service that is going to provide us to be able to know and know about something that we interested ?. In general, any tangible product implies the rendering of a service.

When automation is applied and there are no apparent differences between a machine that sells gasoline, coca cola, food, magazines, etc. (10).

Another factor that calls for confusion is that the success of a tangible in the market often depends not on the suitability of the product but on the service structure that is built around it and that in the eyes of the client are an integral part of it..

The foregoing allows us to give a global vision of tangibles and intangibles, based on the fact that marketing techniques are applicable both for the industrial sector and for the information services sector as any other service:

Each service began to be called a product. Activities organized with customers were called sales promotion. The same sales techniques were adopted.

III- Operational differences in the marketing approach for tangibles and intangibles.

It is the current stage that presupposes differentiating the application of marketing in services, although it logically starts from the experience in the application of marketing in the field of tangibles, this approach to marketing not only has conceptual differences but also in procedures when it comes to focusing on the market, this largely depends on the specifics of the service sector.

Information services characteristics (11)

Intangibility.

Information services, like others, are essentially intangible, that is, they cannot be seen, tasted, heard or smelled before being purchased, therefore it gives the buyer a higher level of risk, which is perceived in several directions:

Functional risk: the service will give the customer the levels of satisfaction that are required. Economic risk: The purchase is really justified from an economic point of view. This is linked to the perception of the price-quality ratio. Social and moral risk: If the service you are accessing will be approved or not by my reference groups, family and friends. This risk is linked to the concept of the image of the product or service. Physical risk: It is related to safety for health and life.

Due to all these risks that the service has, it is more difficult to make the purchase decision, in which the reliability of the brand or companies that intervene in the service plays an important role.

Any evaluation of a service will be totally subjective. It is important to seek opinions and attitudes beforehand, a repeat purchase can rest on previous experiences, the customer can be given something tangible to represent the service, but in the long run the purchase of the service is something intangible, from this we can deduce that Intangibility It is the characteristic that distinguishes products from services and that Intangibility means something palpable as well as mental.

Product marketing is separated from services marketing since:

It is the Intangibility of the definitive characteristic that distinguishes the services. Intangibility means both something palpable and mental.

Information service providers can improve customer confidence in the following ways:

Trying to increase the tangibility of the service Emphasizing the benefit of the service instead of describing only its characteristics Trademarks that raise prestige Use famous people, opinion leaders that give reliability of the service.

Production of the information service and simultaneous consumption.

Tangible products go through four stages from conception to consumption:

1.- Design

2.- Elaboration

3.- Marketing

4.- Consumption.

But nevertheless, in services, production and consumption merge.

The design stage is similar in both. The stage of commercialization of the services refers essentially to the sale of the concept of service, not of the product behind the service or its support, and the stage of preparation and consumption of the service is confused in a single act.

In many cases, the service starts after the sale is made and even after it has been paid.

For all this we can conclude that Information services like other services cannot be separated from the seller's people since a consequence of this is that the creation or realization of the service can occur at the same time as its consumption, either partial or total.

Absence of intermediaries.

In most cases the service is offered through the direct distribution channel, the responsibility is not shared with the Intermediaries as with tangible products and although this occurs, the maximum responsibility always falls on the company, since the client is not never disassociate from the service provider.

High level of market fragmentation.

It is distributed by many companies so it is difficult to define the real competition, participation quota, market trends, etc.

Complexity of the service.

Each service is undoubtedly a set of subservices that are harmoniously integrated at the moment of consumption and each one of them represents a moment of truth that determines customer satisfaction.

Inseparability.

The service does not exist separately from its providers, therefore the service provider will have to find a way to work with different clients simultaneously and faster, without affecting its quality and therefore client satisfaction.

Service variability.

Because the service depends on the person who provides, the professional experience of the provider, their state of mind, where it is provided, etc. The service firm will have to make two determinations for quality control: Invest in the selection and training of personnel in contact and work systematically with the client's state of opinion based on their satisfaction to detect and correct deficiencies, taking care always standardization of quality and differentiation based on market segmentation and service customization.

Expiration of the service.

The services cannot be stored, this is the reason why many doctors charge their patients and lawyers to their clients for the appointments they did not attend, since the value of the service exists at the moment when the client had to show up.

To counteract this, a system of measures such as differentiated prices, reservation systems, control of supply and demand, etc. must be established.

Heterogeneity.

It is often difficult to achieve production standardization in services because each "Unit" of service provision may be different from other "Units". Furthermore, it is not easy to ensure the same level of production from the point of view of quality. Likewise, from the customers' point of view, it is also difficult to judge quality ahead of time prior to purchase.

Expiration of the service.

Services are liable to perish and cannot be stored. On the other hand, for some services a fluctuating demand aggravates the expiration characteristics of the service.

Key decisions must be made on a maximum level of capacity that must be available to meet demand before sales of services suffer. Attention must also be paid to periods of low levels of use, reserve capacity or the option of short-term policies that balance fluctuations in demand.

Property.

Lack of ownership is a basic difference between a service industry and a product industry, because a customer can only have access to use a certain service. Payment is made for the use, access or lease of certain elements.

Trends in the field of Information services.

In the field of Information services, there are two major trends that are opposed, one to the personalization of the service and the other to the massification of the service, taking into account technological development and the proliferation of automated services.

Analyzing on the basis of these characteristics of Information services how to implement marketing management, both from the strategic and operational point of view, for this we must study how the basic variables of marketing are handled in this sector.

To manufacture a tangible product a set of elements is necessary: labor, machines, raw materials, the product results from the interaction of these three elements and their relationships are defined down to the last detail, once manufactured it is made available to specialists and the end customer. To produce tangible products it is known in advance what the final result will be, trying to produce what the customer needs with low costs, nothing is left to chance.

In the sphere of services, labor, material elements or physical support are also needed, and finally a beneficiary or client is needed (12).

But unlike the production of tangibles, the production of services is based on the fact that the client is an integral part of the service system, is both products and consumer, this in terms of marketing is of the utmost importance and the specificities of the Marketing services are based primarily on this.

Service (13): It is the systematic and coherent organization of all the physical and human elements and of the client-company relationship necessary for the performance of an Information service provision whose commercial characteristics and quality levels have been determined.

Elements that make up the servuction system:

Client

Physical support Contact personnel Quality of services Offer of services and other clients.

The client

Without a client there is no service, there would only be potential services, available capacities.

Designing the servuction is nothing more than structuring the production capacity of a service, for which it is necessary to start from two premises:

Each service offered by the institution must have its own service. Each market segment needs its specific service design.

The fundamental motivation of the client for consumption is to satisfy a need, therefore it is essential to identify these needs, which can be:

Physiological needs, security needs, social needs, esteem needs, fulfillment needs.

To analyze the behavior of the customer in the service, it is necessary to define well what type of service the customer faces, as this can be:

Common services: which does not require many efforts to understand. Reflection services: the client chooses it considering certain variables such as the price-quality ratio. Special services: with unique characteristics where it is not compared. Services not sought: There is no marked predetermination to its consumption.

On the decision to purchase a service They include different factors:

Economic factors: Income, wealth, interest rate, credits Personal factors: Motivation, perception, beliefs, personality Social factors: Family influence, reference group, social class, cultural lifestyle.

The purchasing decision process is divided into five stages:

Problem recognition Information search Option evaluation Purchasing decisions Post-purchase behavior

Due to the amount of risks perceived by the service client, they process more information and the evaluation process tends to be slower and more careful, resorting to the price, the appearance of the company, the personnel.

Due to their characteristics, the customer of service tends to be less likely to change brand or supplier with the same frequency of tangibles.

The customer participates more and more in the production of the service.

The behavior of the client also depends on his culture, hence we have more supportive and cooperative clients and other aggressive ones.

To perform a good service, it is necessary to define the position of the clients with respect to the institution in terms of:

Dominance:

Dominant customer is one who has paid a high price for the service and expects careful attention in order to satisfy the most minimal of their needs.

Dominated customer is one who needs an urgent information service or a service that has no competitors.

Participation:

Regarding participation we can find the active and passive client.

Contact staff

Contact staff management

One of the most important characteristics of Information services and services in general is the role of contact personnel in the production of the service, while in tangible it can be rather operational and replaced by machines, in services the personnel in contact is essential.

Contact personnel must be fully knowledgeable about the service, knowledgeable about the procedure, the technology, be creative and patient.

The personnel in contact must be in relation to the position they occupy, characteristics of the service they provide and the client they serve.

Among the tangible elements of the service that reduces the risks to the client is the contact personnel, this becomes a valuable resource for the success of the business, it is the face of the company, its immediate representative before the client and this can result in overestimating their power, therefore the company must control their behavior without limiting their creativity. The role of the contact staff is reinforced by the empathy or antipathy that they achieve with clients.

Contact Personnel Duties

Serve the client and act as his representative before the company Defend the interests of the company he represents before the client, which means defending monetary interests, respecting the rules, taking care of the institution's assets, ensuring the quality of service Sale of the service Tips

Contact Personnel must attend to different aspects such as:

The visible The gestural The verbal The operational

All these factors must be combined in this staff.

The institution must define the style of its contact personnel, for this it must select them correctly and train them, develop their sense of belonging and stimulate their work with remuneration and spiritual stimuli.

The physical support.

The quality of the service is highly dependent on the hardware.

The physical support is structured around:

Spatial location and point of delivery Value of architecture Value of equipment Value of products to be used by customers Environment

In the interrelation that arises between different clients who buy the service, several situations may arise:

Customers who require an exclusive service Customers who make it difficult for other customers Customers who prefer simultaneous service with other customers

The relationship between customers can facilitate or hinder the service process, it is the responsibility of the staff in contact to be able to resolve any contingency that may arise, but a service design that allows for functionality, environment, logistics, etc. is also important., which facilitates Interrelation between clients in any of the options that our segment prefers.

Quality of service (14)

In the quality of the service it is possible to distinguish several attributes:

ReliabilityFastness / agilityResponsibilityCompetenceCourtesyAccessibilityCommunicationCredibilitySecurityCompression / customer insight

The poor quality of a service implies loss of customers, in addition to generating:

Increase in costs, reducing benefits due to errors made Deterioration in staff due to the demotivation that produces in them the complaints of customers and the malfunction of the service Decrease in the prices to be charged for the service provided, given to their inferior quality.

Information service offer (15)

Every institution that offers an information service should not propose a single service but rather offers several services to the client, that is, different services but interrelated with each other, in this way it will guarantee that the client obtains extensive information about a specific service and its once more satisfies your needs and contributing this to raise the quality of the service in question.

The service offer is divided into:

Base service Peripheral services Derived base services.

Marketing strategy in the Information services sector. (1)

While it is true that any marketing strategy is unique, in some way, because it is specific to a particular organization, it must not be overlooked that there are some differences between the strategies applied to Information services. Some exclusive aspects of the information services that guide the formulation of the marketing strategy of the services are:

The predominantly intangible nature of an information service may make it more difficult to select competitive offers among consumers. When the producer of the information service is inseparable from the service itself, it can localize the service and offer the consumer a more restricted choice. The perishability of information services prevents the storage of the product itself and can also add risk and uncertainty to the marketing of the service.

It should be remembered that the basic elements that make up a marketing strategy are those related to the segmentation, positioning and combination of marketing, marketing mix or commercial mix.

The segmentation and positioning stages of the marketing strategy are basically the same for both goods and services. Where the differences do appear is in the elements that make up the marketing mix.

Positioning.

Correctly positioning an information service in the market consists of making it more desirable, compatible, acceptable and relevant for the target segment, differentiating it from that offered by the competition; in other words, offering a service that is effectively perceived as "unique" by customers.

An information service, being well positioned, makes the segment identify it perfectly with a series of wishes and needs in its own scale of values, making the degree of loyalty of the same greater and stronger compared to those offered by the competitors.

Marketing mix

The best known marketing mix in the current literature refers to the combination of four variables or basic elements to be considered for decision-making regarding the planning of the marketing strategy in a company. These elements are: product, price, place and promotion (the four Ps that come from Product, Place, Price and Promotion).

This mixture is the most used in the goods market; however, there are three reasons why an accommodation is required for information services:

The original marketing mix was prepared for manufacturing industries. The elements of the mix are not presented specifically for service organizations nor are they necessarily accommodated to these organizations, where the intangibility characteristic of the service, the technology used, and the type of primary customer may be critical. It has been empirically demonstrated that the service mix Marketing may not have their own characteristics (intangibility, perishable nature, etc.). There is growing evidence that the dimensions of the marketing mix cannot be broad enough for service marketing, since it does not consider a series of essential elements for the generation and delivery of the service.

Based on the three reasons outlined above, the idea of a revised or modified mix arises that is specially adapted for the marketing of Information services or other services. This revised mix contains three elements, which are: product, price, position, promotion, personnel, physical evidence and processes (personnel, Physical evidence and Process).

Decisions cannot be made about one component of the mix without taking into account the conclusions of the previous phases of the marketing strategy, as well as their impact on the other components. Inevitably there is a lot of overlap and interaction between the different components of a marketing mix. (eleven)

PRODUCT

Service as a product and an understanding of the dimensions of which it is composed is critical to the success of any service marketing organization. As with goods, customers demand benefits and satisfactions from service products. Services are bought and used for the benefits they offer, for the needs they satisfy, and not for their own sake.

The information service seen as a product requires taking into account the range of services offered, their quality and the level at which it is delivered.

Attention will also need to be paid to issues such as branding, warranties and after-sales services. The combination of the service products of these elements can vary considerably according to the type of services provided.

PRICE

Pricing decisions are of paramount importance in marketing strategy for both consumer and service companies. 31 price is the most important marketing variable and the highest frequency in decision making. As with the other elements of the marketing mix, the price of a service must be related to the achievement of organizational and marketing goals.

The principles of practical pricing of information services tend to be based on principles and practices used in the prices of goods.

As with goods, it is difficult to make generalizations about prices.

There is as much diversity in the service sector as in the goods sector.

The characteristics of information services mentioned above can influence pricing in service markets. The influence of these characteristics varies according to the type of service and the market situation being considered. However, they constitute an additional factor when examining the main traditional forces influencing prices: costs, competition and demand.

Marketing strategies involve the different elements of the marketing mix being formulated and executed with the objectives of those strategies very clear in mind. Pricing decisions are no exception to this principle. When setting price targets for information services, several factors must be taken into account. The most important are:

Planned market position for the service: the market position means the site that the service is intended to occupy and does not occupy in the eyes of the customer and compared to competitors. It refers to the perceived positioning of the service in relation to others. Clearly price is an important element of the mix that influences this position. Tangible products can occupy a particular position due to their physical characteristics: services, on the contrary, are positioned on the basis of their intangible attributes. In general, the price would influence the market position. Elasticity of demand:

The discretion that an organization has to determine its price targets is affected by the elasticity of demand in the market. The elasticity of demand in the market refers to the sensitivity of this to price changes.

Clearly it is vital that an information services organization determine how elastic or inelastic the demand is for its services in response to price changes. Elasticity may require limitations on certain pricing options.

Competitive situation:

The strength of competition in the market influences pricing. Thus, in situations where there is little differentiation between information services and competition is intense, the discretion of prices is limited, that is, a certain degree of price uniformity will be established. In other situations tradition and custom may influence the prices charged.

The strategic role of price:

Pricing policies have a strategic role in order to achieve organizational objectives. Thus, the pricing decision must be tailored to how the other elements of the marketing mix are managed to achieve strategic goals.

According to all the factors that must be considered for setting prices, and which were mentioned above, two methods can be established for setting the prices of information services or others:

Cost-based pricing. Market-oriented pricing.

To conclude, it is necessary to recognize that no structure or framework is adequate for all decisions. Each price decision must take into account the existing circumstances, cost, demand, competition, the service and its characteristics and situation in the market. Pricing for information services, as for goods, remains largely a combination of good management, experience, trial and error, intuition, and good luck.

Promotion or communication.

Promotion in information services can be carried out through four traditional ways, in such a way as to be able to influence the sales of services as products. These forms are:

Advertising: defined as any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of Information services through a given individual or organization Personal selling: defined as the personal presentation of services in conversation with one or more prospective buyers for the purpose of make sales Public Relations (Publicity): defined as the non-personal stimulation of demand for an information service obtaining commercially important news about it, in any medium or obtaining its favorable presentation in any medium that is not paid for by the sponsor of the service Sales promotion: Marketing activities other than advertising, personal selling and public relations that stimulate customer purchases and use and improve dealer effectiveness.

The general purposes of promotion in information services marketing are to create awareness and interest in the service and in the service organization, to differentiate the service offering from the competition, to communicate and represent the benefits of available services, and / or persuade customers to buy or use the service.

In general the purpose of any promotional effort is to sell the service through information, persuasion and recall.

The principles of promotion are the same for goods and services. However, some differences are mainly due to aspects such as: (11)

The characteristics of the service industries The characteristics of the services. In each of these categories there are factors responsible for these differences. These are:

Differences due to the characteristics of the service industries:

Lack of marketing orientation: Some service industries are product oriented. They are not aware of the possibilities that marketing practices would offer in their industries. They see themselves as producers of services and not as organizations that serve the needs of customers. Managers are not trained, they do not have the skills and they do not know the role that promotion could play in marketing. (16)

Professional and Ethical Restrictions: There may be professional and ethical limitations on the use of a certain method of marketing and promotion. Tradition and custom can prevent the use of certain forms of promotion. May be considered inappropriate in the industry Small scale of many service operations: Cannot be considered large enough to warrant particularly marketing and promotional expenses.

Nature of competition and market conditions: Many service organizations may not need to promote their services extensively due to their ability to cope with their current workloads. It is not envisioned that even in these situations the promotional effort may have a long-term role to play in maintaining a secure position in the market.

Limited view of available promotional methods: Service organizations may have a limited view of the myriad of promotional methods that can take into account only mass advertising and personal selling and ignore the multitude of other methods that may be suitable, just as effective and probably even less expensive.

Nature of the service: The nature of the service may by itself limit the use of certain promotional tools on a large scale. The class of service, the traditions in the particular service industry, the limitations of the promotion methods for a certain class of service, may restrict the use of promotions.

Differences due to the characteristics of information services: Consumer attitudes: Consumer attitudes is a key influence on purchasing decisions. With services, intangibility is an important quality in your marketing. Consumers are likely to rely more on subjective impressions of the service and the provider or vendor of the service when they are shopping. This dependence on subjective impressions may be of less importance in the purchase of tangible goods. (12) Needs and motives for purchase: The needs and motives for purchasing goods and services are largely the same. The same kinds of needs are met by purchasing tangibles. However, one need that is important, for both situations, is the desire for personal attention.Satisfying this need for personal attention Satisfying this need for personal attention is one way in which service sellers can differentiate their services from competitors (16). Purchasing Processes: The differences between goods and services are most notable in the buying process. Some Information service purchases are viewed as riskier in part because it may be more difficult for buyers to assess quality and value. Similarly, consumers are more likely to be influenced by others. This more predominant role of personal influence in the purchasing process has implications for information services marketing.Especially to develop a professional relationship between service providers and their consumers and the need for promotional programs to create verbal communication (17).

Advertising.

Use clear messages without ambiguity Highlight the benefits of information services Only promise what can be delivered Advertising for employees Obtain and maintain customer collaboration in the service production process Create verbal communication Give clues tangible (symbols, themes, formats, etc.) Give continuity to advertising Eliminate anxiety after purchase.

The advertising of information services must fulfill five functions to achieve its efficiency:

Create the world of the company in the mind of the consumer Build a suitable personality for the company Identify the company with the customer Influence company staff on how to treat customers Help open doors for representatives sales.

Personal sale

Build personal relationships with customers Adopt a professional orientation Use indirect selling Create and maintain a favorable image Sell services not service Make buying easy

There is a seven guideline model for personal selling of services in general. This was deduced from empirical data on the differences between the sale of goods and services. The seven guidelines (17) of this model are:

Instrument the meeting of the purchase of the service Facilitate the evaluation of the quality Make the service tangible Highlight the organizational image Use external references to the organization Recognize the importance of all personnel in contact with the public Recognize the participation of the customer during the service design process to generate customer specifications by asking questions, providing examples.

Square

All organizations, whether they produce tangibles or intangibles, have a stake in decisions about the plaza (also called channel, site, delivery, distribution, location, or coverage). That is, how they make offers available to users and make them accessible to them. The plaza is an element of the marketing mix that has received little attention in or regarding information services because it has always been treated as something related to the movement of physical elements.

The usual generalization made about information service distribution is that direct selling is the most frequent method and that channels are short. Direct selling is certainly prevalent in some service markets, but many service channels contain one or more intermediaries. It would be wrong to say that direct selling is the only method of distribution in service markets.

Organizations operating in the service market have two main channel options. These options are the same for producers of physical elements. These are:

Direct sale Sale through intermediaries.

The location may vary in importance according to the nature of the service sold. Services can be classified by location in three ways

Location may not have Services may be concentrated Services may be dispersed

The ultimate importance of location in many service operations results in more systematic methods than before. Intuition continues to play its role as part of the decision-making process, but is increasingly complemented by more careful and methodical analysis in the field of services. Service marketers are increasingly aware of the importance of location and channel choice in the marketing mix.

Quality of information services (14)

The analysis of the quality of the service is very difficult in the tangible and is done even more in the services (14). The quality of the service can be:

Technical quality is that which depends on the elements of the servuction and their interrelation (14).

Subjective or commercial quality is the quality that the customer perceives. related to the segment, its needs, lifestyle, etc. And in which the elements of the servuction also influence.

The quality of the information services depends on the quality of the results and nothing can assure us that it will be good before being consumed by the client, because although it is possible to act on the elements of the service, any contingency may arise.

Therefore, a quality service is one that fully satisfies the client, the concept of service quality is relative, since it depends on the type of client, two clients can perceive the same service with different qualities, it depends on their requirements, even the same person At different times with different moods you can perceive the same service with different qualities.

The quality of the service depends on:

Of the chosen segment and its expectations regarding the global service Of the service offer designed according to the needs of that client Of the interrelation of the elements of the service Ability to maintain service standards in time and space Design of the offer in function of achieving the best global service. Ability to adapt the service to the changing demands of the client.

The quality of the service is closely related to customer satisfaction, the more satisfied the customer feels, the more they recognize in the service: more quality + satisfaction + participation + loyalty + sales, better price + profitability.

Service life cycle

The life cycle is characterized by 4 stages:

Introduction: slow growth in billing because: The company may have difficulties hiring all the staff it needs to hire the new service. The company needs to develop the details of the service. Find ways to improve service delivery. Get customers who accept the service.

At this stage costs are high due to high promotional expenses, fundamental efforts are directed at early buyers who are more likely to buy.

Growth: The turnover grows, new competitors appear taking advantage of the market opportunity, the organization must achieve growth as quickly as possible.

To try to prolong this phase you can:

Improve the quality of the service Defend the service from the competition Look for new market segments to enter Differentiate the service Direct communication based on purchase conviction

Maturity: Growth rate slows, sales stabilize, prices drop, research and development efforts are made to find better deals, it's about improving the marketing mix Decline: Sales drop sharply, prices drop, the services become unplayable or with low profitability quotas, the institution will have to eliminate or redesign them to re-launch them.

Conclusions

Information is a service, a resource, it is a value that we must manage like any other, the marketing rules are applicable to them since among their characteristics we can mention some such as:

It is acquired at a cost and also taxable in money. It has specific and measurable characteristics. It has a life cycle. The cost of information can be controlled. It has the ability to be processed and refined.

Service is an intangible process, an interpersonal exchange of efforts that once performed cannot be turned back. Both in industrial, commercial and service companies, the difference must be sought, fundamentally, by improving the quality of the service. Every tangible product implies the rendering of a service. Marketing techniques are applicable in the production of information services. The organization Systematic and coherent of all the physical and human elements, in addition to the client-company relationship, are the fundamental standards that the production and provision of an information service must comply with, whose characteristics and quality levels have already been predetermined. information have quality, we must adjust them to the user's specifications,taking into account that the real quality of the information services is what the client perceives and it is this customer with their satisfied needs that will be able to comment on the excellence or not of the service received.The quality of the service is dynamic, what is satisfied today is insufficient The production of information services, unlike the production of tangibles, is based on the fact that the client is an integral part of the production process of the service (servuction), is both a product and a consumer The institutions that offer information services must define a diverse portfolio of services, that is, different but interrelated services, in this way it will guarantee that the client has at their disposal extensive information about a specific service that they want,which leads to improving the quality of the service and in turn satisfying their real needs more.The application of marketing techniques to information services allows us to implement policies for the dissemination of services through promotion and advertising, in addition, These techniques will help us to know the dissatisfied clients and the needs to satisfy of others or of them. Information services have among their characteristics the production and the simultaneous consumption of the same, since the client is part of the integrality of the production from service.In addition, these techniques will help us to know the dissatisfied clients and the needs to satisfy of others or of these same. The information services have among their characteristics the simultaneous production and consumption of the same, since the client is part of the integrality of the production of the service.In addition, these techniques will help us to know the dissatisfied clients and the needs to satisfy of others or of these same. The information services have among their characteristics the simultaneous production and consumption of the same, since the client is part of the integrality of the production of the service.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCE

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Title: "MARKETING OF INFORMATION SERVICES"

Contributed by: Ing. María Julia Solanelles Rojas

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