Tangible physical evidence and the service delivery environment are important in building the customer’s expectations and influencing his perceptions of the service facility and its mental image before and after purchase, as it reflects to some extent the nature and level of Quality of service It also plays a vital role in facilitating service production and interaction between the customer and the employee in services that require the customer’s presence and participation in the service production process, and its impact on the customer cannot be ignored in terms of his mood, feeling, and behavior. Learn about the concept of physical evidence and its role in marketing! …
The concept of physical evidence: This last pillar of the marketing mix relates to the physical spatial space in which the sale takes place, and includes visual elements that customers can sense, such as decorations, furnishings in a physical store, or the design of the website or blog for the business being marketed. Online.
The role of physical evidence in marketing services:
Tangible physical evidence plays an important role in making the service tangible in the minds of customers and helping them evaluate it. Physical evidence is divided into two types:
1- Formal evidence (surrounding): It is an actual part that the customer owns in the process of purchasing the service, but its value alone is not considered valuable and has no importance. For example, a check book is not considered valuable unless it is stamped with the bank’s seal and covered with a balance of funds, and a theater entry ticket is of no importance unless it is accepted. Or approved. This evidence often indicates the customer’s right to benefit from the service in the future, such as an airline ticket or a theater show card.
2- Basic guide:
Unlike the formal evidence, the customer cannot possess the basic evidence. Rather, it plays an important role in influencing the evaluation of the service and the decision to purchase it. The external appearance of the hotel and its design in hotel services, or the model and type of the rented car in car rental services, the model of the plane, and the shape and appearance of the flight attendants in aviation services all play a role. In shaping the customer’s perceptions and judgment of the service, and even helping him evaluate the service before purchasing, and then making the purchase decision.
Both of the previous types of evidence are related to the company's promotional and public relations efforts for the service, and they are one of the ways in which the service company can create an image of itself. They represent inputs into the design and production of the service, and contribute to forming an image of the company. Therefore, it is important to manage them effectively to ensure that the existing image In the minds of customers about the company, it matches the image that the company wants to build in the minds of customers, so that the service company may rely on this physical evidence to distinguish itself from its competitors in the market.
The intangibility of services causes great difficulties and challenges for the service provider. Using physical evidence, you will continue to overcome or bypass some of these difficulties as follows:
1- Making the service more tangible by developing tangible signs that represent the service. The bank credit card is a tangible representation of the service and indicates:
The service can be separated from the seller.
It is possible to use intermediaries in distribution, thus expanding the geographical scope of the service marketer's work.
It is possible to distinguish this bank's service from competing banks through the colors of the card, its symbols, and the company's commercial name, such as Visa Card.
Facilitating the process of mentally perceiving the service through two methods: associating or linking the service with something tangible, to make it easier for the customer to recognize it, and representing the service by translating tangible things so that they have meaning and significance for consumers, such as the airline company that tries to make it easier for the customer to realize the value of what it offers. Compared to competitors, advertisements focus on the quality of meals and slide seats.
- Focusing on the relationship between the seller and the buyer, where the customer’s focus is transferred to the people who produce and provide the service instead of the intangible service. These people play a major role in representing the service, and they serve as an indicator of the level of service provided to consumers. Service marketers often use this method in An advertisement for the product or service, such as an advertisement showing the service provider how he welcomes and cares for the customer.
We must distinguish between physical evidence and the physical environment where,
The physical environment: “Booms and Bittner” define it as the environment in which the service is produced, where the customer and the service provider interact, drawn by a set of tangible material goods that facilitate performance and provision of the service to the customer. In high-contact services, the customer is located in the place where the service is produced and participates in its production, so an environment must be designed. Service in a way that meets or takes into account the psychological state of the target customers and their expectations.
We conclude that physical evidence in marketing is the company’s appearance, its logo, and how its products are presented in the market. Physical evidence is of great importance in influencing the buyer to buy. For example: when you find a piece of candy that is well-wrapped, it will attract you to buy it, and you may not look at the nutritional information for this candy.
Physical evidence affects all other elements of the marketing mix
For example, when you enter any company and find that the company has luxury furniture, is located in upscale neighborhoods, and has highly qualified and good-looking employees, you will find an increase in the price of the product and service. Therefore, physical evidence in marketing leads to change in all other elements in the marketing mix.
