IBM 301 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Intangibility, Marketing Mix, Relationship Marketing
33 views4 pages
20 Mar 2019
School
Department
Course
Professor

Chapter 12: Services and Nonprofit Organization Market
Services
● Service: the result of applying human or mechanical efforts to people or objects
○ Involve a deed, a performance, or an effort that cannot be physically possessed
● Service-oriented industries that contribute to the U.S. economy
○ Technology, financial services, health care, and retail
How Services Differ from Goods
● Characteristics of services:
○ Intangibility
■ Intangibility: the inability of services to be touched, seen, tasted, heard, or
felt in the same manner that goods can be sensed
■ Evaluating the quality of services
● Search quality: a characteristic that can be easily assessed before
purchase
● Experience quality: a characteristic that can be assessed only after
use
● Credence quality: a characteristic that can be difficult to assess
even after purchase as customers lack necessary knowledge or
experience
○ Inseparability
■ Inseparability: the inability of the production and consumption of a service
to be separated; consumers must be present during the production
● Make consumers involved in the production of services they buy
● Services cannot be produced in a centralized location and
consumed in a decentralized locations, as goods typically are
○ Heterogeneity
■ Heterogeneity: the variability of the inputs and outputs of services, which
causes services to tend to be less standardized and uniform than goods
● Standardization and training help increase consistency and
reliability
○ Perishability
■ Perishability: the inability of services to be stored, warehoused, or
inventoried
● Service providers need to find ways to synchronize supply and
demand
Service Quality
● Customers evaluate service quality by five components:
○ reliability
○ Responsiveness
○ Assurance