Chapter 12: Services and Nonprofit Organization Marketing
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clients initially. We also have college transportation available if needed, but it has not been
necessary to use it. The emphasis on the practical application of some marketing topics does
mean that some areas/chapters you would normally cover during a semester are slighted. I would
be happy to discuss this project’s positive and negative aspects with anyone who would like to
call me. I can also provide a sample syllabus, handouts, and forms so you don’t have to reinvent
the wheel.
Overall, my experiences with service learning projects have been positive. Service learning
projects do require more work on the professor’s part, but they have resulted in very positive
experiences and teaching evaluations. The students have almost uniformly felt that the extra
work is well worth it. Client agencies have been pleased with the results of the projects, and 99
percent have indicated that they would like to have another group work with them. If you have
small classes and some support, I recommend this project highly.
Allan C. Reddy, Valdosta State University
A Live Project for Services Marketing Course
Teaching the Services Marketing course can be an interesting and rewarding experience with a
live class project included along with the typical lecture, test, and term paper format. A project
that involves student participation invariably creates more enthusiasm about the course among
the students. Also, it cultivates a group spirit or camaraderie in them.
As part of the learning process, students in my Services Marketing course evaluate two similar
service establishments in the area. For convenience, we choose any two identical restaurants in
the area—for example, Red Lobster and Ruby Tuesday or Applebee’s. The students will first
establish the goals for the project and then choose variables they wish to measure and the
measuring instrument they want to use. Once this is done, each student is equipped with two
copies of the measuring instrument—one for each restaurant.
Typically, the project goals center on measuring service quality, price, speed of service, and so
forth. Often, the measurement instrument is the Semantic Differential method with ten bipolar
adjectives reflecting potency (ambience), competency (service quality), and evaluative (food
quality) dimensions. The students visit these restaurants in two- or three-member groups and eat
there to evaluate the restaurants on ten determined semantic differential scales. They will include
items such as food quality, variety, price, service quality, atmosphere, furniture, location, layout,
speed of service, and cleanliness, to be ranked on a seven-point scale (1 being good and 7 being
bad).
These values are totaled in class followed by a good class discussion on what is wrong with each