40 TRENDS IN SERVICE MARKETING
Dr. Puja Waalia Mann
1.1 Introduction
Service marketing is a sub-field of marketing, which broadly refers to the marketing of services which are intangible offerings with specific characteristics, with the purpose of satisfying the consumer needs and wants. While in practice since last few decades, there are new trends being witnessed in this area of Marketing. Most of these trends are a result of the introduction of the technology in the field of service ordering and service delivery. Internet is said to have brought a revolution in the service marketing leading to increased customer expectations.
1.2 Learning objectives
a) Niche Marketing as a new trend in Service marketing
b) Product Marketing techniques in Services marketing
c) Use of Technology in Service delivery
d) New era of E-services
e) Branding of Services
f) Package sale Services
g) Dedicated Service sellers
h) On- call services
i) E-education
j) E-Banking
k) Co-Ownership of Services
1.3 Keywords
E-Services, E-Banking, Co-ownership, dedicated Service sellers
The following are some of these trends being witnessed in the Services Marketing:
a) Niche marketing– Niche market refers to the small but a potentially profitable and growing segment which is currently not being served to the fullest satisfaction of the consumers. Though the concept of Niche market is not new, it is applied only recently in the service marketing, in particular to the Professional or business services. For example, there are few business organizations needing services for the purpose of accommodating a senior Expatriate in the Indian city. Some service organizations have sprung up in various cosmopolitan cities offering a complete package of services including the arrangement of the house, interiors, grocery requirements, kids schools and sometimes the spouse job as well. This new trend is especially picking up in Indian cities with multinational organizations setting their operations.
b) Product marketing Techniques- Traditionally there has been a differentiation in the way products and services were marketed. More recently, the sales people are trained to view and understand the services as a product and then pitch it to the potential consumer. For instance, buying a membership of Club Mahindra- a holiday package service provider, is no more simply buying a tour to any destination. The company offers a life time membership of staying at one of its „Properties‟ (hotel, resort, home) for certain hours in various domestic and overseas locations. The package includes not only the transport arrangements including travel to the destination as well as the local transport ; fooding and lodging but also sells rights over its Property for certain predetermined hours. Thus when a customer buys a life membership of Club Mahindra, he feels he is not just buying the holiday services but also becoming the owner of the Property, though limited to few hours.
c) Technology in Services- With the advent of Internet, the use of technology has seen an unprecedented boom in the way Services are marketed. With the increasing number of nuclear and double income households being witnessed in most of the cities of North and South India, a bunch of new services are on the offer to facilitate in the routine industrial and domestic chores. There are new generation entrepreneurs offering services in Delhi region like „urbanclap.com‟ which markets bouquet of services including Car wash, Car cleaning, House cleaning, Beauty services, Clothes washing services to name a few by placing the request online. Areas of Gurgaon and NOIDA in the Delhi – NCR are witnessing a boom in urbanization due to sudden spur in industrialization and mushrooming of corporate and educational institutions. There are smaller but significant electrical and plumber services available on Internet to be accessed through a Mobile app for this migrated target market. During festival seasons, there are customized house cleaning services offered online in these areas. Delivery of such services is possible and is flourishing due to the technological support available now.
CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
1. What Is a Niche Market? How can Services be marketed to such segments?
2. List down any three new trends being witnessed in the marketing of Services.
3. Can services be marketed as a Product? How? Explain with the help of example.
4. How has the advent of Internet revolutionized the way Services are marketed?
5. Who are the target customers of domestic services? What are their needs and wants? How can these be satisfied by a service provider?
d) E-Services– Some of the new trends being witnessed in the marketing of services actually make it difficult to differentiate between the marketers actual business- i.e. it is difficult to identify whether the marketer is selling products or services. The services are so intricately interwoven with the marketing of goods that it may be difficult to categorize the business in one of the two marketing sections of Products or Services. This is particularly true about a bunch of e-marketers offering various products with the positioning of ease of shopping. There are local e-retailers like „mergrocer.com‟, „localbaiya.com‟, „peppertap.com‟ etc. in the NCR region marketing regular groceries, fruits and vegetables on a common positioning platform that ordering groceries online saves consumers of the time and effort of shopping regular items and get them delivered for free to their homes. In such cases, almost all the e-retailers are selling common Brands. The point of differentiation is the quality of order taking and order delivery along with the ease of payment. This marketing strategy makes use of services as the main features instead of products in all its promotional messages and hence may be considered as a recent trend in Services Marketing.
e) Branding of Services- Branding refers to a set of decisions to be taken by a marketer to make its offerings easily identifiable and distinguishable from the competitors by the target customers. While many services were branded traditionally, there are new players and newer strategies being adopted for Branding of Services. Let us take the example of „magicbricks.com‟. It is a web portal dealing in the sale, purchase and renting out services of buildings, flats and plots. Simply stated it works as a Property Dealer but is present on the Web. Property dealing as a business activity is not new. There are other such players also like „99acres.com‟, „commonfloor.com‟. Magicbricks.com claims itself to be the number one property portal of India. This positioning is a result of its presence on the National media in a phased and planned manner. The company has carefully selected a unique and attractive name, high frequency advertisements in appropriate media and has added some technological features through which it is possible to show a 3-D image of the property on its website. This initiative of the Company has made it stand differentiated from its competitors and is being viewed as a new trend of Branding services.
f) Package Sales Services- Traditionally, a majority of the services were being sold along with the product by the marketer of the goods. This percentage of services was as high as 60 percent of the total Services being sold in the Indian market till few years back. This packaging of services along with the products continues even today. But a new sales channel has been added. For the marketers of business solutions, team selling is being adopted. In this strategy an account representative offers a package of goods and services to a customer with the support of specialists in different traditional and professional services. This trend is also being witnessed in the Event management business whereby a team of specialists, ranging from arrangement of music, light, sweets, stage, gifts, clothes, jewellery, flowers, themes etc are brought together by one account representative to market a compete event arrangement.
CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
6. Explain the concept of e-Services. What benefits does it offer to the consumers?
7. Can Services be Branded? Explain with the help of an example.
8. “ Branding of Services is an old concept in new form.” Comment.
9. A new trend of package Services is attracting many young entrepreneurs. Discuss the concept and its advantages to the consumers.
g) Dedicated Service Sellers– A new trend in selling of services in small cities and towns is to utilize dedicated services sellers offering several services to the customers. There are service sellers available in various urban localities offering services related to depositing of monthly electricity bills, water bills, Children‟s school fees, telephone bills and such services which may be a botheration for the consumers yet important to be completed on time. This dedicated staff keeps a track of the due dates for the deposition of such bills of its clients and charge a small fees. The need being fulfilled is the convenience to the customers in complying with routine work involving the Government departments where it is usual to find long queues on any public dealing window. There are dedicated service providers dealing exclusively in the filing and depositing of various competitive and other examination forms to the respective Universities or Government offices by charging a small fees in return. Such services are a boon to the time scarce working couples and other nuclear families. In addition, there are service providers in the business markets to offer several repair and maintenance services for office equipments and installations like Photocopiers, Printers, Air Conditioners etc. Often they work on annual maintenance contracts (AMC), but off late the annual contracts are giving way to on call services.
h) On- Call Services- Increasing number of services these days are available on call. If you want to buy Insurance policy, you just need to call the agent and he would be glad to drop at your place and give you the details. If you are a businessman interested to put your promotional message on a radio channel, all that is required to be done is to give a call to the Marketing representative and the media booking packages, along with the sample voices to be chosen from are shared at the convenience of the customer. If you can provide the text for the advertisement you can even get the proofs of the voice advertisements of the selected voices there and then. Such services are the latest in Marketing. Instead of visiting a media buying house, the media comes to the doorstep of the consumer and saves the time of developing the radios message by texting the message to the production house and getting the recorded message through various apps including wattsapp within no time. On call services are also available for the after sale services required for vehicles. This includes reminding the customer of the due date of the service on phone, fixing an appointment for the service on phone, the pick and drop facility available for servicing etc as is being offered by Toyota Motors amongst other players. Corporate houses are increasingly making use of on-call taxis for its employees like Ola, where the cab can be called on phone. Several mobile apps are also available to provide the service of comparing the products, their features and prices and getting them delivered to the Business consumers doorstep like „foodpanda‟, Indiamart, „ Oyo‟.
i) E-Education– We have always been into a real classroom either in a school or in a tuition centre. This teaching-learning process is increasingly changing due to technology and emerging as a new trend. Virtual teaching is replacing the old method of knowledge delivery in which various softwares like Skype, Line , Viber can be used to connect the teacher and a student who are physically far but face to face in a classroom. The classroom interaction of such virtual classes are the same as that of a real classroom where a teacher shares knowledge with the pupils, pupils can put up queries, clarify doubts and seek detailed explanation directly from the teacher. Several specialized tuition academies hire subject experts, open coaching centers in different locations and get the expert connected to these classes virtually. There are examples of Mertination, Vidyamandir to name a few academies which offer virtual coaching to the students. Interestingly a number of business services including the Legal services, architectural services, job consultants, charted accountants services, Astrologer, Matrimonial services are also being delivered using various softwares for personal interaction. This virtual interaction saves the consumer of the time and energy of travelling to distant places and can hold the meeting within his comfort zone.
CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
10. Differentiate between General Service sellers and dedicated Service Sellers. Which one is more beneficial for a consumer?
11. How can the business customers be served through Dedicated service sellers? Explain with examples.
12. What is the concept of On-call service delivery? Is it useful for the consumers?
13. “Education is not confined to four walls.” Is it true? Explain with examples.
j) E-Banking- The Banking services have undergone a sea change with the introduction of Computers and Internet. Most of the Banking operations like transferring of funds, application for the cheque books, checking of the Bank balance can be done with the click of the mouse at the comfort of the customer. One of the landmark promotional message was seen in the banking industry with the ICICI‟s advertisement in 2012-13 endorsed by the legendary Bollywood Hero Amitabh Bachchan that the Bank Saving account could also be opened at the click of the mouse by uploading the copy of the Aadhar card and a photograph. This was one new service which was offered to the customer for his convenience and which set a trend which was followed by other marketers of Insurance policies „policybazar.com‟, tourism services like „makemytrip.com‟, hotel booking services including „ibibo.com‟ to name a few, in which the services were offered to the consumer at his doorstep with the help of Internet.
k) Co-Ownership- One of the latest trends in the service industry is making the consumer the owner of the services that he wants to buy. As we understand that services marketing offers nothing tangible to the consumer. It only offers an experience. The creative entrepreneurs have come up with the strategy of making the consumer feel the owner of a product or a place and use it without any supervision and pay a premium for the same. Zoopar offers taxi services in the Metro towns. Various Brands of Cars including the Mercedez, BMW etc. can be hired for self driving by the customer and a daily rental is charged. There are many two wheelers also put on self driving service in tourist destinations like Goa, Manali, Shimla to name a few. In this case the consumer gets a tangible thing to call it his own during the hired period. Similarly the concept of destination weddings has picked up in India with many Havelis and old Dak banglows being offered to be occupied by a family during the marriage rituals lasting a few days. Such a sense of ownership and independence in using a product or staying at a place is a new trend witnessed in the service industry.
CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
14. What are the new trends being witnessed in the way banking services are being offered to the consumers? What is the role of technology in the same?
15. What do you mean by E-Banking?
16. What is the meaning of „Co-ownership of services‟?
17. Services offer no tangible things to consumers, what is it that the consumers own in Co-ownership of services?
1.4 Conclusion
Service Marketing has undergone a sea change with the introduction of technology, especially the Internet. Not only the face of services being offered to the business consumers has changed but it is a revolution the way the end consumers are being served by the service marketers. These marketers go to any extent to make the buying process comfortable and less time consuming for the consumer. For this purpose the sales representatives offer to meet the consumers at the point of their convenience, get the services delivered at the desired destination, make the consumer feel royal and expect to delight the consumer on every interaction. With the subscription rate of Internet beating its own records in India, the target audience for Internet based service providers is growing substantially.
1.5 Summary
In this module you have learnt that following are several new means of marketing the services being witnessed in the business as well as the consumer markets:
a) Niche Marketing is a small but profitable consumer segment being underserved presently. Customised services are now being offered for such target consumers.
b) Product Marketing techniques in Services marketing refers to the perception of a consumer that he is being offered a tangible product in the form of a service so that the purchase decision is smooth.
c) Use of Technology in Service delivery has revolutionsed the marketing process by making it easier for the consumer to search, evaluate and place the service order for very small but important services of domestic and household use.
d) E-services means buying of services online which include delivering of some goods and gift items on the desired address.
e) Branding of Services has been one of the most commonly used strategies to differentiate the services being marketed.
f) Package sale Services is a relatively new concept that aims to offer a bunch of services to the target customer at a negotiated price.
g) Dedicated Service sellers are the new small scale entrepreneurs who offer regular services of picking up parcels and couriers, depositing various bills and forms, arranging for electricians and plumbers for their clients by charging a fees
h) On- call services are the services which can be ordered on phone like the various restaurants free home delivery, Taxi at the doorstep to name a few.
i) In the education services, E-education has changed the lecture mode of learning to a virtual discussion classroom in which the students share knowledge with experts who may be far away.
j) E-Banking has been a very useful service for the millions of Indians for whom regular Bank transactions can now be done on the click of the mouse.
k) Co-Ownership of Services is the latest concept in service marketing whereby the consumer becomes the owner of a facility during the hired period and uses the same without any supervision or dependence.
Learn More:
- https://www.unifr.ch/marketing/assets/files/2007_furrer_sollberger_service_business.pdf
- http://bschool.nus.edu/Departments/Marketing/papers%20for%20seminars/Gummesson-2004-02.pdf
- http://www1.unisg.ch/www/edis.nsf/SysLkpByIdentifier/3200/$FILE/dis3200.pdf
- http://www.researchgate.net/publication/230651886_The_dynamics_and_evolution_of_t he_service_marketing_literature_19932003