For undergraduate courses in services marketing. As economies across the world continue to transition toward services, skills in marketing and managing services have never been more important. Essentials of Services Marketing, 4e, captures the reality of today's world, incorporates recent academic and managerial thinking, and illustrates cutting-edge service concepts. Designed to provide a crisp introduction to key topics in the field, this book places marketing issues within a broader general management context and shows the relationships between the marketing, operations, IT, and human resources functions in service firms.