Managing the service encounter
Overview
Having worked through the four Ps of the traditional marketing mix and their relationship to tangible products and services, we now turn our attention to the remaining Ps of the expanded marketing mix-participants, process and physical evidence.
When we discuss participants we will be referring to the people involved in the service encounter, that is, the customers and service personnel and the strategies for managing that encounter. A related area is the service process , which for many customers is the service itself, yet the processes behind the service are often more complex than customers realise.
Lastly we move to the physical evidence of the service. The physical evidence helps to define the service for the customer and can serve to guide customers through the service process. Since the physical evidence contributes to how customers think about the organisation, it must be designed and managed to achieve marketing objectives. In this chapter we shall look at these issues in more detail.
Topics
The following is the outline of the topics covered in this chapter.
- 11.1 Introduction
- 11.2 Participants
- 11.3 Managing the service encounter
- 11.4 Process
- 11.5 Physical evidence
- 11.6 Summary
Learning outcomes
The learning objectives for this chapter have been carefully constructed to reflect the most significant concepts and ideas we are going to cover, and to provide a focus for your work during the chapter. After completing this chapter you should be able to:
- explain the importance of customers and service personnel in the service encounter
- describe the strategies used in service organisations to manage service encounters
- describe what a blueprint is and how it is used
- analyse the problems of matching supply and demand caused by the perishability of services and suggest strategies to overcome them
- discuss the importance of physical evidence in increasing the tangibility of a service organisation
- distinguish between physical evidence and peripheral evidence
- explain why the servicescape affects both customer and service personnel behaviour.