CHARACTERISTICS OF SERVICES

1. Intangibility
2. Inseparability
3. Perishabiltiy
4. Heterogeneity
5. Customer participation
6. Ownership

THE SERVICE MARKETING MIX

PRODUCT

* A service Product refers to an activity or activities that a marketer offers to perform, which results in satisfaction of a need or want of a predetermined target customer.
* Service is the offering of a firm in the form of activities that satisfy needs such as hair styling done by a hair-dresser.
* Four levels of product

a. General product'
b. The expected product
c. The augmented product
d. The potential product

PRICE

PROMOTION

Promotion – Communicate information about services to the target audience there by facilitating the exchange process. There are four elements of promotional mix: -

* Advertising
* Personal selling
* Sales promotion
* Publicity / Public Relations

PLACE

A distribution element of service marketing mix, is concerned with two main issues: - Accessibility and availability. A key decision with regard to distribution is location. There are several key factors to be considered in decisions about service location.

* Service inseparability
* Perishability
* The role of consumer as co-producer of the  service.
* Customer's needs and wants
* Target market.

PEOPLE

* People constitute an important dimension in the management of services and as customers.
* The initial marketing is that the employees are the first internal market for the organization.
* The staffs are the most important asset within the organization.

PHYSICAL EVIDENCE

* A service is performed rather than handled over.
* Service must be satisfied to the customers.
* Physical evidence provides customers with a means of evaluating the service and includes facilitating goods, comfort.