Course Objectives

The objective of services marketing is to introduce students to the field of services marketing and acquaint them with specific customer service issues. In recent times the business world demands increasing employee competence in developing effective service processes, constructing meaningful servicescapes, customer satisfaction and service quality measurement, as well as service recovery skills that are essential in growing and sustaining the existing customer base.

Course Description

Initially the module concentrates on defining services marketing and discusses in detail the fundamental concepts and strategies that differentiate the marketing of services from the marketing of tangible goods.

One of the most basic ideas in marketing is the marketing mix. The marketing mix represents the levers that the organization controls. These levers can be used to influence consumers’ choice processes as well as their evaluation of service satisfaction. Given the importance of the service s marketing mix the module spotlights the marketing mix variables that must be the most modified when competing in service marketing environments.

Due to the complexity of the service environment, it is important to identify and develop appropriate strategies to face service failures, manage customer satisfaction, understand how consumers evaluate services and the longer-term concept of service quality. All these issues are thoroughly discussed through real life cases.

Suggested Textbooks

• Bateson, J.E.G. and Hoffman, K. D. (2010). Services Marketing, International Edition, 4th Edition, Cengage.
• Lovelock, C. and Wirtz J., (2021). Services Marketing: People, Technology, Strategy, 9th Edition, World Scientific Publishing Company.