Learning Outcomes to be assessed

Knowledge and Understanding

1. Critically and effectively assess the value of theories, concepts and models to the practices of the service sector and how they manage service quality;

2. Critically assess the relationship marketing (RM) approach in marketing theory and practice and evaluate critically the importance of ‘interactions', ‘networks' and service processes in modern marketing;

3. Demonstrate critical awareness of ‘experiential marketing', and how this can be complemented through Social Media Marketing in a way with which organisations and consumers can ‘co-create value'.

Key Skills

On completion of this module students will have had the opportunity to:

1. Enhance and apply planning, organising, decision-making and time management skills appropriate for use in an organisational context.

2. Experiment and develop personal initiative and responsibility in undertaking complex investigations in the solving of organisational problems and issues.

3. Critically analyse and apply key ideas and concepts via comprehensive research relevant both to the subject area and to professional practice in the field.

4. Use terminology associated with the subject area accurately and in a way, which demonstrates sophisticated knowledge and understanding.

5. Develop and enhance both individually and collaboratively effective written and oral communication skills for both specialist and non-specialist audiences.

Details of the task

Address the following question:

Critically evaluate how service quality models can be useful in sustaining customer relationships. Illustrate your answers with examples from commercial business situations (100 marks)

As a guide you should:

- Critically discuss the academic literature on service quality models.

- Critically discuss the literature on sustaining customer relationships.

- Critically evaluate the connections between service quality models and the customer relationships literature.

- Provide examples from commercial business situations as to how service quality models may sustain customer relationships.

Your work should be in a creative, critical and evaluative manner. Ensure that your arguments are clear and logical and where appropriate include academic sources, i.e. academic journal papers, which add weight to your points raised. Please show in your list of references an appropriate breadth and depth of references relevant to the topic.

Your work must be correctly referenced throughout in the Harvard format.

Your assignment should be word processed and produced in an appropriate academic style. The font should be 12, and be double spaced. The work should be completed on an individual basis.

WARNING - ACADEMIC MISCONDUCT

The University's policy on Good Academic Conduct applies. Plagiarism, collusion and other forms of misconduct identified by the Policy are serious offences leading to potentially very severe disciplinary consequences. Cases of academic misconduct WILL be reported.

In a nutshell plagiarism means passing off somebody else's efforts as your own work.

The following are NOT permitted:

- Copying somebody else's work in whole or in part.

- Getting somebody else to help you with the specific content of your assignment (only general discussion with somebody else about the topics covered in the assignment is permitted - not discussion about the specific assignment contents).

- Getting somebody else to correct your work.

- Copying (or cutting and pasting) text or web site content into your assignment without attribution of the source with full academic referencing.

- Quoting more than 100 words of text verbatim even with attribution to the source.

Any student who assists another student to plagiarise or collude (by allowing their work to be copied or by specific assistance/checking another student's work) or participates in any other form of misconduct is ALSO guilty of misconduct and will be penalised along with the student who has been assisted.