Managing Service Characteristics (2)
To deal with the intangibility characteristic of service, service marketers should develop strong visual symbols and images for their firms.
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The development of a strong visual identity system helps in sending consistent and coherent brand messages to prospective service clients, and this helps to “tangibilise” what was hitherto an “intangible service.” A strong visual identity system could mean, for instance, the Starlife Assurance Company logo would be deployed in exactly the same manner in Denton- Texas, in the U.S, Victoria Island in Lagos, Nigeria or in Legon Ghana.
This uniformity in brand deployment helps in reducing the perceived risk that service customers feel because they know that Starlife in Accra would have the same quality as it will in Texas and Lagos. Service marketers must also portray the firm they represent through advertisements; as a caring company that creates successful results. For example, KNET a firm that offers information technology services - would have to communicate how past clients have ended up as successful and profitable companies because of the information technology support it provided.
In their marketing communications, they can invite successful client company executives to act as advocates and give testimonials in radio and television commercials. The service provider could also communicate the professional qualifications of staff in advertisements.
For example, a firm that provides consultancy services can communicate the evidence of high academic and professional qualifications within the consulting firm and this may go a long way to woo prospective clients. Medical officers who have specialist certificates could display them prominently in their consulting rooms to convey a message of competence to patients even before they access the service.
Marketing strategies for inseparability
The inseparability characteristic of services means that a service provider cannot be separated from the service he/she provides.
A bank teller, for example, is inseparable from the bank service he/she provides. Services are typically produced and consumed at the same time, unlike a product which can be manufactured, transported and consumed in a period; spanning several months and years in some cases. Some scholars have pointed out that the customer is usually present while the service is produced and in some instances, may even take part in the production process.
This also means that, frequently, customers will interact with one another during the service production process and this may affect other people’s experiences. An example may be a female passenger sitting beside a male passenger on her maiden Greyhound bus journey.
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These two passengers may freely share their past disappointments and present ill feelings about the service. This could affect the female passenger’s future patronage of the service. Service firm employees must know that their appearance (physically) and their actions (attitudes) go into the perceived service quality of the client. Management and employees must be trained (in terms of physical appearance and the right attitude) to behave appropriately.
Also, frontline staff must be trained to be responsive to customer complaints and address them in the most professional manner.
All employees must be educated to appreciate the fact that the service production process itself is a marketing activity and must be approached as such. Employees must be highly competent and must appreciate basic marketing principles and employ them in their day-to-day work. In a customer’s eyes, at the point of customer contact, your employees are the company.
Thus, service quality is defined by a firm’s customers but created by a firm’s own employees.
Marketing strategies for variability/heterogeneity
To deal with variability or heterogeneity, service marketers should, as much as possible, automate routine services to achieve standardisation. Service firms must also exhibit responsiveness to adapt to the changing needs and expectations of service consumers. Service providers must also facilitate guaranteed service packages such as money-back or free additional corrective service to enhance customer loyalty.
For example, telecom service providers in Ghana can guarantee that if a customer’s call does not go through after three attempts, then, when it does go through eventually, the customer will be charged half the rate.
Marketing strategies for perishability
To deal with perishability, service marketers must increase personal selling to new clients during slow times. Prospecting for new clients must be stepped up during such periods to make up for loss in revenue due to low demand. For example, during vacations, certain schools organise classes, thus making use of the available intellectual (teachers) resources and material resources in the school (classrooms, chairs, table and boards). In the University of Ghana, sandwich masters’ programmes are typically administered during the summer vacation in June and July.
At the Neoplan Station in Accra, when there are insufficient passengers to keep the buses busy, the drivers resort to doing intra-city business until it is their turn (to take passengers on board for longer journeys in-between cities). Service marketers should increase the selling of new services to existing clients during slow times.
This also ensures the utilisation of otherwise redundant services. For example, in the tourism industry, during the wet season, it might be instructive to sell indoor attractions such as a castle tour at Cape Coast to tourists, rather than an outdoor programme at the Kakum National Park.
To guarantee service utilisation, service marketers can also use reservation systems to sell services in advance.
This has an additional advantage of helping the service provider plan for envisaged demand to ensure customer satisfaction. Cross-training personnel for surges in demand is another strategy that service marketers can employ to whip up and sustain customer delight.
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Key Service Questions for Managers:
As 2014 begins, do you have a strategy for managing the intangibility component of services?
How are you managing your service processes to deal with the ever-present danger of service heterogeneity?
The writer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Marketing and Customer Management at the University of Ghana Business School, and can be reached at bsugepchair@ug.edu.gh