The new totally revised 8th edition of Services Marketing by Wirtz/Lovelock is out.
Contents: Creating and marketing value in today’s increasingly service and knowledge-intensive economy requires an understanding of the powerful design and packaging of ‘intangible’ benefits and products, high-quality service operations and customer information management processes, motivated and competent front-line employees, a loyal and profitable customer base, and the development and implementation of a coherent service strategy to transform these assets into improved business performance. This book provides the tools and insights to do this and is targeted at readers who want a wider managerial view of services marketing and management.
Key features: A strong managerial perspective, yet it is rooted in solid academic research; an overall organizing framework for the entire book and one for each chapter; succinct chapter summaries in bullet points; reprinted or access to 32 teaching cases (incl five HBS case studies); full color print; attractively priced paperback version that is also available in the US; low-priced e-book rental version will be released shortly.
Download: Table of Contents, Sample Chapter & Sample Case
Available @ Amazon
Desk review copy: If you are an academic and would like to receive a desk review copy, please contact me using your university email address with your address line and link to your university URL. You can contact me at jochen@nus.edu.sg or the publisher at wychin@wspc.com
Now in its 8th edition, this text has sold some 800,000 copies globally in all its versions. Translations and/or adaptations are available for key countries in the Americas (incl. Brazil, Canada and Mexico), Europe (incl. France, Italy, Macedonia, Portugal, Russia, Spain, The Netherlands), Asia (incl. China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Taiwan), and Australia/New Zealand.
I am interested to know what are the differences between the 7th & 8th edition.
Dear Dr Russell,
Thank you for your question. The 7th edition is quite old (published in 2010) and a lot of research was published since, many new business models and companies grew rapidly (AirBnB, Uber, etc), and all this has been included into the new edition.
I list the key differences in contents and structure below, but let me highlight two changes I personally am most excited about. First, we added an organizational framework to each chapter (see page 6 in the sample chapter (http://bizfaculty.nus.edu/media_rp/publications/2q5T41463916181.pdf) . This framework provides quick but also quite comprehensive overview of the contents and key line of argument of that chapter.
Second, I really like that the publisher spared no expenses in the design of the book — it is now full color and contains a lot of expensive copyrighted materials (incl 5 HBS cases, great visuals and spot on cartoons).
Additional differences include:
• Almost all chapters are now structured around an organizing framework that provides a pictorial overview of the chapter’s contents and line of argument.
• New applications of technology are integrated throughout the text, ranging from apps, M-commerce and social networks, to robots, artificial intelligence and biometrics.
• Each of the 15 chapters has been revised. All chapters incorporate new examples and references to recent research. Significant changes in chapter content are highlighted below.
• Chapter 1 “Creating Value in the Service Economy” now explores the nature of the modern service economy more deeply, and covers B2B services, outsourcing and offshoring. The Service–Profit Chain, featured in Chapter 15 in the previous editions, was moved here to serve as a guiding framework for the book.
• Chapter 2 “Understanding Service Consumers” covers the post-consumption behaviors, including service quality, its dimensions and measurement (SERVQUAL), and how quality relates to customer loyalty. This was in Chapter 14 in the previous edition.
• Chapter 7 “Service Marketing Communications” is now tightly organized around the 5 Ws model, a new section on the services marketing communications funnel was added, and the coverage of new media (including social media, mobile, apps, and QR codes) are significantly expanded.
• Chapter 8 “Designing Service Processes” has a new section on emotionprints, and covers service blueprinting in more detail.
• Chapter 11 “Managing People for Service Advantage” has new sections on a service-oriented culture and how to build a climate for service, a section on effective leadership in service organization and leadership styles. Part of this content was previously covered in Chapter 15 in the previous editions.
• Chapter 14 “Improving Service Quality and Productivity” now integrates key concepts in the main body of the chapter instead of including them in the Appendix as seen in the previous editions. They are TQM, ISO 9000, Six Sigma and the Malcolm-Baldrige and EFQM.
• Chapter 15 “Building a World Class Service Organization” was completely restructured to provide a recap and integration of key themes of this book. It now features an auditing tool to assess the service level of an organization. It emphasizes on the impact of customer satisfaction on long-term profitability, and closes with a call to action.
Finally, perhaps as important as the changes in contents is the change in pricing. We cut the price in the US by over 80% compared to the 7th edition. The 7th edition was over $240; the 8th edition is available for below $30 in Kindle format and below $50 in softcover (Amazon has discounted the book heavily – see: https://www.amazon.com/Services-Marketing-People-Technology-Strategy-ebook/dp/B01DLYEZLG?ie=UTF8&me=&ref_=mt_kindle . I don’t know whether this matters for your adoption decision, but I trust students would be grateful for a lower-cost text.
We aim to shake up the textbook pricing market a bit – see a half page editorial in the Financial Times on this topic: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/financial-times-textbook-pricing-jochen-wirtz?trk=prof-post
If you have any further questions, please email me at jochen@nus.edu.sg. We’d be happy to send you a desk review copy.
Best wishes,
Jochen
Dear Jochen,
This is Syed Abdul Basit (Adjunct Faculty at Institute of Business Management, visit http://www.iobm.edu.pk for further details). My major areas of expertise are in technology innovation, entrepreneurship and marketing.
I used to teach Telecom Marketing using Services Marketing 6E written by you and Christopher Lovelock. Recently, I come across with a latest edition of this book, i.e. 8th edition.
I would appreciate if you can send me the desk review copy.
Dear Syed,
Good to hear from you! I had a look at the institutions website but could not locate your address and email. Could you please send me an email to jochen@nus.edu.sg with your shipping details and we will send you a copy.
Best wishes,
Jochen