MKTG2023 Services Marketing

How MKTG2023 is assessed

All six weights come from the assessment summary in the Semester 2, 2026 Class Summary and total 100%. Task 4 splits 15% for the report and 5% for the reflective post-review, and Task 6 splits 10% for the group presentation and 10% for the individual oral defence. The course has no final examination. For the Task 1 critiques, the Class Summary gives 23:59 on Wednesdays, Canvas announcements gave 23:00 for the first two, and the instruction sheet gave 10:00 am on Tuesdays, so the Canvas assignment page is the one to follow. Rubrics are released on Canvas at least two weeks before each due date.

Current MKTG2023 dates

Dates are as published in the assessment summary and task descriptions in the Semester 2, 2026 Class Summary. Confirm exact deadlines and submission settings in the live LMS.

What MKTG2023 covers

Ten chapters follow the first six weeks of teaching, from services and service-dominant logic to frontline technology, and two more cover the reading critiques and the group projects.

The course description says it builds your ability to design, run, judge and improve services in an economy where AI, data and platforms increasingly sit between firms and customers.

It starts from the idea that buying a service is renting access to skills, space or systems, then works through the IHIP characteristics, the extended marketing mix and Vargo and Lusch’s service-dominant logic, in which value is co-created in use.

How the weeks build

Week 2 follows the customer from prepurchase through the encounter to post-encounter evaluation and the wider customer journey, then turns to segmentation, focus, positioning maps and value propositions.

Week 3 covers service products, brands and new service development, then AI personalisation and the design of service-script prompts under Australia’s AI ethics principles. Week 4 covers distribution through physical, digital and platform channels and the sharing economy, Week 5 pricing and revenue management, and Week 6 communications and frontline service technology.

Later weeks cover servicescape, service processes, people, relationships, recovery and service excellence.

How it is taught and assessed

Lectures are pre-recorded and seminars run as interactive, Socratic problem-solving sessions, with AI treated as both a tool and something to interrogate. There is no final examination.

Assessment is six tasks: three evidence-based reading critiques, an AI-augmented service audit, a group blueprint and servicescape lab, a simulated consulting capstone, a peer review, and a community improvement sprint presented by the group and defended by each member in person. Every task carries a Green, Amber or Red rating for generative AI, and disclosure is compulsory wherever AI is allowed.

Worked example · free

Compare utilisation and RevPAST for two clinic pricing options

Key terms

IHIP Characteristics

Intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability and perishability, the four features most often used to explain why services are harder to market than goods.

Non-Ownership View

Definition of a service as rental: the customer buys temporary access to labour, skills, space, objects or systems rather than taking ownership of anything.

Service-Dominant Logic

Vargo and Lusch’s view that all exchange is service exchange and that value is co-created by the beneficiary in use, coordinated through institutions.

Productisation

Systematic packaging of a service with a defined scope, standard process, fixed price and stated deliverables so that it behaves more like a product.

Operant Resources

Knowledge and skills that act on other resources; service-dominant logic treats them as the fundamental source of strategic benefit.

Credence Attributes

Qualities of a service that customers find hard to judge even after consumption, such as the soundness of legal advice or surgery.

Determinant Attributes

Attributes on which customers see real differences between competitors and which therefore decide the purchase, unlike merely important ones.

Positioning Map

Chart that plots competing services on two determinant attributes to show crowded positions, direct rivals and unoccupied white space.

Flower of Service

Model of a service product as a core benefit surrounded by four facilitating and four enhancing supplementary services.

Relationalisation

Personalising the relationship rather than the output, responding to emotion and building rapport over time; Huang and Rust link it to feeling AI.

Sharing Economy

Scalable system in which technology-enabled platforms give users temporary access to resources, often crowdsourced from many independent providers.

Rate Fence

Rule or physical difference, such as advance purchase or seat class, that lets customers self-select into different prices for the same capacity.

RevPAST

Revenue earned for each unit of space and time on offer, the revenue management measure that judges capacity by money earned rather than by fullness.

Frontline Service Technology

Hardware, software, information or networks that support value co-creation between provider and customer at the frontline, either augmenting or substituting people.

MKTG2023 FAQ

Questions students ask in each MKTG2023 chapter

What does it mean that a service is a form of rental?

It means the customer pays for temporary access rather than ownership. You hire people’s labour and expertise, use a physical object or space, or reach shared facilities and networks for a time. Because nothing changes hands, what you judge is the performance itself, which is why services are described as performances rather than things. Chapter 01 · Services, IHIP and the Extended Marketing Mix

Is productisation the same thing as servitisation?

No. Productisation moves a service toward a standardised, packaged offer, such as a fixed-fee audit. Servitisation goes the other way: a goods firm wraps its product in ongoing service, such as engine maintenance sold by the hour. The lecture treats them as two sides of the same convergence between goods and services. Chapter 02 · Productisation and Service-Dominant Logic

Why do service customers rely so much on reviews and word of mouth?

Because many service qualities cannot be inspected before purchase. Experience attributes are only known during or after use, and credence attributes may never be judged with confidence, so customers reduce perceived risk by borrowing other people’s experience. The more credence a service carries, the heavier that reliance becomes. Chapter 03 · Service Consumers and the Customer Journey

What is the difference between important and determinant attributes?

Important attributes matter to customers but may not separate the options, because every provider offers them. Determinant attributes are those on which customers see real differences and which decide the purchase. Segmentation and positioning maps should use determinant attributes; the workshop handout calls confusing the two the most common error. Chapter 04 · Positioning Services and Value Propositions

What is the difference between facilitating and enhancing petals?

Facilitating petals, information, order-taking, billing and payment, are needed for the core service to be delivered at all. Enhancing petals, consultation, hospitality, safekeeping and exceptions, add value and appeal. Both matter, because the lecture stresses that a wilted or missing petal damages how customers see the whole flower. Chapter 05 · Service Products, Brands and New Service Development

Which AI intelligence suits the hospitality petal?

Feeling AI, or a person. Hospitality is an emotional petal, and the lecture warns that current tools only imitate empathy by running thinking AI on emotional data. Customers pull back once a bot seems to lack empathy, so the course recommends humans or feeling-augmented tools for high-emotion, high-lifetime-value moments. Chapter 06 · AI Personalisation and Service Script Prompts

What are the three ways services reach customers?

The customer can visit the service site, as with clinics and restaurants, where location and hours matter most. The provider can come to the customer, as with plumbing or home care, which costs more. Or the transaction can be remote, through mail, phone or mostly the internet, when nothing tangible needs to move. Chapter 07 · Distribution Channels and International Entry

Is every company with customer ratings part of the sharing economy?

No. Reputation systems are typical of sharing-economy firms but do not define them, and the lecture’s example is an online auction marketplace that uses ratings yet is not part of the sharing economy. Classification depends on the five defining characteristics, tested one at a time. Chapter 08 · Platforms and the Sharing Economy

How do you calculate break-even volume for a service?

Work out contribution per unit, which is price minus variable cost, then divide fixed plus semi-variable costs by that contribution. The lecture’s example divides $2 million of annual costs by a $100 contribution per room-night to give 20,000 room-nights. Any discount lowers contribution and pushes break-even volume up. Chapter 09 · Service Pricing and Revenue Management

Why is communicating a service harder than communicating a product?

You cannot photograph a promise. Services are intangible, customers co-produce them, their attributes are hard to judge before purchase, capacity cannot be stored, and the frontline employee is part of the product. Each feature needs a response, from tangible cues and testimonials to education and messages that shift demand across time. Chapter 10 · Communications and Frontline Service Technology

How should a 500-word critique be divided?

The instruction sheet suggests about 120 to 150 words on the theoretical contribution, 150 to 180 on methodology, 150 to 180 on generalisability to Australian contexts, and 20 to 40 words for a concluding judgement. The convener later asked that no more than 20 to 25% of the words be summary. Chapter 11 · Writing the Evidence-Based Reading Critiques

What does benchmarking AI insights against human interpretation mean in Task 2?

It means comparing what your sentiment and topic analysis tool reports with what you conclude from reading the reviews yourself, and explaining where they agree and differ. The task rates AI Green because it is the analytical engine, but the prompts log must show iterative refinement and checks for accuracy, bias and hallucination. Chapter 12 · The Service Audit, Blueprint Lab and Capstone

How to prepare for the assessments

Treat each week as a loop: watch the pre-recorded lecture, read the chapter and the article, then use the seminar to apply them, because the seminar activities assume you have done all three. After each seminar, write one paragraph naming the framework you used, the case facts it explained and the judgement it led to; that paragraph is the raw material for every written task.

For the critiques, read your assigned article yourself first, note its claims, method and limits, and only then draft, keeping summary to a quarter of the words. For the group tasks, keep the Week 4 workshop templates, observe your provider for the full two hours, and tie each fail-point to a theory.

Keep a running prompts log from the first time you use AI, with the prompts copied exactly, because reconstructing it later is what the convener flagged. Before the oral defence, make sure you can explain every part of the group project in your own words.

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