This course covers the introduction of service marketing, which covers the concept, meaning, and characteristics of service marketing. It also incorporates major principles of quality functions of service marketing dynamics.

The course aims to impart the basic knowledge of services marketing, its marketing principles, and integration of those principles with the real-time business environment. The course will be helpful in analyzing the marketing situation and making the right decisions.

Unit 1: Introduction (12 LHs)
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: theirconsequences 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.

 Unit 2: Buyer Behaviour and Relationship Marketing (4 LHs)
Buyers Behaviour: Concept of buyer, customer, and consumer, and institutional buyer;Consumer Buying Decisions: Buyer decision making process; Factors influencingbuying behaviour; Relationship Marketing: Concept and benefits of relationship marketing;Process and ladder of relationship; Transactional selling and Relationship Marketing

Unit 3: Consumer’s Service Expectation and Perception (6 LHs) 
Consumer’s Service Expectation: Concept, levels, and determining factors; Zone oftolerance; Perception / Service encounter: MOT; Types of encounters; ConsumerSatisfaction: Concept; Determinants; Outcome of consumer satisfaction; Service failure:Customer response to service failure; Handling customer complaints; Service guarantee.

Unit 4: Service Quality and Relationship Marketing 8 LHs
Service Quality: Concept; Dimensions of service quality; Approaches – Traditionalapproaches and contemporary approaches; The Service Quality Gap Model: The reasonsfor the gaps and management response to minimize the gap; Measurement of ServiceQuality: Concept and elements of measurement; Methods of measurement, SERVQUAL

Unit 5: Service Marketing Mix Strategies 14 LHs
Service Product: Concept of service product; New service product development process;Service Blue Print; Service product life cycle and marketing strategies; ServiceBranding: Concept, Objectives and brand equity; Service Pricing: Concept of service pricing,Objectives; Approaches to service pricing- Cost based, Competition based, Demandbased and Valuebased- 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 servicepromotion; 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 followconsumers - Service marketing triangle, - Service Profit Chain; Physical Evidence:Concept and role of physical evidence.

Unit 6: Emerging Service Sectors in Nepal 4 LHs
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.