From the perspective of marketing, marketing service is a multi-level comprehensive intangible product condensed in the marketing of physical goods. Marketing service is not only a valuable bonus, but also an added value of commodity appreciation.
1, the service brings satisfaction to users.
The introduction of the concept of service in the field of marketing began in 1950s and 1960s. AMA, an American marketing research institute, first defined service as "activities, benefits or satisfaction used for selling or selling together with products".
Any product condenses a lot of value satisfaction. From the perspective of marketing, "service" is to meet the needs of producers or consumers with labor services. Services are not limited to accepting orders, delivering goods, handling complaints and maintaining. Any project that can improve customer satisfaction is a service. Marketing guru Levitt defines service as "all kinds of characteristic behaviors and information that can make customers know more about the potential value of core products or services"; According to the terminology definition of IS09000 standard: "Service is the result of contact activities between suppliers and customers and internal activities of suppliers"; Zhang Ruimin, president and famous entrepreneur of Haier Group, thinks that "customer satisfaction is the eternal pursuit". From this perspective, service is a bridge connecting goods and customers, and an emotional bond between enterprises and customers. Service refers to caring about customers and understanding their psychology in the marketing process, and providing customers with various services or services in an effective way, so as to impress customers, make them feel happy, comfortable and convenient, and meet their emotional needs, rather than simply providing routine services.
2. Service is a kind of "product" that users are satisfied with before and after using the product.
Service is a product. Not only the service of service-oriented enterprises, but also the service of production-oriented enterprises. The difference between physical products and service products is getting smaller and smaller with the progress of the times. The only difference between physical products and services is that services will never become the form of goods. Different from the study of economics, the marketing circle studies service as a product. Economist Say believes: "All activities that are effective and can satisfy consumers, such as steel rolling workers and doctors treating diseases, are productive." In a narrow sense, products are just a group of entities and non-entities with physical and chemical properties and polymerized in some form; Broadly speaking, that is, from the marketing point of view, products are not only the combination of physical attributes, but also meet the desires and needs of buyers. Marketing service is immaterial, that is, "commodity = product entity+service". If the physical properties of the goods are the same, but the services provided by the products are different, then from the customer's point of view, they are two different products, and their procedures to meet customer needs are different, so the sales volume will be different. Consumers not only consider the product itself, but also all the additional services and benefits they can get.
The phenomenon of "service crisis" in enterprises
The so-called "service crisis" refers to the crisis of consumer trust in the process of enterprise business activities, which greatly affects the development of enterprise market and the sales of products.
1, short-sighted management concept will lead to "service crisis"
The short-sighted management concept is mainly manifested in the following aspects: First, most enterprises do not understand the root of the service crisis. They may see some kind of threat from increasingly dissatisfied customers, but they don't really realize the seriousness of this problem. Second, the indicators used to measure service and customer satisfaction will mislead enterprises, and these figures can easily make enterprises mistakenly think that the problem is not as serious as it actually is. Third, few companies really understand the essence of marketing services. Operators' short-sighted business philosophy makes them only pay attention to short-term financial results, cut costs and delete business activities that are not obviously helpful to profits, so marketing services become the most easily overlooked aspect.
Paying attention to marketing service is the result of the development of marketing concept. The realization of business objectives of enterprises must be based on the production of products that satisfy consumers, so as to meet consumers' needs and win higher satisfaction than competitors. In layman's terms, an enterprise's attitude towards the distribution of interests among enterprises, consumers and society must be centered on the interests of consumers. Therefore, marketing service must run through the whole management process, which is the essence of marketing.
2. Scientific and technological progress will bring "service crisis"
The marketing service cost of enterprises is mainly labor cost. In order to reduce the cost of living labor, some operators use high technology to serve customers, but this will lose the intimacy of face-to-face contact with buyers and easily leave the impression of poor service. As the futurist naisbitt pointed out, the higher the technology the world becomes, the more people are eager for interpersonal communication. Take the ATM as an example, customers have long been accustomed to friendly and efficient personnel service, but this machine gives customers a cold feeling; Second, high technology also makes the growth rate of service demand exceed the supply rate of enterprises, thus damaging the marketing service itself. At the same time, "the increasingly complex speed of technology makes service personnel unable to keep up", which makes it more and more difficult for marketers to provide effective marketing services.
With the rapid development of science and technology, high-tech products can only maintain this advantage in a short time, and in the long run, this advantage will be replaced by higher-tech products. The development of science and technology undoubtedly makes the competition more intense; The manufacturing level of products in various industries has reached a fairly high level, and there is not much room for improvement. The competition of many similar products has reached an unprecedented level. Therefore, since the 1990s, many marketers have abandoned the product-oriented or technology-oriented business strategy, because they realize that the competition between enterprises, products or technologies will eventually evolve into competition for consumers, that is, marketing competition.
3. The growth of customer expectation will lead to "service crisis".
Sometimes, the absolute quality of marketing services has not declined, but customers are increasingly dissatisfied. The reason is that customers' expectations are increasing. With the increase of consumers' income and the improvement of living standards, people's consumption level is also constantly improving. People's consumption is no longer the traditional consumption mode, but gradually changes to the consumption mode of paying equal attention to material and spiritual enjoyment. Enterprises have higher and higher requirements for the products and services they sell, requiring products and services to have a sense of image and entity, beautiful, intimate and convenient.
At present, people's needs tend to be multi-level, diversified and personalized, and the demand for marketing services also presents new characteristics: First, due to the development of market economy, more and more enterprises participate in market competition, and the goods on the market are increasingly rich, and consumers begin to hold money for purchase. Whether enterprises can provide quality services is particularly important to customers. Second, with the improvement of people's living standards, people should not only buy products, but also buy services. People should meet both physiological needs and psychological needs, and the proportion of the latter is rising. Therefore, as a marketing service that directly meets the various needs of customers, it will play a greater role, and high-quality services can often make customers more psychologically satisfied than high-quality products. Third, with the development of productive forces and the improvement of science and technology, the relationship between service and people's life, work and study is getting closer and closer. All this not only reflects people's demand for service, but also reflects that people have regarded service as the most basic guarantee for their future life and work.
New concept of modern marketing service
The market economy is characterized by competition, and the manifestations of market competition are various and multi-level. Rational competition brings progress and development, the expansion of enterprise scale, the increase of accumulation and the progress of production factors, and the improvement of the overall strength of the industry. Service competition is not a competition in a certain level or field, but a contest of comprehensive strength of enterprises, which is an important aspect for enterprises to participate in market competition:
L service competition is the only choice after the price war.
In recent years, under the condition of market economy, with the wide application of high technology, the high-speed flow of information and the convergence of product hardware standards, the marketing environment of enterprises has changed greatly. A fair and orderly market competition environment has gradually taken shape; The variety, quality and price of goods are roughly the same; The profit has been so low that it is close to the cost, which makes the price competition reach the limit. Therefore, whoever can provide quality service to customers will win customers and win the market. The law of service competition adapting came into being, which is a change to the traditional competition mode.
2. Marketing service is an effective way to retain customers.
In the buyer's market, the best way to survive is to improve customer satisfaction. First of all, what customers buy is not products, but expectations. They not only want to get cold physical products, but more importantly, they want to get psychological satisfaction while getting physical products. According to the research results of American marketing strategy planning, 9 1% customers will avoid companies with low service quality, among which 80% customers will find other companies with similar services but better services, and 20% people would rather spend more money on them. A research report published in Harvard Business Journal 199 1 shows that "customers who come again can bring 25%-85% profits to the company, and the factors that attract them to come again are first the service quality, then the product itself and finally the price". Therefore, do a good job in service, impress consumers' hearts with sincerity and warmth, and cultivate "permanent customers".
Secondly, dissatisfied customers will bring high costs. According to the survey, 68% of the lost customers are not satisfied with the service quality. Behind every 1 complaining user, there are 26 equally dissatisfied but silent users who will tell 8 to 16 people their feelings. Therefore, we need to win over 10 new customers to make up for the loss of leaving an old customer, and dissatisfied customers will bring high costs. In other words, the biggest cost saved by good service is the cost of changing old customers.
3. Service has become a new type of investment that can bring huge profits.
Service is the added value of goods. To develop into high value-added products, the market is endless. Consumers often think that services should be free, but in fact there is no free service. If an enterprise wants to provide good service, it must have financial support. Therefore, the free service only "packages" the price of the service in the product and sells it together with the product. If the service can't bring some added value and make customers feel value for money, customers won't be fooled again last time. The demand of users determines the price of this service. For the benefit of customers, service is an investment and can get rich returns. Users fully affirmed the decisive position of enterprise service competition in marketing.