Importance of the Service Industry to the Economy

Importance of the Service Industry to the Economy

At the time when the economy was developing apace and the significant

change on economic structure was progressing, the importance of

service industry in economic system has been increasing steadily so to

become one of principal drivers for most countries economy

development, e.g. In the United States, 78% of the GDP is attributed

by service industry[1]. Due to such kind of tendency, the interrelated

studies of service bearing high research value were developed, which

crown multiple subject areas. Service Marketing, one of those areas,

was not really dealt with until the 1970´s either in Europe or the

USA. Since that time it has grown considerably and has received much

attention from various authors. Service marketing is the recognition

that contacts between service providers and their customers is the

basis of a process of building relationships, and the term service

management is used in order to recognize the management of this

relationship process. This project will focus on how to manage the

service encounter to create customer´s satisfactory experience, which

is a prevalent topic of this research area.

Service differentiates product by its four characteristics that are

frequently expatiated in marketing literatures, i.e. intangibility,

inseparability, heterogeneity, perish-ability. Zeithaml and Bitner

(2002) also generalized service as deeds, process, and performance. Customer

involvement or provider and customer interact is the most

important phenomenon in all services, which means in a service

environment, customers interact with the service firm C its

employees, delivery systems, physical facilities, and even other

users. The difference only depends on what the level of such firm

and customer contact is.

Services are divided into High-contact Services and Low-contact

Services (Figure 1)[2]. The former is group of services involves

personal visits by customer to facility, such as hairdressing, lodging

and medical services. The latter is customer involves little physical

elements caused by new technologies development and adoption,

especially on the use of information technology that changes the

original interpersonal interaction.

Despite the level of contact, because of service´s unique

characteristics in the process of consuming service, the core

product...

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... Prentice Hall

Adrian Palmer, Principles of Service Marketing, 2nd Edition,

McGraw Hill

Teresa A. Swartz and Dawn Iacobucci, Handbook of Service Marketing

and Management

Grove, S. Fisk R.P., 2001: Service theatre: An analytical framework

for services marketing, in Lovelock and Writz (2004) pp 78-87

Grove, S. Fisk R.P., 1997: The impact of other customers on service

experiences: a critical incident examination of Getting Along.

Journal of Retailing, 73(1): 63-85.

James A. Fitzsimmons, 1999, Curriculum and Research in Service

Operations Management.

http://www.uwstout.edu/programs/bssm/pom.pdf

Service Quality

http://faculty.fuqua.duke.edu/~fdv1/operatns472/SessionGraphics/9%20-%20Quality.pdf

[1] Source: George T. Willingmyre, P.E. President, GTW Associates 2002

[2] Source: C. H. Lovelock, 2004, Services Marketing C People,

Technology, Strategy, pp. 34

[3] Source: C. H. Lovelock, 2004, Services Marketing C People,

Technology, Strategy, pp. 35

[4] Source: C. H. Lovelock, 2004, Services Marketing C People,

Technology, Strategy, pp. 412

[5] Source: C. H. Lovelock, 2004, Services Marketing C People,

Technology, Strategy, pp. 48