Service Management and Marketing: Managing the Service Profit Logic, 4th Edition

CHAPTER 9MANAGING MARKETING OR CUSTOMER-FOCUSED MANAGEMENT

“Full-time marketing specialists are required to make promises and find customers, but without skilful part-time marketers promises will not be kept, and the total marketing process collapses.”

INTRODUCTION

This chapter will discuss the nature and content of the marketing process in a service business. As the chapter title indicates, the traditional view of marketing management may not apply where services are concerned. A relationship approach to marketing is suggested, and the scope and content of the total marketing process is discussed in detail. The concepts of part-time marketers, interactive marketing and the customer relationship lifecycle are discussed. Furthermore, a relationship marketing model is presented. Two types of marketing strategies, relationship marketing and transaction marketing, are analysed on a marketing strategy continuum, and their implications for management and marketing explored. Finally, it is concluded that for service, marketing is better characterized as market-oriented or customer-focused management than as marketing management in the traditional functionalistic sense. After having read the chapter the reader should understand the role and scope of marketing in a service context, and realize the importance of the interactive marketing process to the total marketing process of a service organization as well as understand the nature of a relationship marketing approach and the consequences ...