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Marketing Mix for Service

1) Product – Service is an intangible product. It consists of a bundle of features and benefits
that have relevance to a specific target market. As such there is a high level of flexibility
and opportunity to be innovative in designing a product offer.

Let us consider a first class Air travel service offered by an airline on a domestic sector.
The various constituent elements of the service products are as follows.
 Basic service offered – Transportation by air from designated point A to B in the 1 st
class.
 Quality of service –
o Seats are wider and more spacious than economy class.
o Ceramic crockery and steel cutlery instead of plastic.
o 1hostess per 8 passengers instead of one hostess per 20 passengers in the
economy class.
 Accessories to the service – free use of special lounge at the originating airport, and
complementary toilet kit.
 Service warranties – If the flight is delayed by more than 1hour, 50% of ticket cost can
be refunded by way of a discount coupon for the next flight. Full return in case of
cancellation.
 Branding – The first class service is called “sky club” and promoted accordingly.
 Product lines – It include schedule passenger Transport, cargo transport and unscheduled
passenger transport by way of aircraft charter service.

2) Price – The pricing decision is a critical one in service. Consumer sensitivity to price
would be higher in service than in goods. Pricing strategy of services basically depends
upon value perception of people that are targeted by the organization.

For an airline, the elements of pricing are as follows:

 List price – the announced price as per current tariff will be the list price.
 Marginal price – price for standby ticket with no guarantee of reservation.
 Price level - Different list prices for 1st class , business class , economy class and tourist
class.
 Price discount – Discount are offered for early booking, for groups of 10 or mare for
disabled person and for senior citizen over 65.
 Allowances – Extra baggage allowances given to the member of the frequent flying club,
including free upgrades for them.

3) Place – Services are intangible as well as inseparable. These two characteristics do not
allow a service firm to follow the same channel options available for goods marketing.
In service marketing production, distribution and consumption are simultaneous activity.
However, services have an advantage of using a direct selling approach.

Let us consider the example of a Pizza hut.

 Channel Member – through franchisee.

 Service intermediaries – In this case, the intermediaries may be the parent company
designing the service and making available the service materials such as dough, sauce
and other requirement and décor materials.

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 Outlet location – should be located near a busy office or shopping area that has high
number of footfalls.
 Channel Management – The franchiser would ensure a high class outlet service by
training the outlet staff, specifying the quality norms.
 Transportation – This probably is very important in the case of home delivery of the
pizzas. The packing, heat preserving container , and the time within which it is delivered
may be important.

4) Promotion – Consumers are co-producer of service. The quality of service will not
depend upon the performance of the service provider but also the performance of service
consumer.
It is responsibility of service provider to educate the customer and if necessary train
customer so as to make them prepared to use service efficiently.
A well designed promotional programme help organization to inform. persuade and train
customer to better their experiences.

Let us consider the elements of promotional mix for a softwarte marketing company. The
service offered by the software is’ structural designing of the concrete bridges’. The
Elements of promotional mix may be:

 Sales promotion – carried out through trained marketing personnel who makes calls on
consultants, designers and large civil engineering companies.
 Advertising – carried out Through civil engineering trade journals, conference and
seminars on civil engineering , news letter for professional , etc.
 After sales service and training – used as a promotional strategy to generate and sustain
interest in the product. More the number of people capable of using the product, more the
popularity.
 Publicity – carried out through articles covering the product in engineering journal.

5) People – Service organization are people oriented and people based organization.
Employees of service firm constitute the major competency in undertaking business
operations. Every employee of a service organization is marketing people, who
undertaken either full time or part time marketing activity. So, service employees are to
be trained and motivated for better performance in making activities.

Lets take the example of front desk person in a hotel to illustrate the role of the people
in the marketing of the service.
 Recruitment – this is very important for front desk person because, they are the first and
major elements in personal contact.
 Training – the potential employees need to be trained to carry out their duties and also
learn about people skills emphasizing customer needs and demand.
 Motivation – the front desk employee need to be continuously motivated to ensure
continued performance.
 Team work – the hospitality industry performance depends on teamwork. So, role
playing and teamwork training is very important aspect.
 Customer education – In the case of hotel, customer need to be informed about the
availability of facility and how to make best use of them.
 Customer training – fire drills, etc are carried out on cruise ships and hotels.

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6) Physical evidence – The physical evidence of a service has a very large role to play in
the service scenario.
In an airline industry the elements are as follows.
 Aesthetics of the facility – the checking –in facilities, arrangements and layout, décor of
the aircraft are proof of the aesthetic.
 Signage – the signage provide crucial information about checking in counter, boarding
gates, use of toilets, personal lights, and air conditioner faucets and gate number, etc.
 Ambient condition – the pressure and temperature has to be maintained at precisely
comfortable level throughout the flight .
 Equipment – equipment such as lockers, staying facilities, pull-out trays and seat belts
all serve as important ingredients.
 Employee appearance – distinctive uniforms that are attractive yet functional serve to
reassure the passengers. The pilot with standard flying uniform and gold braided caps
serve to establish the authority.
 Tangible elements – Air ticket, boarding passes, food and drinks menu, baggage tags
and in-flight magazines serve to provide tangible elements of the service.

7) Process – It is a functional activity that assures service availability and quality. it

becomes the marketing offer of the organization to the target market.
In simple terms, the management of process is to manage service encounter (the
encounter between service employee and customer, customer and service environment)
It includes following key elements
 Flow of activities – Registration and check in, explanation about the test procedure, final
results handover, etc. is vital for carrying out the tests.
 Level of customer involvement – the cooperation of the customer to offer the service
effectively.

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