UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA School of Business
Department of Marketing, Economics, and Law
MARK 466 X5 – Services Marketing Winter Term 2001
Course Outline Prerequisites: MARK 301
Professor: Brian Wrightson Time: Thursday 1830 - 2130 Location: BUS 1-09
Office: HUB Mall sessional offices – near north end cash machines Office Hours: Thursday 5:45-6:15 (after class or by appointment)
E-Mail: [email protected] (best option) Website: http://courses.bus.ualberta.ca/mark466-wrightson
Text (optional): Zeithaml, V. & Bitner, M. J. (2000) Services Marketing.2nd edition.
McGraw-Hill Companies New York.
This book is a valuable supplement to the course but all materials to be examined will be covered in class.
Objectives: The main theme of this course is that service organizations, both for-profit and non-profit, require a distinctive approach to marketing strategy – both in its development and execution. This course will build on the ideas of MARK301 Introduction to Marketing and will share concepts with many other courses. This course will not prepare you to become Vice President of Marketing of a national bank but it will provide an insight and foundation into the uniqueness of service provision.
This course will have two basic components:
1) customer service (been there-done it you say! Then why is customer service in Canada substandard?) and
2) managing service organziations to meet customer expectation. In both cases, emphasis will be placed on the practical aspects of the content, i.e. the ability of you to apply the concepts to the work setting. This will be reflected in the examinations and assignments.
Course Format: This course will consist of a combination of lectures, class discussion, presentations and assignments. You are expected to read relevant chapters and to prepare material, take notes and identify significant issues in advance for discussion in class.
Evaluation: Assignment 1 25% February 8, 2001 Characteristics of Services Audit
Assignment 2 20% March 8, 2001 Service Experience Journal and Audit
Assignment 3 20% March 22, 2001 Shop or Buy? An appraisal of Service Related Websites
Final examination 35% April 5, 2001
Final Examination – Based on all lecture and course materials
All assignments are to be double-spaced, typed using a 12 point font, and stapled in the top left-hand corner – please, no covers. Yes – use references on every paper. Late submissions must be pre-approved by the professor.
Assignments:
Assignment 1 25% February 8, 2001
Characteristics of Services Audit
This is an audit of both theory base and practice of the four distinguishing characteristics of services – intangibility, perishability, heterogeneity, and simultaneous production and consumption. The first portion (10%) of the paper is to be discussion of the theory base behind this concept. The second (10%) is to meet with and interview a service provider and to witness how this firm has adapted their operations to account for (if at all) these characteristics. Do not be too surprised if the manager does not understand the terminology. The third (5%) portion is your critique of this firm’s application. Please recognize both the strengths and
weaknesses of what you observe. (Percentages are approximate) This paper should be approximately 10 to 12 pages.
Assignment 2 20% March 8, 2001 Service Experience Journal and Audit
The purpose of this assignment is to understand and evaluate the service encounter from the perspective of a customer. We all have a number of such encounters each week, including (but not limited to) restaurants, banks, dry cleaners, doctors, university, phone companies and copy centres. You are to keep a “journal” (see attachment) of ten (10) of your recent service experiences. These must be current episodes (since Christmas). The purpose of the journal is to identify sources of customer satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with services.
1) Journal entries - The journal entries may be hand-written (but legibly) or typed. Be sure to completely answer all relevant questions on the journal entry form. Try to record an assortment of encounters from a variety of service industries. The best way is to fill out the form immediately after the occurrence – begin right away.
2) Service Encounter Paper – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the journalized encounters from a customer’s viewpoint, for example:
- How did you feel at the time?
- What was done well? Not so well? Terribly?
- What was your reaction? Were you satisfied?
- Would you go back? What would you tell others about this experience?
A good paper will document lessons learned from the customer perspective (10%) and include management strategies (10%) that you might use in the future to ensure that your organization is truly customer focused and not merely “mouthing the words”.
This paper should be no more than five (5) pages and should include elements of our class discussions, the text, and other research on the topic.
Please turn in the journal entries and the paper at the same time.
Assignment 3 20% March 22, 2001 Shop or Buy? An appraisal of Service Related Websites
Assume that you are locked in a vacant apartment for one month and solely the Internet links you to the outside world. You need to provide for your basic necessities through this media.
By way of meeting your needs please select and evaluate as least six (10%) websites that serve entirely different personal needs. The key to this assignment is to link this exercise to the concepts (10%) presented in this course. Do not simply critique the site but link your impressions of how the principles of good customer service are demonstrated (or not) by the developers of the website.
Evaluation of each website might include the following but is not limited to:
a) Accessibility, usability, availability, reliability, and functionality, and
b) Application of the seven P’s of Zeithaml and Bitner. Linkages to the principles discussed in class must be included.
Measure the overall effectiveness and potential for improvement of specific dimensions (for instance the UWEC suggests content, credibility, critical thinking, copyright, citation, continuity, censorship, connectivity, comparability, and context)
source:http://www.uwec.edu/admin/library/guides/tencs.html
Please focus on organizations providing services such as auction houses, retailers, airlines, financial, health, tourism, education, and the like.
Please summarize by providing your comments on each as to the ability of web-based businesses to serve consumer needs.
You might have fun by including a ratings scale such as a Geek Scale. A difficult site might be rated as a 5 Geek site and user friendly one, No Geeks - even I can do this!
The paper should be 10 – 12 pages. (not including tables and so on)
Final examination 35% April 5, 2001
Final Examination – Based on all lecture and course materials
Examination details will be determined by the class prior to the Reading Break.
Tentative Grading: 90 – 100 % 9
83 – 89 % 8
76 – 82 % 7
69 – 75 % 6
60 – 68 % 5
50 – 59 % 4
< 50 % Fail
Your class marks will likely vary from this experience of last year’s class but this should provide you with an approximate breakdown for this year.
See section 23.4 of the University Calendar
Marking and Grade Disputes: I will always be available to discuss with students your concerns about grading and marketing but I will not entertain such discussions on the day of an exam or paper is returned. I will be pleased to do so during office hours or at a time that is mutually agreeable.
In case of dispute, please initiate discussions with me. Your recourse is then the Department Chair. Should you still be unsatisfied, the matter may be taken to the Assistant Dean, Undergraduate.
Academic Integrity: I will be giving two exams – one in services marketing and the other in honesty. I hope you will pass them both. But if you must fail one, then fail services marketing. There are many good people in the world that cannot pass services marketing but there are no good people in the world that cannot pass the test of honesty.
Students who commit any act of plagiarism, cheating, or misrepresentation in this course will be penalized in accordance with the University
Regulations Section 26.
Students should collaborate in the preparation of course work but it is required that your work on exams must be unique and individual and of your own doing. The project is, of course, highly collaborative.
Offences under the Code of Student Behaviour
• Any use of the words and ideas of any other person in an academic assignment or project without adequate acknowledgement
constitutes plagiarism.
• Any misrepresentation of any fact to gain academic advantage is an offence under the Code of Student Behaviour.
• Any submission of the work of another person represented to be your work is an offence.
• Any unauthorized collaboration in an examination, assignment, paper, or project.
Penalties can range as high as expulsion from the University.
The full text of the Code of Student Behaviour can be found in the University of Alberta Calendar, Section 26.
Schedule - The following is the weekly sequence of Chapters.
January 11 Introduction
Chapter 1 Introduction to services January 18 Chapter 18 The integrated gaps model
Chapter 2 Consumer behaviour
Chapter 3 Customer expectations of service January 25 Chapter 4 Customer perceptions of service
February 1 Chapter 5 Understanding customer expectations February 8 Chapter 6 Building customer relationships February 15 Chapter 7 Service recovery
Chapter 8 Service development and design February 22 Spring Break
March 1 Chapter 9 Customer-defined service standards
Chapter 10 Physical evidence and servicescapes March 8 Chapter 11 Employees’ roles in service delivery March 15 Chapter 12 Customers’ roles in service delivery
Chapter 13 Delivering services
March 22 Chapter 14 Managing supply and demand
Chapter 15 Integrating services marketing communications March 29 Chapter 16 Pricing of services
Chapter 17 The financial and economic effect of services April 5 Final Examination All Chapters
This schedule is to declare my intended sequence of chapters more so than the exact dates we will cover each material.