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Services Marketing




                    Notes          1.1 Defining Services

                                   One of the first to define services was the American Marketing Association, which, as early as in
                                   1960,  defined services  as “activities,  benefits, or  satisfactions which  are offered  for sale,  or
                                   provided in connection  with the sale of goods.” This definition took a very limited view on
                                   services as it proposed that services are offered only in connection with the sale of goods.
                                   The other definition which was proposed, in 1963, by Regan suggested that “services represent
                                   either intangibles yielding satisfaction directly (transportation, housing), or intangibles yielding
                                   satisfaction jointly when purchased either with commodities or other services (credit, delivery)”.
                                   For the first time services were considered as pure intangibles capable of providing satisfaction
                                   to the customer which could be marketed like tangible products.
                                   Robert Judd defined service as “a market transaction by an enterprise or entrepreneur where the
                                   object of the market transaction is other than the transfer of ownership of a tangible commodity”.
                                   Lehtinen, in 1983, defined services as “an activity or a series of activities which take place in
                                   interactions  with  a  contact  person  or  a  physical  machine  and  which  provides  consumer
                                   satisfaction.”
                                   Kotler and Bloom, in 1984, defined services as “any activity or benefit that one party can offer to
                                   another that  is essentially  intangible and  does not  result in  the ownership  of anything.  Its
                                   production may or may not be tied to a physical product.”

                                   Gummesson highlighting the intangible nature of services defined “services as something which
                                   can be bought and sold but which you cannot drop on your foot.” This definition also pointed
                                   out one basic characteristic that the services can be exchanged even though they are not tangible.
                                   According to Gronross, “a service is an activity or series of activities of more or less intangible
                                   nature that  normally, not  necessarily, take  place in  interactions between  the customer  and
                                   service employees and/or physical resources or goods and/or system of the service provider,
                                   which are provided as solution to customer problems.”




                                             Myths about Service Industries
                                     T     here are certain myths about services sector. It is because of these myths that people
                                     Caselet

                                           are unable to relate the role and contribution of the services sector in the economy.

                                     The first myth is that a service economy produces services at the expense of other sectors.
                                     The fact is that many service industries are major purchasers of manufactured goods. Take
                                     the example of airlines, fast food outlets, educational institutions, etc., which buy so much
                                     of manufactured products.

                                     The second myth is that service production is primarily labour intensive. In fact, a number
                                     of service sectors like healthcare, hospitality, etc., are capital intensive. Productivity are
                                     therefore equally important in service organisations as returns on capital employed will
                                     be one of the major determinants of success.
                                     The third myth about services is that people satisfy their product needs before the need for
                                     services. This is also not true.  Research findings of a study revealed that people value
                                     services as much as products; however, they may buy services in a less cyclical way, as
                                     compared to goods.
                                                                                                         Contd...





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