Services Marketing notes

Introduction to Services marketing

Services are intangible products produced and consumed simultaneously in a short period Infosys, an Indian technology company offers Information Technology solution to ANZ Grindlays Bank those are intangible in nature. Here, a customer ANZ cannot touch the product but can perform banking tasks using software. Infosys offers Consulting Services, Cloud Solutions, enterprise resource planning software, block chain technology, and other services. These Solutions may have a software product, website, software manual, and a report in the tangible format, but clients like ANZ do not see coding testing and executing part of the solution. Apart from this, business meetings follow-up calls and annual maintenance are series of actions and performances in an intangible format executed on a particular time and place.

Services Marketing characteristics. 

Intangibility

Services are employee actions and performances based on company procedures and are not a physical goods. Thus one cannot touch, feel, see or inventoried like goods. For example Apollo hospitals performance actions like medical examination, diagnosis, treatment, and surgery on patients that cannot be seen or touched. In many situations, patients don’t know how surgery has been done. Due to this characteristic of Intangibility, managers find it difficult to forecast and execute the demand. For example Taj Vivanta, Panaji, Goa, experiences huge demand in March, April, and May. Conversely the demand goes down in July. Yet, Taj Vivanta, has similar number of rooms to book throughout the year. 

Further Services cannot be patented; Hence these are copied easily by competitors. Services cannot be easily demonstrated like goods.  Though, Metro rail carries passengers from one destination to another it cannot show how exactly a rail was driven. So this is quality measurement is another hurdle for marketers and consumers. A customer finds it difficult to assess the service quality of restaurants like Saravanan's,V asudeva adigas, and Adyars. In addition to these Services marketers has a hurdle of deciding about what to include in advertising and other marketing communications. Indian Institute of Management Bangalore can communicate about courses but cannot advertise the pricing. The unit of service cost is complex and difficult to determine. Lakme saloons have different beauty solutions at different price points. This difference leads to the evolution of price quality relationships that vary from customers to customers.

Heterogeneity:

Services are performed by people. Therefore, services performed by different people are not the same. Even the same person's service performance on different days varies.  Further, a customer who avail services may have different perceptions and satisfactions. These characteristics exhibit services heterogeneity.  For example ,  Kesari travels may provide two different packages to two different customers on the same day depending upon a customer's affordability and acceptability. Keasri travel desk executives may provide maximum offers to customers in the morning when they are fresh to work. However, same executives may offer less packages to customers in the late evening when they are tired. These variations in services  based on people's  time and the organization pose a big challenge for maintaining the service quality. Apart from this, other customers at a service location also influence customers' purchase. A few customers like crowded service outlets and a few do not. Added to this, employees behaviour also determines customers purchasing. In addition to this, if a service is given by the third party, it increases the service heterogeneity. For instance, Airtel customer queries are answered by IBM executives who are not part of the organization. However, customers think that they have called Airtel executives.

Simultaneous production and consumption

 The major distinguishing feature between goods and services is goods are produced first and sold later. Whereas services are sold in the beginning and production takes place later. To illustrate, Hero motocorp produces the two-wheelers at Kolar plant in Karnataka, dispatched to Bengaluru, sold over months and used by customers over the years. But OYO has to sell its rooms first and customer experience the stay and dining later. Here, customers of OYO is a part of the production and consumption by asking room boy for facility adjustments or modifications.  Customers can ask for sugarless tea or spicy dishes with a dining staff. A notable thing in this entire process is a customer interacts with the service employees regularly in a production and consumption process. Therefore, a customer may be happy or happy with the room service. In a travel industry company like VRL do not allocate seats next to the female passenger to any strange male passenger. If seats are not reserved like that a female customer may not experience the service properly. This services characteristics of simultaneous production and consumption often makes service providers take the role as a part of the product. Shahrukh Khan, a film actor from India, actively takes part in the production and marketing of his red chillies entertainment products. 

As service production consumption is simultaneous, scaling it to the masses is a daunting task. More than that, customers’ satisfaction depends on employee services and his interactions with the firm in real time. A customer who walks into State Bank of India will be either happy or unhappy after his interaction with a clerk or cashier.  Due to this feature of production and consumption simultaneously, a few companies are decentralizing their operations to localize services. McDonald's restaurants in the different countries have adopted local sourcing; It reduces the cost of importing and also provides local Cuisine. McDonald India, do not sell beef burgers due to religious sentiments but sell veg burgers in a large quantity. Another problem of production consumption simultaneously is irritated customers.  As they are part of a production and consumption process, they expressed their happiness or unhappiness on the process itself. Wonderla and excel amusement parks must have secure yet fun facilities in their premises otherwise customers express their opinion on the location also on social media. 

Perishability 

Services cannot be stored, saved or returned or resold. A journey in Indian railways by a customer cannot be stored or saved. Here, customers would experience a service in a given time. If a customer is unhappy about the train facility in the journey, can he return it? No, because they are perishable in nature. Today with Advent of mobile phones and internet-based movie technologies, movie theatres in India are facing occupancy rate issues. One cannot inventory the seats of a particular show. Hence, PVR should make proper demand forecasting for the capacity utilization. Services cannot be returned or resold. Flipkart in their first Bill Billion Day Sale did not anticipate technology problems. Customers on that day could not buy anything. Later, Flipkart had apologized in the public for the service failure.

Services marketing mix

People

Employees of the organization who are part of a service delivery influence buyer behavior. They create awareness about services. Reliance Trends executives provide new arrival information to customers 

Employees grooming and their behaviors have a direct impact on  customers satisfaction. Hence,air hostesses in the Indian Indigo Airlines  should be wearing company uniforms and have a cordial relationship with customers while serving in an airline industry. 

In certain services like education and career counseling, service providers themselves act as a service. The success of an education institution solely depends on teachers. However, in certain services like house maintenance plumber has a relatively less significance in the service delivery though they are very critical for the organizational performance. In a few services, customers' timely information or requirements have a significant role in the service delivery. If requirements are not specified or information not given when required it affects the service quality. For example, a customer books an apartment with a Godrej property without specifying his requirements in the beginning has to accept later whatever the property built by the Godrej. A customer who goes to the indica saloon should tell about a haircut style in the beginning. Otherwise, he cannot modify it later. Social media has allowed customers to share their opinions and recommendations to other colleagues or customers.  When The War like a situation has broken up between India and China many have asked  the customers and colleagues and friends to boycott the China mobile applications like Tick Tock and sharechat.