Services Marketing

The objective of this course is to prepare students for advanced careers in marketing management by enabling them to understand and ultimately being able to influence consumers' behavior by means of advertising and other marketing communications, while maintaining high ethical standards. In doing so, students will first be introduced to important key concepts and theories of consumer psychology. Next, students will be exposed to the concept of integrated marketing communications as well as the planning, creation, and capturing the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. Upon successful completion of this course, students should be able to:

Course code

MKT431

Course type

BSc Course

Weekly Hours

2,0

ECTS

3.0

Term

FS 2020

Language

Englisch

Lecturers

Prof. Dr. Matthias Gouthier

Please note that exchange students obtain a higher number of credits in the BSc-program at WHU than listed here. For further information please contact directly the International Relations Office.

Course content

Introduction to services marketing

Definition of services and their characteristics
Importance of services and service industries
Specialties of services marketing

Managing customer relationships

Relationship vs. transactional marketing
Service attributes, expectations and experiences
Customer satisfaction, delight and loyalty
Customer value

Service design

Service Design Thinking
Service Blueprinting

Service delivery

Service profit chain
Service orientation and culture

Service outcomes and implementation

Service quality
Service excellence

The course is limited to 42 participants!

Class dates

Date	Time
Thursday, 12.03.2020	15:30 - 18:45
Friday, 13.03.2020	08:00 - 11:15
Thursday, 26.03.2020	15:30 - 18:45
Friday, 27.03.2020	08:00 - 11:15
Thursday, 02.04.2020	15:30 - 18:45
Friday, 03.04.2020	08:00 - 11:15
Thursday, 30.04.2020	00:00 - 23:59

Learning outcomes

The objective of this class lies in enabling students to comprehend and apply key marketing management paradigms and tools aiming at establishing profitable and lasting customer relationships by means of designing and delivering efficient and effective services to customers. Successful participants of this class should be able to:

Acknowledge the critical roles of perceived service quality, experienced customer satisfaction, customerdelight,and customer loyalty.
Reflect on the value of a customer.
Outline the key properties and managerial implications of a contemporary relationship marketing approach.
Analyze the processes, structures, and mechanisms that shape perceived service outcomes.
Design excellent customer services and outstanding customer experiences.
Measure the service quality provided by a firm.
Implement a management system of service excellence.

Literature

Essential reading: Jochen Wirtz and Christopher H. Lovelock (2018). Essentials of Services Marketing, 3rd edition, Pearson.Additional literature:Jochen Wirtz and Christopher H. Lovelock (2016). Services Marketing: People, Technology, Strategy, 8th edition, World Scientific.3 Case Studies (tba)

Learningmethods

Lecturing, in-class discussions, case studies, guest lectures

Exam

Final exam 70%
Case studies and student presentations 30%

CORONA-UPDATE REGARDING THE EXAM:

Dear students,

In consultation with the examination office and due to the doubtful chances that a written exam can be realized in the near term, I decided to rearrange the grading structure. Instead of the planned 70% evaluation performance based on the written exam, you should work on two additional questions which I have added to the existing cases. In consequence, you have to choose one out of two cases and answer three questions (including the one question that was handed out beforehand) for the selected case (and please add a short intro and conclusion part) to successfully pass the exam.

To give you the chance to have enough time to accurately prepare the report, I have also decided to extend the deadline corresponding to the original appointment of the written exam.

All details on the updated grading are described in the slide set I currently uploaded in Moodle.

I'm convinced that this changed examination procedure is the fairest approach without discriminating anyone. If there are any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Kindest regards,

Matthias Gouthier

Total workload