BUSM183: Services Management

Module description

Welcome to one of the most evolving topics in marketing literature. The services sector, such as telecommunications, financial services, hospitality, transportation services, healthcare, and professional services, accounts for over three-quarters of GDP and employment in developed countries. In light of the growing importance of services in local and global economies, it becomes crucial to study and understand the functionality of service offerings. This module will explore the distinctive characteristics of services and explain how these characteristics affect the marketing approaches used by firms – including challenges involved in controlling service quality, managing customer experience, and synchronising demand and supply. Thereby, the module will examine the management of service processes; customer experience in service settings; and the management of complaint handling and service recovery. 

This module is quite theoretical, which is why throughout the module case studies and hands-on exercises will facilitate understanding and transferability of contents. Various examples will also be used to illustrate the applicability and use of these theoretical perspectives on real world marketing practice. The module will enable students to relate and apply theoretical insights to concrete marketing and communication strategy; improve students’ ability in analysing case studies, brainstorming, and communicating ideas; and prepare students for the possible pursuit of a career in marketing. There will be one assessment for this module: an individual essay of 2,000 words, worth 100% of your grade. More details about the assignment are given below and on QMplus. The assessment allows students to apply and develop concepts learned in class.

Organisation and delivery of module

Each full week there will be a) a lecture, which will be predominantly done live in person (student engagement is required), but may also include other learning activities (e.g. asynchronous activities), and b) live seminar sessions where we will have group exercises, and also where you can ask questions about the week’s material. 

The lecture will be no more than 2 hours (including break) and the seminars will be about an hour each week on average, leading to a maximum of 3 hours of total course time each week. As per QMUL regulations, the teaching sessions will begin 5 minutes after the scheduled start time, and end 5 minutes before the end time (to allow you time to get to your other classes). Please also note that there will be no lecture nor seminars the first (partial) week of classes as well as week 7 (which will feature asynchronous learning activities). In weeks 10, 11 and 12, seminars will be is dedicated to the individual services project discussions. You will be divided into smaller groups and assigned to a tutor which will deliver seminars in a seminar room or have the individual services project discussions online.

Preparation for Lectures and Seminars

In the lecture, the basic concepts and theories of the textbook will be introduced, in addition to material that goes beyond the textbook, which is relevant for the assessments of the module. Seminar exercises will take place during the seminars, which intend to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the topic area and to make sure that students are able to detect and transfer learned concepts to practice. To achieve this goal, a mixture of case studies, discussions, and hands-on exercises is used. Seminar exercises are the main forum where advice and assistance are provided.

Preparation for lectures and seminars is a necessity. Information is given on QMplus regarding the readings and seminar tasks that you need to complete before attending the lecture, and additional seminar materials are posted on QMplus. It is the student’s responsibility to ensure that he/she has prepared adequately. All tasks aim to…

− enhance your understanding of the topics covered in the lecture.

− enhance your ability to bridge theory and practice.

− help you to prepare for your dissertation.

E-LEARNING: This course is supported by QMplus. Use QMplus for the following purposes:

- Get all materials and additional reading lists related to this module.

- Submit your assessments. 

- Communicate with each other.

In addition to QMplus, online resources may be available for the textbook (e.g., cross puzzles, flashcards). By purchasing the textbook you should get access codes for these resources, if available.

Aims and Learning outcomes

This module will begin with an overview of the concept of services and challenges associated with the marketing and management of services. The aim of this module is to: 

1. Identify and explain the unique characteristics of services that distinguish them from goods, and it seeks to characterize the differences between marketing in services vs. manufacturing firms. 

2. Provide students with an in-depth understanding of key issues in the design, management and commercialisation of services.

3. Describe important services marketing frameworks and explain how to utilise them to develop and implement advanced strategies in service contexts.

4. Provide students with relevant analytical skills and tools for critical thinking about services, their design, management, and commercialisation.

The School of Business and Management has developed new sets of programme specific learning outcomes to be applied from academic year 2021/22 as part of the ongoing work on Assurance of Learning (AoL) to evaluate the programmes delivered and improve student learning.

Feedback

You will be given feedback throughout the module. Dr. Stephan Dickert and Dr. Muhammad Riaz will provide a variety of individual responses, comments, advice and suggestions on your contributions in class (such as your own questions, answers to questions we have asked, contributions to discussion, your presentations in class etc.). The purpose of this feedback, which we will be giving orally, is to enable you to improve your learning, to help you to identify your strengths and weaknesses and to work on them. We call this “formative” feedback, and we regard it as a very important part of the teaching and learning process.

Bear in mind, too, that you might also receive responses from your fellow students in class when they hear your presentations or your contributions to discussions – we call this ‘peer feedback’. Peer feedback is an important element of your learning as it often provides valuable comments on how clearly you express your arguments and how well you convey your evidence. If you see us during my office hours, we can provide some additional feedback on any aspect of your learning.

Assessment

Assessment Instructions

Individual assessment instructions and submission dates are provided here and also on QMplus and/or in class. Performance in the summative assessment for this module is judged against the following criteria:

· Relevance to question(s)

· Organisation, structure and presentation

· Depth of understanding

· Analysis and discussion

· Use of sources and referencing

· Overall conclusions

Students should submit the individual essay as a Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF document online via QMplus. Individual essay submissions received after the deadline will be subject to a late penalty. Please refer to the PG Student Handbook for further details.

You are required to submit an electronic copy of your assignment on QMPlus which will be put through Turnitin, the plagiarism detection service.

Assessment details:

The assessment is a written individual essay, a Service Design Project, designed to explore a real-world problem or issue faced by an organisation in the service sector. This will test students’ acquisition of subject-specific knowledge and understanding, and their ability to apply relevant knowledge and skills.

The word count for this assessment is 2,000 words. This does not include reference lists and bibliographies. The stated word count may be exceeded by a maximum of 10% (200 words). Marks could be deducted if you overshoot this limit. 

You may use AI (artificial intelligence) tools in a limited capacity when planning your essay. The specific AI policy for this module is presented herein as well as on QMplus.

Individual Essay Structure

An underlying assumption of the services marketing module is that students learn best and retain more when they actively apply and work with the concepts presented in the course materials rather than simply read about them or hear the talk about the ideas. The purpose of this assignment is for you to apply concepts and tools learned in class to real situations. This assignment is designed to help students develop the ability to make marketing decisions in the services context, to support these decisions with appropriate analyses, and to learn to communicate their ideas coherently. By completing the assignments, you will learn to apply the concepts and models in practice, to critically analyse them and to discuss implications.

As a learning exercise in this module, you will design a new service or redesign an existing service. You are required to use the knowledge you developed on the key aspects of services marketing as discussed in the module. You are also expected to consolidate the range of skills that you possess to search for and analyse relevant information in order to evaluate different aspects of a service’s marketing strategy. In doing so, it will be necessary to use the relevant marketing theories as a platform. for the evaluation and to build on your critical thinking and creativity skills. 

There is no single ‘correct’ way to present the plan as it will vary according to the nature of the business in question. However, you could consider the following structure as your reference:

Title of new or redesign service 

· Creating a brand name is preferable

· Brand logo is preferable

Introduction

· Start with the business challenge in the market/industry that you aim to use your newly developed service to conquer/solve

· Introduce the service organisation of your choice 

· Support your justification with facts and figures with relevant references (e.g.industry, company, news sources) is preferable

Target market segment(s) & Position in the market:

· Describe the market segment(s) that you want to target

· How you want your service to be positioned relative to the competition
What type relationship you want to have with your target customers, and how.

· You should provide justification for why this service idea would be valued by your target and why your service will be able to serve the needs of this group better than competitors. Be sure that you sufficiently investigate competitors that exist.

· Support your justification with facts and figures with relevant references (e.g. industry, company, news sources) is preferable 

· You could integrate this part with introduction if that could increase readability and enhance logic

Proposed marketing mix:

· Just focus on the most relevant Ps to your service

· The key components of your service and all of your tactic decisions (the 7 Ps) should then be based on the above analysis of your market segment and positioning.

· Service delivery process and service recovery strategies:

– You should create a thorough service blueprint for your chosen organisationand make explanation of how it will work. If you are redesigning an existing service, you should also include a blueprint of the original service. You are required to relate and apply the service marketing principles such as service provision process, consumer experience, blueprinting, and service recovery. It is necessary that you should see yourself as a consultant that identifies problems involved in the consumer journey within a service sector and proposes alternatives that improve the consumer service experience.

· Physical evidence/ Servicescape

– What role does the servicescape play for this organisation’s services? How might the servicescape be used as a source of competitive advantage by the organisation?

· People:

– How to have suitable “people” in your service? How to create an effective and efficient working environment?

· Promotion:

– which communication media used to attract new consumers and retain loyal customers (e.g., touchpoints)?

· Other marketing mixes relevant to your (re)designed services?

Launch and implementation schedule

· Just 1-2 sentences to show your plan

· Aim of this part if to demonstrate the service is realistic and feasible

· If you could use other source of information to justify your launch and implementation schedule, this is preferable

Conclusion

· Just 1-2 sentences to summarize your service

· Discuss the implications of your services to service industry, local economy, targeted consumers, general public, etc.

· Discuss the limitations of your services and suggestions/recommendations to the
future services

References: Whenever you incorporate information from any articles or comments published in online or offline publications, you need to provide citation and a list of all cited references. Use the Harvard (or APA) Referencing System - for a guide see http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/harvard.htm or https://apastyle.apa.org/ 

Although primarily written for a business audience, your Service Design Project should nevertheless draw upon appropriate concepts/tools covered in the module, external data sources and your own further reading/research, all appropriately referenced.