Page 74 - DMGT522_SERVICES MANAGEMENT

Unit 3: Nature/Characteristics of Services

These are the following ways in which the marketer can overcome the unique characteristic of Notes
intangibility: visualisation, association physical representation, documentation, facts and figures.

Self Assessment

State True or False:
1. Marketable products can be classified as tangible goods and intangible services.
2. Services marketing are complex and more challenging than the traditional goods
marketing.
3. Services have increasingly assumed an important role in the economic development of
many countries excluding India.
4. Marketing organisations, techniques and concepts have been classified to show the
difference and similarities between the organisational framework.

5. Facts, figures and data are always used to emphasize a point and to build credibility.
6. Service industries use documentations to prove its features and claims and thus are able to
overcome the intangibility factor.

3.2.2 Perishability

As discussed before, the perishability factor prevents a service marketer from storing his offers.
This robs him of the privilege of delayed sales. The service marketer suffers from lost
opportunities. But there are ways and means to overcome the perishability factor:
Over-Marketing

Managing Demand
Managing Supply
These are explained below:
Over-marketing

A service marketer targets for more customers than he has the capacity to serve. In this way, if
there are dropouts and cancellations, the actual number of customers is the same as servicing
capacity. Then the service marketer does not suffer from any opportunity loss. But the flip side
with over-marketing is the possibility of extreme dissatisfaction amongst those customers who
have been the target for over-marketing but are being denied services. Obviously, no good
service marketer worth his salt would like to be in the position of having customers on the
doorstep and turning them down.
So the trick is to do over-marketing with lots of clauses, catches and conditions. The customer is
made to participate in the over-marketing process and also to agree beforehand to many
conditions.

Restaurants

Restaurants bill customers who do not turn up after having taken table reservations. The customer
cannot complain, as that particular clause would have been agreed upon by him when making
the reservation. Similarly, customers are denied service even after reservations if they arrive
later than the agreed time; the next person in the waiting line is offered the service. Many service

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