Exam 7: Product,Services,and Brands: Building Customer Value

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A company must consider four special service characteristics when designing marketing programs:intangibility,inseparability,variability,and perishability.
Service intangibility means that services cannot be seen,tasted,felt,heard,or smelled before they are bought.For example,people undergoing cosmetic surgery cannot see the result before the purchase.To reduce uncertainty,buyers look for signals of service quality.They draw conclusions about quality from the place,people,price,equipment,and communications that they can see.
Service inseparability means that services cannot be separated from their providers,whether the providers are people or machines.If a service employee provides the service,then the employee becomes a part of the service.And customers don't just buy and use a service,they play an active role in its delivery.Customer co-production makes provider-customer interaction a special feature of services marketing.Both the provider and the customer affect the service outcome.
Service variability means that the quality of services depends on who provides them as well as when,where,and how they are provided.For example,some hotels-say,Marriott-have reputations for providing better service than others.Still,within a given Marriott hotel,one registration-counter employee may be cheerful and efficient whereas another standing just a few feet away may be unpleasant and slow.
Service perishability means that services cannot be stored for later sale or use.Some doctors charge patients for missed appointments because the service value existed only at that point and disappeared when the patient did not show up.The perishability of services is not a problem when demand is steady.However,when demand fluctuates,service firms often have difficult problems.