needed to be able to examine the main aspects of service & retail marketing and management, devoting particular attention to a marketing-based perspective. At the end of the teaching module the student will have acquired:
- knowledge and comprehension: understanding the main characteristics of services and their differences when compared to products, the concept of quality in service sector, the role of customer and frontline employees in service sector, the concept of customer satisfaction and its measurement, the main aspects of complaint handling and service recovery, the criteria of customer relationship management and loyalty management, the main dimensions of servicescape and its influence on customer behavior, the different types of retail format and related evolutionary trajectories (particularly in in term of supply chain management)and, finally, the different types of retail services and retail marketing variables. Further, the student will acquire the knowledge needed to understand the role that the Information and Communication Technologies, Internet, social media and technologies 4.0 (virtual reality, augmented reality, robotics, artificial intelligence, etc) play in service retail management and marketing activities.
- ability to apply knowledge and ability of understanding: ability to apply the theoretical principles to real business problems, such as those related to quality-related gap analysis, complaint handling and service recovery, servicescape design and management, strategic planning, promotion, assortment, merchandising, creation and development of private label.
- critical thinking: ability to apply the acquired knowledge to consciously interpret and evaluate the main problems related to service and retail marketing and management and to identify possible solutions (problem solving). The course will also allow students to develop the ability to identify and have access to different types of (academic and non-academic) information sources that can guide their decision making.
- communication skills: ability to use the specific terminology related to the discipline to describe the most relevant principles of service and retail marketing and to critically interpret and evaluate real business problems. Furthermore, the course will allow students to develop the communication skills (written and oral) implicit to the learning process. Specifically, this will be possible by: a) stimulating student-teacher and peer-to-peer verbal discussions about the retails marketing principles, b) requiring students (both sitting in the classes or not) to prepare a report developed to analyze a specific topic identified with the teacher.
- learning skills: the course provides the basis for learning the basic principles of service and retail marketing and will offer students with the background needed to attend advanced university courses.