This article throws light on some recent innovative strategies adopted by successful services marketers to face and overcome competition. It covers significant marketing issues like managing services differentiation, services quality, customer segmentation, customer loyalty and distribution.

The services sector has emerged as the main engine of economic growth. The services sector includes an array of industries such as hotels, tourism, airlines, banking, insurance, telecom, courier, media, healthcare, consultancy, information technology, advertising, retailing and education. Increasing competition in the services sector is driving marketers to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Earlier, services were only viewed as supporting elements to the promotion and distribution of products. Service firms had not paid much attention to marketing elements such as customer segmentation, differentiation, service quality, customer relationship management, etc. Slowly, with the growth of competition, services marketers have come to realize that if they don't make special efforts to meet customers' expectations, they would lose their market share to competitors.

Increasing contribution of the services sector to India's GDP is driving the marketers to differentiate themselves from competitors. In spite of the global economic slowdown, the services sector in India contributed 56% to the country's GDP during 2008-09. This shows that there is immense growth and development that is taking place in this sector.

Marketing Mastermind Magazine, Innovation, Services Sector, Customer Loyalty, Customer Segmentation, Information Technology, Customer Relationship Management, Innovative Strategies, Marketing Services, Personalized Services, Technological Advancements, Services Organizations, Service Delivery Process, Customer Loyalty, Telecom Industries.