Book profile

Marketing of services

A 1981 American Marketing Association conference proceedings compiling early academic and practitioner thought on why and how the marketing of intangible services differs from the marketing of physical goods.

This pioneering volume, the proceedings of the first AMA conference devoted solely to services marketing, assembles dozens of papers from leading scholars and practitioners who collectively forge a new sub-discipline. It wrestles with the foundational question of whether services require distinctly different marketing management, examines commercial services (especially banking and financial institutions), professional services (law, accounting, medicine), and nonprofit/public-sector services, and advances services-marketing theory through concepts such as the expanded marketing mix (the seven P's), the inseparability of production and consumption, the centrality of contact personnel, and the difficulty of quality control. For anyone seeking the intellectual roots of modern services marketing, this collection captures the field at its formative moment, blending empirical segmentation studies, conceptual frameworks, and managerial prescriptions.

The model

An inferred model linking the distinctive characteristics of services and the design levers of an expanded services marketing mix to customer psychological and behavioral states, and ultimately to satisfaction, patronage, and competitive performance outcomes.

Frameworks you can use

Market the bundle of benefits as perceived by the buyer, not the tangible thing.
Smooth demand to match perishable, non-inventoriable service capacity.
Treat contact personnel and physical environment as promotional and product-defining assets.
Integrate marketing with operations because the two are inseparable in service delivery.
Screen, educate, and manage customers because they co-produce the service.

Key terms

Service Intangibility and Inseparability: The degree to which an offering is an intangible performance produced and consumed simultaneously and cannot be inventoried or trialed before purchase.
Expanded Services Marketing Mix: The controllable seven-P set of design levers a service firm uses to define, deliver, and promote its service.
Contact Personnel and Service Encounter Quality: The competence and interpersonal behavior of customer-contact employees as perceived during the service encounter.
Perceived Service Quality and Risk: The customer's evaluative perception of service quality and associated risk formed from expectations and the actual experience.
Benefit Segment Fit: The match between the service offering and the bundle of benefits sought by a target segment.
Demand and Capacity Management: The extent to which a firm smooths demand to match perishable service capacity.
Marketing-Operations Integration: The organizational arrangement giving marketing influence over service delivery and contact personnel.
Customer Satisfaction and Patronage: Customer satisfaction, retention, repeat use, referral, and selection/switching behavior.