Services Marketing

Chapter 19 : Supplementary Services

Importance of Supplementary Services

Classification of Supplementary Services

Offering Consultation
Hospitality
Safekeeping of Customer Belongings
Providing Information to Customers
Taking Orders from Customers
Payment
Billing
Special Services

Implications of Supplementary Services

Designing Special Packages
Outsourcing Non-core Services
Converting Supplementary Services into Core Services

Chapter Summary

The additional services offered by organizations to augment the core product/service are called supplementary services. The kind of supplementary services offered by organizations differs from one service industry to another. According to Lovelock, different supplementary services can be clustered under eight heads.

The eight heads are consultation, hospitality, safe-keeping, information, order-taking, exceptions, billing and payment. Some supplementary services like information and order-taking facilitate effective utilization of the core-service by customers while some supplementary services like hospitality and safe-keeping augment the core product/service.

The use of supplementary services in organizations requires managers to make difficult choices and decisions. Some of the implications of supplementary services for managers are designing special packages, outsourcing of non-core services and converting supplementary services into core services.

Sometimes, organizations develop the necessary expertise in a particular supplementary service so that they can adapt it to be a core service. They can increase their revenues by rendering this service to other organizations which prefer to outsource it.

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