Students Apply Services Marketing Concepts Through Real World Projects

Each semester the Service Marketing Institute organizes a Service Blueprint Competition with students enrolled in Dr. Dwayne Gremler’s Service Marketing course (MKT 4050). Teams of students go out into the local community and find a services-oriented business or organization to study customer and employee interactions.  Students prepare a detailed service blueprint as a graded assignment and have 10 minutes to present the highlights of their service blueprints and service improvement recommendations to a panel of judges.

The winning team for spring semester studied the Cinemark movie theater and they included:

• Chelsea Frey
• Cecil Jenkins
• Megan Marshall
• Diana Reveron
• Kelsey Senawi

Pictured front l to r: Students Kelsey Senawi, Diana Reveron, Megan Marshall, Cecil Jenkins, and Chelsea Frey. Back row: Judges Adam Maidment, Dr. Steve Koppitsch, Pat Bruen and Dr. Gremler.

 The second place team studied the BGSU Learning Commons and included the following members: Courtney George,  Dana Gill, Becca Haag, Keri Mileti, and Mallory Ryel.

Third place went to the team who studied Al-Mar Lanes bowling alley - Hicham Berrada,
Julianne Gentile, Tania Mays, Conor O'Brien, and Randy Resig.

This service blueprint assignment allows students to demonstrate an understanding of the blueprint concepts from class and the ability to apply them. Students were required to visit the business/organization they chose to visually capture the different steps (customer or employee actions) of the service delivery process and the various components of physical evidence that customers experience.

Judges for this semester’s competition were Adam Maidment from Marathon Petroleum Corporation, Pat Bruen from Thomson Reuters, and BGSU marketing department assistant professor Dr. Steve Koppitsch. The competition is organized by SMI associate director Ms. Christine Seiler.