Week 3 Serv Mark

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Week 3 serv mark

Service businesses are those in which income is produced chiefly by personal services rendered to customers . These kinds of business deal in activities such as retailer , tourism , business , banking , and education provision

Based on differences in nature of service act (tangible or intangible and who or what is the direct recipient of service (people /possessions there are four categories of services

People processing- services directed at people 's bodies e .g

. barbers and health care

Possession processing- services directed at physical possessions e .g refueling

and recycling

Mental stimulus processing- services directed at peoples ' minds education

Advertising and Public Relations

Mental stimulus processing- services directed at intangible assets e .g accounting and banking

There are three overlapping subsystems within the service system

Service operations (front stage and back stage . This is where inputs are processed and service elements created . It includes facilities equipments and personnel

Service delivery (front stage . This is where final assembly of resource elements takes place and service is delivered to customers . This includes customer interaction with operations and other customers

Service marketing (front stage . Includes service delivery (as above and all

other contacts made between service firm and customers

Service operations operate under the principle that the customer is always king . Using five banks from a cooperative banking group in Netherlands as case studies a research looked at the service delivery systems for providing mass consumer products , mortgages and business loans . The study found that on the one hand , customer contact introduces uncertainties into the service delivery system and makes demands on the design of facilities , staff and technology in the production system . On the other hand , customer contact also provides valuable opportunities for responding to customer 's needs and cross selling other products Therefore customer influence holds the key to design decisions . There are many options for delivery of banking services . This has made banking which was once a high contact service to essentially become a low contact service . Nowadays there are many options and a customer does not have to visit a bank and transact with the teller . These options include

Contacting the bank by mail or the telephone

Use of Automated Teller Machines (ATM

Home banking by computer

Conducting transactions by Web using special software

Using keys in response to voice commands or phone screen display

Speaking to a bank representative to state the required service

The traditional approach has it that customer contact activities should be kept apart from non contact activities , implying a structure that separates the front office- the part where activities that require customer contact take place , from the back office involving processes that cannot be seen or experienced by customers

Front office and back office activities do not necessarily have to be allocated to different employees and that front office and back office employees do not necessarily have to be from different groups

Service delivery systems are the methods of introducing a service...