1.
Ming-hsu Chang
– Taiwan
2.
Hsiao-i Hou
– Taiwan
3.
Dung-chun Tsai
– Taiwan
Abstract
Service organizations are shifting toward investing more of their budget for sales
promotional techniques rather than advertising because they tend to yield quicker
and more measurable profits. Kindel (1993) reported that some organizations in service
industries are allocating up to 75% of their budget to sales promotions, including
designing and distributing coupons to the market. Normally, there are three major
differences between service industries and packaged goods companies: (1) “finished”
services cannot be inventoried, so unused productive capacity is perishable, (2) except
for repair and maintenance, there are normally no physical distribution channels
for services, and (3) there is direct personal contact with customers. Thus, service
promotions are harder to implement than packaged goods promotions because it is
more time-consuming and expensive to communicate their existence to consumers
(Lovelock & Quelch, 1983). How to choose an effective promotional technique and
to operate it well are important issues for service industries
