Page 348 - Foundations of Marketing

Developing and Managing Goods and Services | Chapter 11 315

Services with High Customer
Contact
The Ritz-Carlton has a high
level of customer contact. It
differentiates itself from other
hotels through its quality
customer-oriented service.

©iStockphoto.com/EdStock

Creating Marketing Mixes for Services

The characteristics of services create a number of challenges for service marketers (see
Table 11.2 ). These challenges are especially evident in the development and management
of marketing mixes for services. Although such mixes contain the four major marketing
mix variables—product, price, distribution, and promotion—the characteristics of services
require that marketers consider additional issues.

Development of Services

A service offered by an organization generally is a package, or bundle, of services consisting
of a core service and one or more supplementary services. A core service is the basic service
experience or commodity that a customer expects to receive. A supplementary service is a
supportive one related to the core service that is used to differentiate the service bundle from
that of competitors. For example, when a student attends a tutoring session for a class, the core
service is the tutoring. Bundled with the core service might be access to outlines with addi-
tional information, handouts with practice questions, or online services like an e-mail address
or chat room for questions outside the designated tutoring time.
As discussed earlier, heterogeneity results in variability in service quality and makes it
diffi cult to standardize services. However, heterogeneity provides one advantage to service
marketers: it allows them to customize their services to match the specifi c needs of individual
customers. Customization plays a key role in providing competitive advantage for the service
provider. Being able to personalize the service to fi t the exact needs of the customer accom-
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modates individual needs, wants, or desires. Subway, for example, tries to let each customer
participate in developing his or her own customized sandwich. Apple’s iBooks Author app
allows authors to customize their books’ contents, including adding interactive elements, such
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as diagrams, audio, and video. Health care is an example of an extremely customized ser-
vice. The services provided differ from one patient to the next.
Such customized services can be expensive for both provider and customer, and some
service marketers therefore face a dilemma: how to provide service at an acceptable level of
quality in an efficient and economic manner and still satisfy individual customer needs. To

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