Relationships are the most important element in the service sector. It is these interactions that keep the conversation going and understanding what is exactly needed from the customers and the other stakeholders in this.
To understand this better, we take the help of the service marketing triangle to provide services to the customers who require our services. Marketing completely depends on the interaction going on between the customer and the service provider.
A service triangle visually reinforces the importance of people in the ability of firms to keep their promises and succeed in building customer relationships. The triangle shows the three interlinked groups that work together to develop, promote and deliver services.
These key players are labeled on the points of the triangle: the company, the customers, and the providers (can be employees, subcontractors, outsourced entities). Three types of marketing must be successfully carried out for a service to succeed: external marketing, interactive marketing, and internal marketing. All three sides are essential to complete the whole and the sides of the triangle should be aligned.
Internal Marketing – Internal communications from senior managers to their employees play a vital role in maintaining and nurturing a corporate culture founded on specific service values. Well-planned internal marketing efforts are especially necessary for large service businesses that operate in widely dispersed sites. Effective internal communications can help ensure efficient and satisfactory service delivery; achieve productive and harmonious working relationships; and build employee trust, respect, and loyalty.
External marketing – is the interaction of the service company with the target market. External marketing includes all such communication campaigns by the service provider which inform, educate, persuade, train and influence the customers to purchase services. Participation ability, skill, involvement, and moods and emotions depend on the way the consumers are informed, educated, and trained through external marketing. One of the major sources of the image in the building is the communication campaign launched by the service provider.
Interactive marketing – Interactive marketing may be defined as the managerial process through which a series of interactions between the service provider and consumer are organized to facilitate efficient participation in service production and consumption and create positive customer-perceived quality. It takes place between contact employees of the service company and service consumers. The actual process of service production, delivery, and consumption takes place simultaneously during the interactions of contact employees and consumers. A customer’s perceived quality ultimately is the result of the interactive process. The service process is part of interactive marketing.
The service marketing triangle is an excellent representation of all the interactions that happen within a services sector, and accordingly how different forms of marketing can be used based on the interactions happening.