Services Marketing [Hardcover]

Valarie Zeithaml (Author), Mary Jo Bitner (Author), Dwayne D. Gremler (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0072471425 | ISBN-13: 978-0072471427 | Publication Date: July 16, 2002 | Edition: 3

SERVICES MARKETING, 3/e, by Zeithaml and Bitner provides a comprehensive review and analysis of services marketing issues, practice, and strategy. Utilizing the GAPS Model of Service Quality as an organizing framework the structure of the text offers part openers that sequentially build the model gap by gap. Each part of the book includes multiple chapters with strategies for understanding and closing the critical gaps. Customer behavior, expectations, and perceptions are discussed early in the text to form the basis for understanding services marketing strategy and the managerial content, in the rest of the text, is framed by the GAPS model. Additionally, the authors continue to refine conceptual frameworks for developing effective services marketing strategy and have incorporated more coverage of the use of technology and business-to-business applications in this edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Valerie Zeithaml (Chapel Hill, NC) is a consultant with Strategy Management Implementation.

Mary Bitner (Mesa, AZ) teaches at Arizona State University-Tempe.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 688 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Irwin; 3 edition (July 16, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0072471425
• ISBN-13: 978-0072471427
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 8.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,275,211 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An important book for electronic marketers, June 28, 2001

By 

Edward E. Rigdon (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Services Marketing (Hardcover)

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.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, December 26, 2002

By 

"scmatasu" (NY/NJ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Services Marketing (Hardcover)

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.

5.0 out of 5 stars Fundamental text to know about Services Marketing, November 25, 2009

By 

Subrata Chattopadhyay - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Services Marketing (Hardcover)

This is a wonderful text to know the fundamentals of Services Marketing. Everywhere we see mess ups in service delivery. Awareness of the basic concepts presented herein will help avoid many a pitfall and also help pave the way for a win-win situation in services marketing.
This book presents the GAPS model very lucidly and provides many case studies to clarify the concepts.
A great investment to learn about this important component of the economy.