This fully updated third edition examines customer management in service competition and focuses on adopting a service logic in marketing. Christian Gronroos explains how to manage any organization as a service business, showing how to move closer to current and future customers. The service logic is all about customer focused management and service management, using current academic research and business practice to make organizations more successful.

Topics that have been updated for the new edition include:

• Service and relationship perspectives
• Service and relationship quality
• Service management principles
• Profitability and productivity in services
• Integrated marketing communication
• Relationship communication and branding in services
• Internal marketing and service culture.
• Why and how to transform a product-manufacturing firm into a service business.

• The Service and Relationship Imperative: Managing in Service Competition.
• Managing Customer Relationships: An Alternative Paradigm in Management and Marketing.
• The Nature of Services and Service Consumption, and its Marketing Consequences.
• Service and Relationship Quality.
• Quality Management in Services.
• Return on Service and Relationships.
• Managing the Augmented Service Offering.
• Service Management Principles.
• Managing Productivity in Service Organizations.
• Managing Marketing or Market-oriented Management.
• Managing Integrated Marketing Communication and Total Communication.
• Managing Brand Relationships and Image.
• Customer-focused Organization: Structure, Resources and Service Processes.
• Managing Internal Marketing: A Prerequisite for Successful Customer Management.
• Managing Service Culture: The Internal Service Imperative.
• Transforming a Manufacturing Firm into a Service Business.
• Conclusions: Managing Services and Relationships.