7 P's : Service Marketing Mix: 7 P's of Service Marketing

Service Marketing Mix: 7 P's

Product:

• Service products are heart of the service marketing.
• Marketing mix begins with creating a service concept that will offer value to target customers and satisfy needs better than competing alternatives.
• Service product consist  of a core and supplementary service element 
• Core product meet primary need
• Supplementary element help to use the core product / add value on core product

Place:

• Delivering product element to customers involves decisions
• Delivery decision: Where; When; How
• Delivery may involve use of physical or electronic channel 
• speed and convenience of place and time have become important determinants of effective service delivery

Price:

• Payment is play central role in marketing
• It is facilitating a value exchange between the firm and its customers.
• For customer point of view, price is key part of the costs they must incur to obtain wanted benefits. 
• Revenue management is an important part in pricing
• Identify and minimize non-monetary cost incur by user: (time; expenditure; waiting; physical effort; negative sensory experiences.)

Promotion:

• Promotion is nothing but communication between manufacture and customer
• This component plays three vital roles
• Providing information and advice
• Persuading target customers of the merit of a specific brand or service product
• Encourage customer to take action at specific time
• Communication is educational for new customer 
• Communication can be done by individual or in wide array
• individual: salespeople, front line staff; websites 
• wide array of advertising media

Process:

• Customer are often involve in the process, especially when acting as co-producers.
• Creating and delivering product elements requires design and implementation of effective processes. 
• Badly design process -
• slow
• ineffective service delivery
• wasted time
• disappointing experience 
• Difficult to make sure that front-line staff do their job well

Physical Environment 

• Service firms need to mange physical evidence carefully
• Because it can have a profound impact on customers' impressions
• Physical evidence are-
• Building
• Landscaping
• Vehicles
• Interior furnishing
• Equipment
• Staff Members' Uniforms
• Signs
• Printed materials 
• Other visible cues
• This all provide tangible evidence of a firm's service quality 

People

• Finally, in service always require direct interaction between customers and contact personnel.
• This interaction influences how customers perceive service quality.
• Service quality/customers' satisfaction depends on front-line staff
• Therefore, successful service firm give significant effort to recruiting, training, and motivating employees