Engaging Retail Customers Through Service and Systems Marketing

Abstract

This chapter highlights the need for and the directions of a rethinking of the approach to Retail Marketing to overcome the limitations of a view that can fail in effectively engaging customers in the relationship with retailers, as they are still excessively focused on the ‘structural' elements of the service offering. Many physical stores, in particular, show what can be called the ‘paradox' of a Goods-Dominant Logic in the service offering. Among the advancements of service research, Service-Dominant Logic has highlighted the need to take a general service view of market exchange to better engage customers in a value co-creation relational context. To accomplish such a paradigmatic change, systems thinking and the Viable Systems Approach (VSA) provide interpretation tools useful to shift focus on interaction. Essentially, this chapter illustrates the conceptual and practical advantages of the adoption of a Service & Systems Approach to Retail Marketing, providing examples and insights with reference to the case of Community Pharmacy.