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Service Marketing Mix/Extended Marketing Mix
Having discussed the characteristics of a service, let us now look at the marketing mix of a service.
The service marketing mix comprises off the 7’p’s. These include:
• Product
• Price
• Place
• Promotion
• People
• Process
• Physical evidence.
Lets now look at the remaining 3 p’s:People
An essential ingredient to any service provision is the use of appropriate staff and people. Recruiting the right staff and training them appropriately in the delivery of their service is essential if the organisation wants to obtain a form of competitive advantage. Consumers make judgments and deliver perceptions of the service based on the employees they interact with. Staff should have the appropriate interpersonal skills, aptititude, and service knowledge to provide the service that consumers are paying for. Many British organisations aim to apply for the Investors In People accreditation, which tells consumers that staff are taken care off by the company and they are trained to certain standards.
Process
Refers to the systems used to assist the organisation in delivering the service. Imagine you walk into Burger King and you order a Whopper Meal and you get it delivered within 2 minutes. What was the process that allowed you to obtain an efficient service delivery? Banks that send out Credit Cards automatically when their customers old one has expired again require an efficient process to identify expiry dates and renewal. An efficient service that replaces old credit cards will foster consumer loyalty and confidence in the company.
Physical Evidence
Where is the service being delivered? Physical Evidence is the element of the service mix which allows the consumer again to make judgments on the organisation. If you walk into a restaurant your expectations are of a clean, friendly environment. On an aircraft if you travel first class you expect enough room to be able to lay down!
Physical evidence is an essential ingredient of the service mix, consumers will make perceptions based on their sight of the service provision which will have an impact on the organisations perceptual plan of the service.
To summarise service marketing looks at:The Characteristics of a service that are:
(1) Lack of ownership
(2) Intangibility
(3) Inseparability
(4) Perishability
(5) Heterogeneity.The Service marketing mix involves analysing the 7’p of marketing involving, Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Physical Evidence, Process and People.
To certain extent managing services are more complicated then managing products, products can be standardised, to standardise a service is far more difficult as there are more input factors i.e. people, physical evidence, process to manage then with a product.
Studying Management? Visit www.learnmanagement2.com
Further reading:
Case studies from www.thetimes100.co.uk
Principles of Marketing by Philip Kotler
Principles of Marketing by Frances Brassington
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