Industrial Marketing

Chapter 10 : Service Design and Delivery

+Characteristics of Industrial Services

+Classification of Services

+Service Quality

+Services Marketing Mix

+Service Design

+New Service Development

+Challenges in Marketing Industrial Services

+International Industrial Services

Chapter Summary

Service is defined as an activity that satisfies the customer’s wants. Intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability, perishability, specialization and technology are important characteristics of industrial services that differentiate them from industrial products. Services are classified into categories based on four important schemes.

They are - nature of the service act, type of relationship between service organizations and customers, nature of demand and supply for the service, and the method of service delivery. The intangibility of industrial services poses major problems relating to their quality aspects. The important factors which play a key role in assessing quality are customer satisfaction, zero defections, and Return on Quality (ROQ).

The traditional product marketing mix has 4Ps -- product, place, price, and promotion. Services include an additional 3Ps -- people, process, and physical evidence. The design of the service process is very important for effective delivery of service, for satisfying the customers etc. Service designing includes a technique called blueprinting.

The development of new services includes four stages. They are direction, design, testing, and introduction. The major challenges faced in the marketing of services arise from their intangibility, heterogeneity, and perishability, and in communicating the service offering to the customer.

We discussed international services as the part of the chapter. International services are broadly classified into contact-based, vehicle-based, asset-based, and object-based services. We also discussed wiring and growing as part of the application of technology in international services.

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