Internal Marketing in Services Marketing
1. Introduction
The aim of the following essay is to present the importance of internal marketing in service product development. The first part of this essay will discuss the origin and growth of the concept of internal marketing. Then it will focus on the benefits of internal marketing. In the later part, it will demonstrate a specific case, Mary Kay, which has successfully implemented internal marketing.
It shall first briefly introduce fuzzy sets and related concepts. The concept of internal marketing originally emerged from the services marketing literature (Berry and Parasuraman, 1992). The term internal marketing is defined as the policy of treating employees as internal customers of the organization, responding to employees’ needs or wants and promoting the organization and its policies to the employees. Customer service is one of the most crucial aspects of an organization’s competitive advantage and it is the critical element which internal marketing influences, whatever business or industry the organization operates. Employees are the backbone of any business success and the service employee often represents the organization in the eyes of the customer, therefore, they need to be educated, motivated and maintained in organization at all cost to support the business or industry to be globally competitive.
The internal marketing concept is based on two assumptions. Firstly, every employee has his or her own customers in the organization. These customers are so-called internal customers. Secondly, employers need to treat employees as final customers and enjoy providing benefits and services for them, so as to satisfy them, and then, this will result in delivering better services to final customers in effective and efficient ways (Grönroos, 1990a, p.8). Therefore, it is important for employers to apply the marketing strategies and tools used for external and/or final customers to the internal customers. Internal marketing is the crucial strategy and
The aim of the following essay is to present the importance of internal marketing in service product development. The first part of this essay will discuss the origin and growth of the concept of internal marketing. Then it will focus on the benefits of internal marketing. In the later part, it will demonstrate a specific case, Mary Kay, which has successfully implemented internal marketing.
It shall first briefly introduce fuzzy sets and related concepts. The concept of internal marketing originally emerged from the services marketing literature (Berry and Parasuraman, 1992). The term internal marketing is defined as the policy of treating employees as internal customers of the organization, responding to employees’ needs or wants and promoting the organization and its policies to the employees. Customer service is one of the most crucial aspects of an organization’s competitive advantage and it is the critical element which internal marketing influences, whatever business or industry the organization operates. Employees are the backbone of any business success and the service employee often represents the organization in the eyes of the customer, therefore, they need to be educated, motivated and maintained in organization at all cost to support the business or industry to be globally competitive.
The internal marketing concept is based on two assumptions. Firstly, every employee has his or her own customers in the organization. These customers are so-called internal customers. Secondly, employers need to treat employees as final customers and enjoy providing benefits and services for them, so as to satisfy them, and then, this will result in delivering better services to final customers in effective and efficient ways (Grönroos, 1990a, p.8). Therefore, it is important for employers to apply the marketing strategies and tools used for external and/or final customers to the internal customers. Internal marketing is the crucial strategy and
References: 1. Berry, L.L. & Parasuraman, A. (1992) Prescriptions for a service quality revolution in America. Organisational Dynamics, Spring, pp. 176 2. Berry, L.L. (1981), “The Employee As Customer”, Journal Of Retail Banking, Vol.3, March, Pp 25-80. 3. Dunne, P. A.& Barnes, J. G. (2000), Internal Marketing – A relationships and value-creation view, in: Varey, R. J., Lewis, B. R. (ed.), Internal Marketing: Directions for Management, Routledge, Londo 4. Grönroos, C. (1981), “Internal marketing - an integral part of marketing theory”, In Donnelly, J.H. and George, W.R. (Eds.), Marketing of Services, American Marketing Association, Chicago 5. Grönroos, C. (1990a), “Relationship approach to marketing in service contexts: the marketing and organizational behaviour interface”, Journal of Business Research, Vol 20 No 1, pp.3-11 6. Fisk. R., Gountas. S., Hume. M., Gountas. J., Grove. S. & John. J. (2007) Services Marketing. 7. http://mkt.icxo.com/htmlnews/2006/07/06/873993_3.htm