Service marketing is a method for promoting and showcasing a company’s intangible benefits and offers in order to increase end-customer value.
Service marketing is used to drive business in industries such as hospitality, tourism, financial services, and professional services.
Unlike product marketing, which involves promoting a physically visible product through various media, service marketing involves promoting a service that is not physically available but is nevertheless sold out to clients.
Services are simply extended as a commodity to clients who choose from a variety of services as activities, rewards, or facilities. When a family visits a restaurant, they use the services (eating) while they are there, which is an example of service marketing.
Importance of Service Marketing
Marketers promote a variety of entities, including commodities, services, events, and people. Service marketing refers to the marketing of services. Services are intangible in nature and do not imply ownership of something. Its creation could be linked to a physical product or not.
External, internal, and interactive marketing excellence are all required for service marketing excellence. Pricing, distribution, and advertising of services to consumers are all covered by external marketing.
Internal marketing entails educating and inspiring staff to provide excellent customer service. The ability of the employees to serve the client is described by interactive marketing.
Factors in Service Marketing
- Intangible, which can be touched, felt, and seen, intangible services are not palpable. This distinguishes services from products, necessitating a separate marketing strategy.
- There is no ownership.
- Services can’t be bought or sold; they can only be experienced. This is a broad term that refers to the customer experience.
You can own a service in the form of documentation such as plans, bills, and invoices, but you can’t own it like a thing.
- The inseparability of the two
The concept of moment of truth guides service marketing, which means that services are generated and consumed at the same time. - Flexibility
Unlike uniform products, services vary in nature despite the same people, process, type of labour, and so on. For the same service, different customers may have different experiences.
A telecom consumer, for example, may get a varied experience for the same plan.
Perishability Services, unlike items, cannot be stored and must be enjoyed immediately. But there’s another way of looking at it. Many services or plans these days have an expiration date. They are not the same as best before dates on products, but they are more in terms of service validity.
For example, free warranty service after two years of ownership.
Participation of the public
People who deliver benefits and solutions to the demands of clients drive service marketing. Although many automated service solutions are being developed these days, individuals still play the most crucial role in service marketing.
Types of Service Marketing
1. B2C
This is the primary customer service that businesses deliver to their clients. Providers might provide telecom, hospitality, financial services, and maintenance services. The company’s major focus could be on selling services. Vodafone, for example, provides telecommunications services to consumers and presents them as a primary offering.
2. B2B
Many businesses and organisations use the services of other businesses. Networks, money, travel, technical services, and so on are examples. The goal is to demonstrate business value to an organisation by using their service. This is the most important aspect of b2b service marketing.
Many technology services providers, for example, display their references and case studies from which they produced value for organisations that are similar to the target consumer. The value might be expressed in terms of cost savings or increased revenue.
3. Post Purchase Service
In addition to the primary product, this type of service marketing focuses on the add-on and complimentary services provided by businesses (or service in some cases).
Warranty services, customer assistance, service request handling, helpdesk, and repairs are just a few examples.
When clients buy the core item, these services might be a differentiating differentiator.
For instance, when a person purchases a phone and receives two years of free warranty servicing and support. This can be a differentiation, and it’s part of the phone manufacturer’s service marketing.
Examples of Service Marketing
Service marketing encompasses the marketing of any business that provides a service, such as restaurants, banks, and airlines.
- Every bank provides training programmes across all of its locations in order to empower investors to make well-informed financial decisions. This is a process and people-oriented aspect of service marketing. Banks provide services such as creating accounts, providing loans, and providing lockers, among other things. All of these services are intangible.
- Food delivery apps and ecommerce companies are examples of service marketing organisations. Their platform links customers and vendors and provides a service.
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