Services marketing, once a tiny academic field championed by just a handful of pioneering professors, has become a thriving area of activity. Paralleling growing research efforts in both academia and business is increased student interest in taking courses that focus on different aspects of managing service organizations, including marketing. This make a lot of sense from a career standpoint, since most business school graduates will be going to work in service industries and managers report that manufacturing-based models of business practice are not always useful to them.

This book includes:
- a strong managerial orientation and strategic focus
- use of conceptual frameworks that have been classroom tested for relevance to both MBA students and executive seminar participants
- incorporation of key academic research finding
- use of interesting examples to link theory to practice
- inclusion of carefully selected reading and cases to accompany the text chapters.