APPLIES TO ACADEMIC YEAR 2015/2016

GRA 6419 Service Marketing

Responsible for the course
Line Lervik-Olsen

Department
Department of Marketing

Term
According to study plan

ECTS Credits
6

Language of instruction
English

Introduction
Services dominate the global economy and are becoming critical for competitive advantage in companies across the globe and industry sectors. Thus, an understanding of the field of service marketing and its most recent advances is a prerequisite today for those who want to successfully pursue careers and manage businesses both in the private and public sector. The rapid infusion of technology into various industries has created new kinds of services that offer opportunities for service- and manufacturing organizations to enhance their relationships with customers. So has social media. Consequently, customers’ demands have changed. Customers now expect to interact with service providers in a multitude of ways in different channels posing new challenges on service marketing and its management.

Learning outcome

In this course students will learn how to deal with the challenges faced by service- and manufacturing organizations. In order to do so, the course provides in-depth knowledge about the key issues in service marketing, frameworks, strategies and tools to address the challenges of marketing and managing services, whether in a manufacturing or service context. How these concepts apply to social media and how social media will affect service marketing will be addressed throughout the course. Central to this course is critical thinking and reflection. The course builds on the key concepts taught in service management and similar bachelor level courses, but it does not require this particular background as a prerequisite.

Prerequisites

All courses in the Masters programme will assume that students have fulfilled the admission requirements for the programme. In addition, courses in second, third and/or fourth semester can have spesific prerequisites and will assume that students have followed normal study progression. For double degree and exchange students, please note that equivalent courses are accepted.

Compulsory reading

Collection of articles:
Articles will be selected from journals like the Journal of Service Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Service Management, etc. In addition students need to acquire a set of cases.

Other:
During the course there may be hand-outs and other material on additional topics relevant for the course and the examination.
In addition students need to acquire a set of cases.


Recommended reading
Books:
Wilson, Alan ... [et al.]. 2012. Services marketing : integrating customer focus across the firm. 2nd European ed. McGraw-Hill

Course outline

New paradigms in service marketing

Understanding the service marketing stakeholders

Designing the service performance and the service setting

Complaint management and service recovery

Social media and service marketing

Computer-based tools
Not applicable

Learning process and workload
A course of 6 ECTS credits corresponds to a workload of 160-180 hours.

The course will require the students to particpate actively as it is based on lectures, discussions, case analyses and presentations. Students need to be well-prepared for each session.

To facilitate discussion and learning for the case discussions students may be divided into two groups, if there is a need for that.

Please note that it is the student’s own responsibility to obtain any information provided in class that is not included on the course homepage/It's learning or text book.

Examination
The course grade will be based on the following activities and weights:
Individual performance and work:
Class participation: 15 %
Service watch presentation: 15%
Service encounter journal, written report: 20 %

Group projects:
Case presentation: 20 %
Term paper: Service Audit: 30 %

The individual performance will be evaluate in terms of participation (15 %), presentation of service watch (15%) and a written service encounter journal (20%).

The group projects consist of case presentation (20%) and a written term paper (30%) where the purpose is to conduct a service audit. The term paper has to be written in groups of 2-3 students.