ISBN0072961945

Essentially everything that marketers do over the Internet, from the ASP to the online retailer, is a service. Services marketers face unique challenges. Today's electronic marketer will find useful lessons in the services marketing literature. You will find either Valarie Zeithaml or Mary Jo Bitner in the byline of almost every important piece of research on services marketing published in the 1990s. Together, they have produced a textbook that is very much worthy of their reputations.

This book is fairly comprehensive, although it does not include Bitner's most recent work on consumer response to self-service technologies. Still, as an electronic marketer reads through this book, they cannot help but find themselves asking new questions about their business and how they can make it better. The book is a relatively easy read, and it is not overly academic--the theories and frameworks presented are simply tools that lead to practical solutions to real problems. There are many examples in the text; often, the company is familiar but the business practices described here are not so well known.

I strongly recommend this book to e-marketers.

First of all, I like the structure of this book because it uses Gap Model to connect the content of the whole book. At the begining of this book, it first introduces the importance and tools of service marketing. Then it chooses Gap Model to divide this book into different parts. Under different gap problem, the book shows the ways to close the gap. I believe this structure helps to understand more easily and relate what should be done under different problems.

Secondly, many diagrams are used to describe the concept under service marketing. Service blueprint in the chapter 6 is a good example. It uses diagrams to explain how to draw, how to read and how to use the service blueprint. It is very clear and useful to explain in this way.

However, there are still some drawbacks. For example, when talking about the different kinds of strategies used under service marketing, sometimes the explanation is too simple and not in depth.

The book is very clear in the format and structure. It talks about the solutions of the problems arising in service marketing step by step. It first describes what service is and the increasing importance of service. Then, it puts much emphasis on people, the very important marketing mix in service. It focuses on customers: how customers perceive and expect service. Next, it focuses on providers: how companies know what customers expect; how they select the right service designs and standards; how they deliver service to standards and how they match performance to promising.

It is also good to have a very detailed example (case) in the beginning of each chapter and the content will very often refer to that example, which make me easier to understand. But sometimes, I think it would be better if more different examples are used in the same chapter.

Besides, the GLOBAL FEATURE, the TECHNOLOGY SPOTLIGHT and the EXHIBIT make the book even more fruitful and let me know more about the related areas under that topic. Great!

As a former student of Dr. Bitner, her course and this book made up the foundation that the Services Marketing and Management MBA program at Arizona State Uni. built from. It's an extensive review of how customers are the most important part to a service oriented business, and to neglect them at any touch point is a service failure.
This book will outline the process by which any company, be it real or virtual, can develop world class service.
This book and the SMM program at Arizona State University are highly recommended.

For online marketing, this book is one of the better ones on the bookshelf. The case studies are excellent and engaging, although the rest of the book was lengthy and difficult to read and retain over the course of a semester. This book, like most textbooks, could sacrifice some of its content for the sake of brevity.