Services Marketing

Concept of Service and Service Marketing: Tangibility spectrum of service; Prospectiveof Service: Customer service; Service product; Service industry; Service business;Derived service; Supplementary service; Internal service; Service business;Characteristics of Service Compared to Goods; Characteristics of Services: their consequences and management response; Service Compared to Goods: based on product,production, distribution, inventory, sales, promotion, HR, organization,consumption,customer relation, quality; Challenges of Service Marketing: Service stinks; Models inService Marketing: The molecular model, Theservuction model, Flower of service;Service Marketing Mix: Product, Place, Price, Promotion, People, Process and Physicalevidence.

Buyers Behaviour: Concept of buyer, customer, and consumer, and institutional buyer ;Consumer Buying Decisions: Buyer decision making process; Factors influencing buying behaviour; Relationship Marketing: Concept and benefits of relationship marketing; Process and ladder of relationship; Transactional selling and Relationship Marketing

Consumer’s Service Expectation: Concept, levels, and determining factors; Zone of tolerance; Perception / Service encounter: MOT; Types of encounters; Consumer Satisfaction: Concept; Determinants; Outcome of consumer satisfaction; Service failure: Customer response to service failure; Handling customer complaints; Service guarantee

Service Quality: Concept; Dimensions of service quality; Approaches – Traditional approaches and contemporary approaches; The Service Quality Gap Model: The reasons for the gaps and management response to minimize the gap; Measurement of Service Quality: Concept and elements of measurement; Methods of measurement, SERVQUAL

Service Product: Concept of service product; New service product development process; Service Blue Print; Service product life cycle and marketing strategies; Service Branding: Concept, Objectives and brand equity; Service Pricing: Concept of service pricing, Objectives; Approaches to service pricing- Cost based, Competition based, Demand based and Value based- Emerging service pricing strategies: Satisfaction based pricing, relationship based pricing, EDLP pricing, back-ward pricing, Yield management, Pricing Strategies: Discounting, Psychological pricing, Penetration pricing, Skimming pricing,Price farming and Result based pricing; Service Promotion: Concept of service promotion; Promotion mix for service and selection strategies; Service Distribution: Concept of service distribution; Methods of direct distribution; Service intermediaries; People: Concept of people in service; Role of service employees, consumers and follow consumers - Service marketing triangle, - Service Profit Chain; Physical Evidence: Concept and role of physical evidence.

Service Marketing in Nepal: Service marketing environment and challenges; Introductionof Service Sector in Nepal: Health sector, Banking sector, Insurance sector, Communication and Network sector; Tourism Sector: Importance and prospective.