Principles of Service Marketing and Management

This clear, accessible book presents an integrated approach to the study of services that places marketing issues within a broader general management context. It emphasizes the fact that service organizations differ in many important respects from manufacturing businesses, requiring a distinctive approach to planning and implementing marketing strategy. The text includes a strong managerial orientation and strategic focus, use of memorable and conceptual frameworks, references to both recent and classic research findings, use of interesting examples linking theory to practice, and nine classroom-tested cases. Key chapters define services and their importance to the economy, focus on understanding service processes, explore technology and service design and delivery, and look at marketing's role in the service firm. For service managers facing varied challenges in different service settings.

Lauren Wright is a professor and former marketing department chair at California State University Chico. In 1998, she was a visiting faculty fellow at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.Winner of several awards for outstanding undergraduate teaching, Lauren has been recognized as a Master Teacher at CSU Chico and consults with faculty campus-wide on effective teaching techniques. Her name is listed in the 1998 publication Who's Who Among America's Teachers and Strathmore's Who's Who for 1999-2000. She is past chair of the American Marketing Association's Special Interest Group for Services Marketing (SERVSIG), founded the annual SERVSIG Doctoral Consortium, and has served as research director for the International Service Quality Association. She has published numerous articles on service quality, new service success, business process redesign, and innovative teaching pedagogies and has presented her research findings at many national and international conferences. She holds a BS from the University of Oregon and MBA and PhD degrees from Pennsylvania State University, where she won the Marketing Science Doctoral Dissertation Award for her work on the factors affecting new service success.