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Chapter 16: Integrating Services Marketing
Communications
CUSTOMER
COMPANY
Part 6 Opener
Service
Delivery
(Gap 4) The
Communication
Gap
External
Communications
to Customers
Gap 4 – Communications Gap
Cookies is a retail store where customers host parties for
guests to bake and decorate cookies. The ad for the store
neglected to mention a $50 cleaning fee that would be
assessed at the end of the party.
Need for Coordination in Marketing
Communication
You see an ad for a new sandwich at McDonald’s, but find
out that it’s not available at your local McDonald’s. Did
the employee behind the counter offer a reason why the
sandwich was not available? Did s/he even realize it was
advertised and for sale elsewhere?
Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) – company
carefully integrates and organizes all of its external
communications channels:
Corporate messages, positioning and images, and identity
coordinated across all venues; advertising has same ‘look
and feel’ as website.
Figure 16.2: Approaches for Integrating Services Marketing
Communication
Manage
Customer
Expectations
Manage
Service
Promises
Goal: Delivery
Greater than
Or equal to
promises
Manage
Internal
Marketing
Communication
Improve
Customer
Education
Key Reasons for Service Communication Problems
– Factors that Contribute to provider Gap 4
1. Inadequate Management of Service Promises
2. Inadequate Management of Customer
Expectations
3. Inadequate Customer Education
4. Inadequate Internal Marketing Communications
Inadequate Management of Service Promises
You purchase a new refrigerator, and the salesperson
informs you that the refrigerator will be delivered to
your apartment this Thursday between 1:00pm and
3:00pm. However, the refrigerator is not delivered until
4:00pm Friday.
Causes: variation in ___________________ of services;
company lacks information and integration needed to
make fulfillable promises.
Inadequate Management of Customer Expectations
The ad guaranteed that you would be skydiving after
only a couple of hours of lessons. After enrolling in
class, you learn that instead of skydiving by yourself
(which is what the ad implied), you will be skydiving in
tandem (belted to another experienced skydiver) due to
safety requirements.
____________ – create expectations that cannot be met.
Inadequate Customer Education
You have hurt your back and have to go to physical
therapy every other day. You have a series of exercises
to complete on days you do not see the therapist. After
two months, you are not feeling any better and complain
to your therapist who at this point realizes you have not
been performing all of the stretching exercises. You had
been handed a booklet when you started your therapy.
Because you had been instructed to perform some of the
exercises in the booklet but not all of them, you had
thought you were not to do the others.
Inadequate Internal Marketing Communications
Your bank frequently changes its advertising about new
offerings to remain competitive. However, the bank
tellers’ training does not keep pace with the changes in
advertising. As a result, customers come in expecting
new accounts and rates to be available, and employees
are embarrassed because they had not been informed.
_______________________: transmit information across
functional boundaries in an organization to align all
functions with customer expectations.
Manage Service Promises (page 491)
1.
2.
3.
4.
Create Effective Services Advertising
Coordinate External Communication
Make Realistic Promises
Offer Service Guarantees
Create Effective Services Advertising
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
Use narratives to demonstrate the service experience
(services are experiential; ________________________)
Present vivid information (_______________________)
Use interactive imagery (company logo + expression)
Focus on the tangibles (bank’s marble columns; ______
_______________________)
Etc.
Ex: Life insurance, hospital care, nursing home
Create Effective Services Advertising
Television commercials for All-State insurance often feature
actual agents who explain the personalized service that
they perform for All-State insurance policy holders and
appreciative customers who have experienced this
personalized service. By using the agents and customers
in its commercials, All-State is:
Coordinate External Communication
Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO)
Reaching new (younger) audiences through internet and
electronic media. Older concertgoers prefer books and
magazines.
BSO combined direct mail, e-mail marketing, customized online infomercials, and taxi-top ads to reach out to younger
and older audiences.
Manage Service Promises
Make Realistic Promises
Offer Service Guarantees
For those who arrive at the airport with only time
enough to catch their flight, parking has been a
nightmare until the development of GoldParker System,
which guarantees a convenient parking place to its
members
Manage Customer Expectations
(p. 500)
1. Offer Choices
2. Create
Service Offerings
Eddie Bauer, a catalog retailer offers three different
delivery options: 5 to 7 days via standard delivery; 3 to 4
days via express delivery; or 2 days via express plus
delivery. The delivery rates are higher for faster service
Manage Customer Expectations
3. Communicate the Criteria and Levels of Service
Effectiveness
Ex: ______________________________
4. Negotiate Unrealistic Expectations
______________________________________
______________________________________
Improve Customer Education
1. Prepare Customers for the Service Process
Step-by-step instruction; customer is unfamiliar with
process
2. Confirm Performance to Standards and
Expectations:
Help customer better evaluate effectiveness of service –
advertise that guarantee is available; explain in
“customer-friendly” terms
Improve Customer Education
3. Clarify Expectations after the Sale
Service providers sometimes need to tell customers that
services have been performed for them. To get credit for
their actions, service providers need to reinforce their
actions with appropriate communication about their
accomplishment of the service ___________________
4. Teach Customers to Avoid ________________
Periods and Seek ________________ Periods
Bank gives new customers a brochure entitled “How to
Lose Wait” that gives advice on how to avoid delays at
the bank, and lists banks’ busiest and slowest times.
Manage Internal Marketing
Communication
1. Create Effective ___________ Communications
Company newsletters and magazines, emails,
recognition programs; keep employees informed of
everything that is being conveyed to customers through
external marketing
2. Create Effective ___________ Communications
Coordination between departments; open channels of
communication between marketing, sales, and
operations.
Manage Internal Marketing
Communication
3. Align Back-Office and Support Personnel with
External Customers through Interaction of
Measurement