Services Marketing

A service firm, unlike a manufacturing firm, does not manufacture but rather performs something for the customer. It delivers an experience that is intangible, heterogeneous, inseparable and imperishable in nature. Thus, marketing of services is different from the marketing of products and goods.

Service firms have evolved over the years along with the evolution that took place in the business environment in which they were operating. The evolution of service firms has been largely in response to the fierce competition in the service industry and realization of the need to incorporate the goal of total customer satisfaction into corporate philosophies. This has become essential for firms to survive and prosper.

The unique characteristics of intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability and perishability, as well as the distinctive features of service firms such as lack of appreciation for marketing skills, narrow definition of the marketing function, a different organization structure, difficulty in determining costs for pricing the service, and constraints and opportunities in the not-for-profit sector have made it necessary for service marketers to adopt a different approach for marketing services.