Learning Objectives:

• Outline the basic differences between goods and services and the resulting challenges and opportunities for service businesses.
• Introduce the expanded marketing mix for services and the philosophy of customer focus as powerful frameworks and themes that are fundamental to the rest of the text.

Discussion:

One of the underlying frameworks for the text is the expanded marketing mix for services. Discuss why one of the three new mix elements (process, people, and physical evidence) is included. How might each of these communicate with or help to satisfy an organization's customers?