Services marketing for the enlightened manager

A marketing focus emphasizes the customer's perspective rather than the supplier's internal perspective. The needs of the customer determine what services are brought to the market and how they are supplied, marketed, and sold. The marketing orientation differs drastically from the production orientation on a number of key sales and marketing criteria. For example, technical innovation is seen as a means of locating new opportunities for firms with a marketing orientation, whereas a firm with production orientation sees innovation as a mechanism for cutting costs. Biomedical equipment service managers who adopt these marketing principles understand the subtle differences between products and services, and in doing so have become enlightened marketers. Enlightened service marketers define and articulate their services to the customer and provide the customer with good knowledge of the service(s) to be delivered, before they are actually delivered. The customer is able to achieve a comfort level with the service provided before it is provided.