Part 6 - 16 Managing Service Promises Flashcards
What is the communication gap? What does managing promises mean?
Managing Promises: The difference between what service organizations promise and what they actually deliver
What is Integrated Marketing Communication?
All your corporate message, positioning, images, and identities are coordinated across all vanues
- Your PR materials say the same things as your direct mail campaign and your ad.
What does integrated marketing communication do?
It build a strong brand identity in the marketplace by trying together and reinforcing all your images and messages
Communication adn the Service Marketing Triangle: Company to Customers
Companies to Customers: External Marketing - Ad, Sales Promotion, PR, Direct Marketing, Web, Apps
Communication adn the Service Marketing Triangle: Employees to Customers
Employees to customers: Interactive marketing - Personal selling; Customer service center; Service encounters; Servicescapes
Communication adn the Service Marketing Triangle: Company and Employees
Internal Marketing: Vertical Communications; Horizontal Communication
Key Service Communication Challenges
- Service intangibility.
- Management of service promises
- Management of customer expectations and education
- Internal marketing communications
Service intangibility and the problem of how to communicate intangibel benefits
- How to visualize the intangible value proposition of a
consultant? - How to be different if services are about general statements
(e.g. “we promise you a wonderful experience”)? - How to be clear and comparable when customers search for
information?
Management of service promises
- Services are difficult to forecast accurately (e.g. a software)
- and often are individually customized (e.g. a doctor performance)
-> promises cannot be met ‘word-forword’. - increasingly problematic in relation to multinationals corporations (e.g. Ikea)
Management of customer expectations
- Competition is tough and often
companies enhance their promises
to catch up with customers/competitors.
// services may rely on
human being performances and
other external factors that cannot be controlled or not replicable.
Customer education
- Services may rely on customers´
performances (e.g. technology
learning), therefore if customers are
unclear about their role (ch. 12) this
will have huge impact on the
promises we make. - Services are high in credence
properties - > customers do not know how to evaluate a promise.
Horizontal Communication (IMC)
Key to deliver what promised. If
employees do not know what to do,
deliver that promise may be at high
risk.
e.g.policies, instructions, procedures
5 Approaches to Overcome Service communication challenges. Goal = Service delivery greater >= promises
- Address Service Intangibility
- Manage service promises
- Manage customer expectations
- Manage customer education
- Manage internal communication
Strategy 1: Address Service Intangibility
- Use narratives to demonstrate the service experience.
= portray consumers in a happy mood and communicate benefits as appealing - Present vivid information as to
create a distinct mental picture. - Use interactive imagery to
stimulate “recall” - Focus on the tangibles as to
create “solid” association in the
consumer´s mind - Use brand icons or a character
to personalize your service - Feature service employees in
communication because it
communicates that employees
are important.
STRATEGY 2: MANAGE SERVICE PROMISES
Brands play special role in service
companies because they “reduce
customers´ perceived monetary social or safety risk in buying services, which are difficult to evaluate prior to purchase”
