Page 90 - DMGT522_SERVICES MANAGEMENT

Unit 4: Service Strategies
Hitesh Jhanji, Lovely Professional University

Unit 4: Service Strategies Notes

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
4.1 Competitive Marketing Strategy

4.2 Service Recovery Strategies
4.3 Managing Demand, Supply and Productivity
4.4 Managing Waiting Lines
4.5 Summary

4.6 Keywords
4.7 Review Questions
4.8 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit, you will be able to:
Discuss the competitive marketing strategy of service firms
Know some service recovery strategies
Realise how service firms manage demand, supply and productivity
Know how waiting lines can be managed

Introduction

The service firm has some major issues which are to be tackled by the management and the
marketers. Due to the intangibility of services it is very difficult to make a competitive strategy
for the services. Different people attach different attributes to a service and evaluate the service
differently. Due to the variability factor, the services can’t be standardised which makes it even
more difficult to decide on one strategy. A service marketer should always keep in mind the
requirements of the customers while deciding on any single strategy because the requirements
of every single customer vary.
It is also very important and difficult to manage the demand and supply constraints. Demand is
a variable which depends on a variety of factors and service firm has this challenge of matching
its capacity to demand. They sometimes also try to influence the demand variable to match their
own capacity. With low capacity and high demand also comes, the problem of waiting lines.
This is one area where the service firm loses most of its customers. Customers hate to wait in
lines. Now with the availability of many options and substitutes, customers have become more
impatient. Managing waiting lines is also a big challenge for the service firms.
In this unit, you will learn the competitive service strategies, recovery strategies, how demand,
supply, productivity and waiting lines are managed.

4.1 Competitive Marketing Strategy

A service firm with multiple goods and service offers needs to make separate strategic plans for
each business proposition and each market in which it competes.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 85