Product-Service Marketing and the Differentiation of Goals Essay

Product-Service Marketing and the Differentiation of Goals - Essay Example According to most accounts in the literature there is no such thing as a pure good or a pure service. Physical goods may be as objects, material devices, or things, whereas services are defined as efforts or performances relative to a consumer’s stated needs. In these definitions, the obvious factors that differentiate goods from services are delineated. Goods are tangible and substantial. Services are intangible and immaterial. It should be noticed in this construction that goods are best defined positively by what they are materially, while services are defined by what they are not, by their ephemeral and impermanent nature. Too much can be made of this distinction. However, it does point to a central tendency within the marketing, sale, and maintenance of services that is critical to acknowledge. Marketing of services revolves largely around relationships and the variables that are attached to them, such as trust, ethics, and mutual benefit, while goods revolve around the d elivery of a specific material object. Of course, because there is no such thing as a pure good or service, the lines of distinction between the two concepts may be easy to blur. This is especially true in the modern marketplace in which a service economy often presents services as the primary fact of exchange. An example may shed light that will serve to differentiate the nature of the difference between goods and services. When a customer goes to purchase a car, the service that surrounds the customer’s experience of the car is critical to the buying decision. The offering and financing of the car through the sales experience and the maintenance of the car that follows post-sale may affect the customer’s enjoyment of the car to a degree that impacts on the customer’s decision to continue to do business with a given dealer. However, the customer is ultimately taking possession of a product that they will take home with them and become responsible for on a personal level. When a customer buys an airl ine ticket, on the other hand, the service that surrounds the experience of the trip is the ultimate and final value received. While the customer’s buying decision and value judgments may be influenced by the quality of the material meal served on the plane, for example, the customer takes possession of very little material benefit in the exchange, but rather benefits in the experience of getting from one place to another in the most convenient and enjoyable manner possible. The airline provides a service, with some minor goods afforded to support the buying experience. So, given these facts, is there anything that makes the marketing of an educational institution different as a service offered? For one possible answer to this question, consider that on a scale of tangible and intangible goods and services, teaching or education remains at the extreme ends of the intangible side. The value that is offered by the provider and received by the recipient in an educational environ ment revolves around psychological and sociological relationship variables. This is particularly true in a public school environment in which the customer is not only afforded the opportunity to participate in the service but compelled to do so. While there are