Reputation and Value
It was great to meet you last week in London and I trust you all returned home safely.
As you are now in the coursework preparation phase of the module, I thought it might be useful to provide a few reminders of our discussion with respect to the reflective piece on services marketing. Here you are asked to critically observe, analyse and evaluate a service experience from the customer perspective. In conducting and writing up this analysis I would like to see you applying some of the frameworks and concepts we covered in the taught sessions, and that are explained in more detail in both the slides and the suggested readings that accompany the taught sessions (particularly those on ‘services and experiences marketing’ and ‘service quality’, but you can of course draw on other aspects of the course that you feel are relevant ).
Specifically, for example, you might seek to structure your analysis and reflection around the three additional elements of the marketing mix that are relevant to services, and that constitute the three key elements of service design (people, processes and physical evidence/environment). More details of what each of these elements includes, and the considerations and decisions they require, can be found in the slides on MyAberdeen and in the accompanying chapter from the recommended core text book for this course (which is also noted on MyAberdeen in the folder relating to further reading). You might consider how and why these tools are (or could be) used to address the particular challenges that arise from the four characteristics of services (intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity and perishability).
You might also acknowledge (quite briefly) the relevance of the original four factors of the marketing mix (product, price, place and promotion) to the design and delivery of the service encounter/experience. Given the word count restrictions, however, I would suggest you focus most of your essay on the three additional elements of the services marketing mix – people, processes and physical evidence/environment.
You might also seek to consider the concepts and ideas we covered in the session on service quality. For example, you might apply the SERVQUAL framework (the five dimensions of service quality that were refined from the original 10 key determinants) to analyse the ways in which good service is ensured, or bad service manifests. Similarly, you might consider the source (server or customer) and type
(task, treatment, tangible, preparation, encounter, resolution) of service errors that occurred (or could easily occur), and the fail safes that might be put in place to prevent this.
Further details of all these concepts and frameworks (and more!) can be found in the slides and associated chapters in the core text book, and this material should be used to inform your analysis and reflection. Please bear in mind that you should cite the original sources of any concepts, models and frameworks you apply.
Good luck!
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Please cover all lecture materials and apply relevant theories.
