Service marketing mangement - Essay Example

In turn more competition will stimulate innovation, not least through the application of new and improved technologies. Customer needs and behaviour evolves, too, in response to changing demographics and values, as well as new options. Both individually and in combination, these developments will require managers of services organizations to focus more sharply on marketing strategy. The dynamic environment of services today places a premium on effective marketing. Among the keys to competing effectively in this continually evolving and challenging environment are skills in marketing strategy and execution, area in which many services firms have traditionally been weak.

But Christian Gronroos (2001) argues that services marketing function is much broader than the activities and output of the traditional marketing department, requiring close cooperation between marketers and those managers responsible for operations and human resources. In the area of services marketing employees must be customer service oriented in addition to being concerned about efficiency. The service product must be tailored to customer needs, price, realistically distributed through convenient channels and actively promoted to customers.

There are the basic differences that can help us to distinguish the tasks associated with marketing services from those involved with marketing physical goods. *Customers do not obtain ownership of service * Service products are ephemeral and cannot be inventoried * Intangible elements dominate value creation * Customers may be involved in the production process * Other people may form part of the product * there is greater variability in operational inputs and outputs * Many service are difficult for customers to evaluate *The time factor assumes great important to recognize and identify these differences carefully and marketing practices must be suitably modified.

As we know that banking industries, intangible