Online Course Guide of WHU –
Find all modules and courses of our degree programs.
Please use the filters below to select the term (spring or fall) as well as the respective program (BSc, MSc, MBA, Exchange, Doctoral) of your choice for an overview of all modules offered at WHU. The courses are listed under the modules. Please click on a module to see which courses are part of it. If you would like to find out more about a certain course, click on the name of the course to see detail information. The location of the lecture will be revealed after your course registration on myWHUstudies.
Spring term counts from January - August, fall term counts from September - December.
Important for Exchange Students: As the Full-Time and Part-Time MBA Programs utilize a modular course structure, the dates on which students begin and end the exchange are flexible. Please find here a chronological overview of the preliminary course offering for Fall and Spring.
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:
(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
- 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 environments
- Blueprinting
Service delivery
- Service profit chain
- Service orientation
- Service culture
- Emotional labor
Service outcomes and implementation
- Service quality
- Complaint handling and service recovery
- Service excellence
The course is limited to 40 participants!
Class Dates
Date
Time
Learning Outcomes
- Acknowledge the critical roles of perceived service quality, experienced customer satisfaction, 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 efficient and effective customer services.
- Implement mechanisms to recover successfully from service failures.
- Measure the service quality provided by a firm.
- Implement a management system of service excellence.
Literature
Jochen Wirtz and Christopher H. Lovelock (2018).Essentials of Services Marketing, 3rd edition, Pearson.
Additional literature:
Jochen Wirtz and Christopher H. Lovelock (2021).Services Marketing: People, Technology, Strategy, 9th edition, World Scientific.
3 Case Studies (tba)