Marketing Management, 16th Edition

Achieving Service Excellence

The increased importance of the service industry has sharpened the focus on what it takes to excel in the marketing of services.31 The superior marketing of services requires excellence in three broad areas: external marketing, internal marketing, and interactive marketing.32 External marketing is the normal work of preparing, pricing, distributing, and promoting the service to customers. Internal marketing consists of training and motivating employees to serve customers well. Arguably the most important contribution the marketing department can make is to be “exceptionally clever in getting everyone else in the organization to practice marketing.”33 Interactive marketing reflects employees’ skill in serving the ...