Services marketing
Studies what sets services apart from products and how they are designed, managed and delivered to customers.
What it studies
A service cannot be touched or stored, and it is produced while it is used. It gives service design concepts such as physical evidence and service logic.
Principles
Intangible
The customer cannot see the service before using it.
Variable
It is delivered a little differently each time.
Used as it is produced
The customer takes part in the service.
Cannot be stored
What is not used in time is lost.
Applications in design
Use it like this
Make visible what the customer cannot see: the process, the progress, the result.
Avoid
Treating a service as if it were a product on a shelf.
Don’t fall for it
The four traits are a debated simplification: many products include service and vice versa.
Theories and concepts
Service-dominant logic
Value doesn't come inside the product: it is created by using it, together with whoever offers it.
Service evidence
The tangible side of an intangible service: objects and spaces that show the service exists.
Gaps model of service quality
Five gaps between what customers expect from a service and what they get, and where they arise.
Methods and tools
- ArtifactService blueprintA map of the service that shows both what the person experiences and what makes it possible.
- MethodEcosystem mapDrawing all the actors in a service and what they exchange, to see the whole system.
Connections
Authors and works
- 1977
G. Lynn Shostack
Argued that services marketing needs its own concepts, different from those of products.
- 1985
Valarie A. Zeithaml, A. Parasuraman and Leonard L. Berry
Brought together the four traits that usually set services apart from products.
- 2004
Stephen L. Vargo and Robert F. Lusch
Questioned those traits and proposed seeing all exchange as service.
Sources
Original sources
- Shostack, G. L. (1977). Breaking free from product marketing. Journal of Marketing, 41(2), 73–80. View source: Shostack, G. L. (1977)
- Vargo, S. L., & Lusch, R. F. (2004). Evolving to a new dominant logic for marketing. Journal of Marketing, 68(1), 1–17. View source: Vargo, S. L., & Lusch, R. F. (2004)
Academic reviews
- Zeithaml, V. A., Parasuraman, A., & Berry, L. L. (1985). Problems and strategies in services marketing. Journal of Marketing, 49(2), 33–46. View source: Zeithaml, V. A., Parasuraman, A., & Berry, L. L. (1985)
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