11.1 Introduction
Services marketing calls for management skills different from those required for the manufacturing and marketing of physical products. As you will recall from the first chapter, services are difficult to define and as yet, there is no consensus on a definition of services. Here we will assume that a service is the process of changing the condition of a customer or something he or she possesses. Services management, then, is the coordination of the production and delivery of the service to customers.
Involved in the production and delivery of the service are: the participants ¾ the customer and the contact personnel (employees); the process itself, and the physical environment in which the service is delivered. Each of these elements of the expanded marketing mix will be examined in this chapter, we will begin with the participants in the service encounter.
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