Chapter 16: Integrating Services Marketing Communications

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Chapter 16 Integrating Services Marketing
Communications
CUSTOMER
External Communications to Customers
Service Delivery
COMPANY
(Gap 4) The Communication Gap
Part 6 Opener
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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.

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Need for Coordination in Marketing Communication

• You see an ad for a new sandwich at McDonalds,
  but find out that its not available at your
  local McDonalds. 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.

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Figure 16.2 Approaches for Integrating Services
Marketing Communication
Manage Customer Expectations
Goal Delivery Greater than Or equal to promises
Improve Customer Education
Manage Service Promises
Manage Internal Marketing Communication
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Key Reasons for Service Communication Problems
Factors that Contribute to provider Gap 4

• Inadequate Management of Service Promises
• Inadequate Management of Customer Expectations
• Inadequate Customer Education
• Inadequate Internal Marketing Communications

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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 100pm and 300pm. However, the
  refrigerator is not delivered until 400pm
  Friday.
• Causes variation in ___________________ of
  services company lacks information and
  integration needed to make fulfillable promises.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Manage Service Promises (page 491)

• Create Effective Services Advertising
• Coordinate External Communication
• Make Realistic Promises
• 4. Offer Service Guarantees

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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 (banks marble columns
  ______
• _______________________)
• ? Etc.
• Ex Life insurance, hospital care, nursing home

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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

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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 on-line infomercials, and taxi-top ads
  to reach out to younger and older audiences.

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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

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Manage Customer Expectations (p. 500)

• Offer Choices
• 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

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Manage Customer Expectations

• 3. Communicate the Criteria and Levels of Service
  Effectiveness
• Ex ______________________________
• 4. Negotiate Unrealistic Expectations
• ______________________________________
• ______________________________________

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Improve Customer Education

• Prepare Customers for the Service Process
• Step-by-step instruction customer is unfamiliar
  with process
• Confirm Performance to Standards and
  Expectations
• Help customer better evaluate effectiveness of
  service advertise that guarantee is available
  explain in customer-friendly terms

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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 ___________________
• 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.

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Manage Internal Marketing Communication

• 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.

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Manage Internal Marketing Communication

• 3. Align Back-Office and Support Personnel with
  External Customers through Interaction of
  Measurement