Learning outcomes

Regarding learning outcomes for students, the course mainly aims at the acquisition of knowledge, the application of a scientific approach and the reasoning as a socially responsible stakeholder. To a lesser extent, it also aims to enhance students’ communication skills as well as their personal and professional self-development.

 

Goals

This course offers an introduction to the world of services, which represent more than 70%  of the economic activity in Western countries. The course aims at achieving three main goals: 1. The knowledge and comprehension of concepts, strategies, tools and methods related to services marketing; 2. The ability to summarize and analyze a current business problem in the field of services/leisure marketing (case studies); 3. The ability to make strategic recommendations.

 

 

Content

This course aims to broaden the scope of marketing courses in the area of services. The course discusses the traditional distinction between goods and services and considers its marketing and strategic implications. The features of specific types of services are described. A series of concepts regarding services are developed: serviscape and the process of servuction, relationship between service provider and client, experiential phenomena associated with the consumption of real-time services, customer satisfaction and measurement of service quality, internationalization of services...

 

 

Table of contents

Part 1. Understanding services
Part 2. Positioning services in a competitive market
Part 3. Applying the 7 Ps of marketing to services
Part 4. Implementing profitable service strategies

Assessment method

Final evaluation is made by means of a written examination covering all the topics and papers discussed in the classroom. Questions are developed to assess the three following aspects: (1) Students’ understanding of concepts, strategies, tools, and methods; (2) Students’ ability to apply those concepts and processes to real (business) life situations; (3) Students’ ability to analyse real-life business cases and to suggest strategic and/or operational recommendations.

 

Sources, references and any support material

Course pack (slides) is available before the course on the webcampus platform.

The reference textbooks are:

  • C. Lovelock and J. Wirtz (2014), Services Marketing: People, Technology, Strategy, Prentice Hall, 7th edition.
  • V. Zeithaml, M.-J. Bitner, and D. Gremler (2012), Services Marketing, Business and Economics, 6th edition.
  • B. Meunier (2020), Management public et non marchand, Anthémis.

Language of instruction

Français