Services Marketing

The services marketing cases cover three key service marketing issues: (1) customer-perceived service quality; (2) customer-centric service strategies; and (3) new service development strategies. The first case is about customer perceptions of service quality as conceived and operationalized by InterContinental Dhaka, an international chain and one of the largest hotels in Bangladesh. This case highlights the efforts made by the hotel chain to understand and analyze the dimensions of the services used by customers while assessing the quality of hotel services. The case also delineates the factors contributing toward customer satisfaction, types of service encounters, and service innovations taking place in the chain hotel service landscape while operating in a developing country context like Bangladesh. COVID-19 pandemic-induced changed service perspectives are also highlighted in the case. The second case is on the local airline services industry of Bangladesh. The case highlights the complex services landscape of the airline industry of Bangladesh operated by one state-owned airline and three other private airlines––Biman Bangladesh Airlines, US-Bangla Airlines, Novoair, and Air Astra, respectively. The aspects of customer-centric service strategies adopted by the industry are highlighted in this case. Insights on both positive and negative aspects of service evaluation by customers are presented. The case also explains the driving factors of passengers’ loyalty toward domestic airlines where customers prioritized personal factors over service quality and price. The third case focuses on three new services that are developed as an outcome of the reciprocal relationship between societal and technological change in the context of Bangladesh. Super Home BD is one of such new shared living services to serve the existing market vacuum of safe and well-managed living spaces for individuals. This shared living service highlights the emergence of a price-sensitive customer segment that prioritizes service quality over price. Hellotask is another new service that provides on-demand housemaid services to the household. What factors led to the introduction of such on-demand housemaid services in the context of the cheap and available labor market of Bangladesh are discussed in this case. The third new service is about Furryghor which provides the first-ever professional pet hotel services in Bangladesh. It highlights how technological paradoxes and changing family composition are pushing the demand for pet hostels, pet medical care, and pet-friendly cafes in a developing country like Bangladesh.