IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICE PROVIDERS

Services are everywhere we turn, whether it be travel to an exotic tourism destination, a visit to the doctor, a church service, a trip to the bank, ameeting with an insurance agent, a meal at our favorite restaurant, or a day at school. More and more countries, particularly the called industrialized countries, are finding that the majority of their gross domestic products are generated by their service sectors. However, the growth of the service sector does not just lie within traditional service industries such as leisure and hospitality services, education and health services, financial and insurance services, and professional and business services. Traditional goods producers such as automotive, computer, and numerous other manufacturers are now turning to the service aspects of their operations to establish a differential advantage in the marketplace as well as to generate additional sources of revenue for their firms. In essence, these companies, which used to compete by marketing “boxes” (tangible goods), have now switched their competitive focus to the provision of unmatched, unparalleled customer services.

Professional service providers often experience their own distinct challenges that may be tempered by the development of an effective communications program. Specifically, the 10 most frequent problems encountered include:

• Third-Party Accountability. Investors, insurance companies, banks, governmental agencies, and even members of their own professions often hold professional service providers accountable for their actions or at least monitor those actions. Creating credibility and projecting the image of a quality firm to third parties can be accomplished through the firm’s communications mix, thereby minimizing excessive scrutiny by outside parties. Communication strategies that come to mind include conducting business seminars, giving speeches, and writing trade articles. Business seminars in the professional’s area of specialization demonstrate the provider’s expertise not only to potential and existing clients, but also to interested third parties, particularly other industry members. Speeches to local civic organizations as well as national conventions spotlight the firm’s talents and further enhance the firm’s image. Reprints of articles should be included in company newsletters and sent to appropriate audiences.
• Client Uncertainty. Many professional services are costly, associated with danger or importance, and, in some cases, technical and specialized, making them difficult for the customer/client to understand. Effective communications can communicate the procedures involved, show the likely outcomes (managing consumer expectations), answer consumers’ common questions, and/or minimize consumers’ areas of concern. For example, many surgical centers now send patients informational pamphlets or direct patients to video-ready websites that describe and/or illustrate surgical procedures prior to the patient’s scheduled appointment.
• Experience Is Essential. Effective marketing communications are successful in attracting and maintaining the customer base. The opening of a new doctor’s office is not greeted with nearly the same enthusiasm as a new restaurant. The more professional the service, the more the service provider’s years or quality of experience matters to potential customers. Once again, the value of offering seminars, membership in local organizations, speaking at civic functions or on talk radio pro-grams, and writing articles for local consumption are the great icebreakers.
• Limited Differentiability. As the level of competition increases among professional service providers, differentiation among providers decreases as they match one an-other’s offerings with comparable alternatives. Marketing communications that differentiate the provider on factors beyond the mere service product itself, such as personnel, customer service, and image, must be communicated to the marketplace to set the provider apart from the crowd.
• Maintaining Quality Control. Because the consumer is part of the service production process, he or she ultimately has a large amount of control over the quality of the final outcome. Communication that stresses importance of following the professional’s advice and its relationship to achieving positive outcomes educates the consumer about the importance of his or her own role in the service delivery system. Physicians who need their patients to follow specific diets or exercise plans to improve their health are classic examples.
• Turning Doers into Sellers. In many Instances, the employment of outside sales representatives to market professional services to clientele is inappropriate and ineffective. Client uncertainty dictates that the professional provider him/herself must become actively involved in the sales process to reassure clients and minimize their fears. Ultimately, no one should be able to sell the available service better than the provider should. However, as discussed earlier, while some providers thrive on making sales, many other providers feel uncomfortable when thrust into the sales spotlight.
• The Challenge of Dividing the Professional’s Time between Marketing and Providing Services. Directly related to the previous point is the problem associated with the professional provider becoming too involved in the personal selling component of the firm’s communication mix. Professionals generate revenues by billing for the time that they are servicing existing customers. Marketing activities not only consume a portion of the professional’s billable hours, but the professional does not get paid directly for the time spent conducting marketing efforts. As a result, the professional must decide how much personal time to allocate to marketing activities and how to divide that time between cultivating new prospects, maintaining relationships with existing clients, and involvement in more general public relations work this is not an easy task.
• Tendencies to Be Reactive Rather than Proactive. The pressure of everyday business cuts into the amount of time the professional can devote to marketing activities. Existing customers demand the attention of the provider in the short run by expecting services to be delivered in an expedient manner. As a result, many professionals find themselves in a reactive mode as they search out new business when existing business transactions end. This creates the unenviable position of attempting to run a business while moving from one client to the next. Often, slack time develops be-tween clients, which negatively affects the cash flow of the operation, not to mention placing increased pressure on the anxious provider and their employee workforce looking for new clients.
• The Effects of Advertising Are Unknown. Consumer groups are particularly advocating that professional service providers engage in active marketing communications. Consumer advocates believe that an increase in communication efforts will provide consumers with much needed information and increase the level of competition among providers.
• Professional Providers Have a Limited Marketing Knowledge Base. As business students, many of the terms you take for granted, such as market segments, target markets, marketing mix variables, and differentiation and positioning strategies, are foreign to many professional service providers. Professional service providers are trained to perform their technical duties effectively. For example, lawyers attend law schools, physicians attend medical schools, dentists attend dental schools, and veterinarians attend veterinary schools. What do all these professional providers have in common when they go into practice for themselves? They all run businesses, yet they have no formal business educational backgrounds. Due to a limited marketing knowledge base, professional service providers are often tempted to develop the firm’s communication mix in isolation, without regard to the firm’s overall marketing strategy. Ultimately, the firm’s communications mix should be consistent with targeted consumer expectations and synergistic with other elements in the marketing mix.

References:

1. K. Douglas Hoffman, Professor of Marketing, University Distinguished Teaching Scholar Colorado State University, “Services Marketing Concepts, Strategies and Cases”, 2011
2. Benjamin Schneider and David E. Bowen, Winning the Service Game (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1995) pp. 1–16.
3. This section was adapted from John E. G. Bateson, Managing Services Marketing, 3rd ed. (Fort Worth, TX: The Dryden Press, 1995) pp. 636–645.
4. Bateson, Managing Services Marketing, pp. 636–645.