Services Marketing

Delivering quality service consistently gives a competitive edge to service organizations. It requires an understanding of customer expectations and the types of expectations. Further, knowledge of factors influencing the desired service level, adequate service level, and zone of tolerance will help service organizations consistently meet and exceed service expectations of customers.

While evaluating service offered by an organization, customers compare perceived quality of service with the expected quality of service. Therefore, service organizations should have knowledge about customer perceptions and the influence of factors such as service encounter, service evidence, image of the service organization, and price of the service on customer perceptions.

Service organizations should also attempt to understand the various types of service encounters like remote, face-to-face, and phone encounters to be able to understand customer perceptions. They should examine the factors that influence customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction, like recovery, adaptability, spontaneity, and coping and innovate strategies to influence customer perceptions.