Marketing and Customers

From the service blueprint to the people who pay

Take out your Week 11 service blueprint of a game-day appearance. Look at its frontstage row, the part of the service that people outside the company can see. The performer arrives at the arena, warms up, performs during breaks in the game and greets fans afterward. Several thousand people watch. Backstage, out of sight, the translator passes messages between the performer and the home team's staff.

Now ask a question the blueprint does not answer: which of these people pays? The fans bought their tickets from the home team, not from Judy's company. The home team pays Judy's company for the appearance. A sponsor might pay the home team to have its name shown next to the performer.

The performer does the visible work. Mina, the coordinator, and the translator do most of the work behind it.

It is easy to call all of these people "the audience" and to assume that a large audience means a large market. An audience shows attention. A market needs someone who will pay, on terms the company can deliver. This week separates the people around one exchange, so that the company can see who receives value, who pays and who carries the cost when something goes wrong.

This chapter continues the practice scenario used since Week 4, in which a professional team in Taiwan asked Judy's company to bring one Korean performer to two home games. Since Week 5, the company has treated that request as a 12-week test of Option A · Expansion (expand cheerleading and sports-entertainment talent management). The scenario is invented for learning. This week's question is: who is the customer of a game-day appearance, what does each party value, and what evidence shows that someone will really pay?

Where this week fits

Week 11 showed how the company delivers an appearance: the steps, the handoffs and the limit on Mina's hours. Week 12 asks for whom the work is done and who pays for it. A business needs both answers. A well-run service that nobody pays for cannot last, and a paying customer that the company cannot serve leads to broken promises. This week you build a customer value table, which Week 13 uses to ask when each payer actually pays.

Eight roles around one exchange

The word "customer" usually covers several different roles. Marketing analysis starts by keeping them apart. One person or organization can hold more than one role. The point is to notice which roles each party holds, because each role brings different interests, different authority and different risks.

• User. The user receives or experiences the service. The fans in the arena are the users of the performance. Users shape how valuable the service feels, even when they do not pay.
• Buyer. The buyer chooses the offer and negotiates the terms. At the home team, this is probably the marketing manager. A buyer judges budget, reliability and reputation, not only excitement.
• Payer. The payer provides the money. The home team's finance office pays the invoice. The buyer and the payer can be different people in the same organization: the marketing manager agrees, but the finance office decides when money moves.
• Influencer. An influencer shapes awareness or choice without necessarily paying or using the service. Fan communities, sports media and the performer's own followers are influencers. Their interest is a signal, not a purchase.
• Partner. A partner is an outside organization whose work is needed for delivery. The home team's own event staff, who handle game-day logistics for NT$8,000 per game, are a partner, so the home team is both a customer and a supplier. A contact who only knows someone is not yet a partner.
• Worker. Workers create, deliver, coordinate or protect the service. The performer, the translator and Mina are workers. They often carry risks that a customer analysis overlooks.
• Beneficiary. A beneficiary gains something from the service without being its user. Some beneficiaries also pay: a sponsor pays for the visibility it gains. Others pay nothing: the home team's players may simply enjoy a livelier arena.
• Risk bearer. The risk bearer carries the loss when the exchange fails. If the home team pays late, Judy's company carries the delay first. If the company then delays the performer's pay, the performer carries it too.

Each role needs its own evidence before you make a claim about it. The table below shows what counts.

Follow authority as well as value. A fan can tell you whether the evening was fun, but only the buyer can approve a budget. Only the payer controls the date the money leaves its account. If your analysis gives all the authority to one party, check what evidence supports that.

Value is created when the service is used

Vargo and Lusch (2004) argued that value is created when customers use a service in their own situation, not when the seller produces it. For a manager, this changes the question. Instead of asking "what are we selling?", ask "what does each party do with it, and what makes it worth something to them?"

The same appearance is valuable in different ways to different parties. The home team hopes for a fuller arena and a story it can tell its sponsor. Fans hope for a memorable evening and clips they can share. The performer hopes for fair pay, rest and a professional credit.

These values can conflict. A sponsor may want its logo in every photo of the performer, while the red line in the Week 5 goal tree says that no photo is published without the performer's written approval.

Payne, Storbacka and Frow (2008) describe value as co-created: customers and suppliers both contribute to it, and a manager can map who contributes what. Fans who film and share clips help promote the game. That contribution is real, but it does not give the company the right to reuse fans' videos in advertising. The performer may help design the routine, and that participation does not replace her pay or her rest. So for every contribution, ask whether it is voluntary, recognized and, where it is work, paid.

The customer journey: from first contact to rebooking

A customer journey is the sequence of contacts a customer has with a service before, during and after the purchase. Lemon and Verhoef (2016) reviewed research on customer experience and showed that it forms across many such contacts, including ones handled by partners. The payment is only one step. The table follows the home team, the buyer and payer, through one appearance.

The performer has her own journey: she hears the offer, reads the terms in Korean, travels, performs, gets paid and rests. Her journey meets the home team's journey on game day and again at payment. A good map shows both, because a promise made to the home team at one stage often becomes work for the performer at another. For example, a fan meeting announced during preparation becomes an extra hour of work on game day.

A journey map is a set of informed guesses until someone checks it. Mark each stage as seen, guessed or unknown. The unknown stages tell you whom to ask next.

Segments: choosing whom to serve first

A segment is a group of customers whose situation or needs are similar enough that they need the same offer, channel or level of service. Segmentation is a choice about where to spend limited time and money. A segment is useful only if it changes what the company does.

A weak segment uses a label as an explanation, such as "international fans want exciting content". It does not tell anyone what to change. A stronger segment names a situation and a test.

Here is an example from the practice scenario. Judy publishes Korean-language videos on her public YouTube channel, @judy777. Some people who follow Korean-language creator channels live in Taiwan and might come to a game to see the performer. They may need game information in Korean and a ticket page that accepts a payment method they can use.

This segment matters to the home team, the payer, because the home team wants to sell tickets to new fans. It changes the offer: Judy's company could include a Korean-language game announcement as part of the appearance. It can also be tested. If the home team's ticket sales to new buyers do not change after a Korean-language announcement, the segment is weaker than assumed. As Week 4 showed, the segment is defined by mechanisms that can be checked, such as language and payment access, not by nationality.

Price, payment timing and willingness to pay

A value proposition is a statement of who gets which benefit from an offer, and what they give in exchange. For the home team, the value proposition might read: "One Korean performer at two home games, with translation and coordination handled for you. Your game nights draw new fans without extra work for your staff." The price is part of the proposition. In the practice scenario, the home team pays NT$60,000 per appearance, or NT$120,000 for the two games, 30 days after each game.

Payment timing is part of the price. Paying 30 days after the game means the home team keeps its money for a month. Meanwhile, Judy's company pays for the performer's travel, the game-day logistics and half of her fee before the game. A price of NT$60,000 paid in advance and the same price paid 30 days later are different deals. Week 13 puts these dates on a calendar.

Willingness to pay is the highest price a buyer would actually pay for a specific offer, under specific terms. It is hard to observe, because what people say and what they do can differ. So managers climb an evidence ladder: four kinds of evidence, each stronger and more costly than the one below it.

On the evidence ladder, the two home games are a paid pilot, but only once the money arrives. Until then, they are a signed promise to pay.

Worked example: a customer value table for the game-day appearance

This example builds the week's artifact, the customer value table, and then runs one willingness-to-pay test.

Step 1: fill the customer value table

Each row is one party. The columns record its roles, what it values, what it gives or risks, what it may decide, and what evidence is still missing.

The table shows three things that the audience view hides. First, the users and the payer are different parties. The fans receive the experience, but the home team pays, so the offer must be described in the home team's terms: new fans and a better story for its sponsor. Second, the performer and Judy's company carry most of the risk, because they spend time and money before the home team pays. Third, the most important missing evidence is a date: when the finance office will really pay.

Step 2: test willingness to pay with two more teams

In the Week 5 goal tree, Judy owns an operating goal: payment conversations with two more teams. A conversation alone is only an interview, the lowest step on the evidence ladder. To climb one step, Judy sends both teams the same one-page written offer. She asks each to sign a booking request for a named game date by a deadline.

• Full appearance. The performer, a translator on game day, a Korean-language game announcement and coordination. NT$60,000, paid 30 days after the game.
• Performance only. The performer and coordination; the booking team provides its own interpreter. NT$48,000, paid 30 days after the game.

Judy sends the offer to the second team in test week 6, and to the third team when it contacts her in test week 7. The third team's offer names a date after game 2, not the Saturday of test week 8 it asked for, because a game in test week 8 would push Mina to 11 of her 10 hours in test week 7 (Week 11). Both replies come back in test week 8. The second team agrees in writing to NT$60,000 for the full appearance, but only if it can pay 45 days after the game. The third team says the price is reasonable but will not sign until its sponsor agrees to pay part of the fee.

Notice what the test cannot show. Two teams are a very small sample, so the results do not prove a market. Only one team made a choice, and it picked the full appearance over the cheaper performance-only version. That hints that translation and coordination matter to at least one buyer, but one choice is a guess to check, not a finding. The test did produce something an interview could not: a written price, a real payment term and a real disagreement about timing.

Direct service, platform or ecosystem?

Several organizations take part in a game-day appearance. That raises a question about the structure of the business. There are three common structures, and each leads to different management work.

• A direct service firm sells and delivers a service to a customer, perhaps with help from suppliers. It is responsible for the result.
• A two-sided platform connects two distinct groups whose participation makes the platform more valuable to each other, and it sets the rules between them. A ticketing app is an example. Fans use it because many venues sell tickets there, and venues use it because many fans search there. Rochet and Tirole (2003) showed that such a platform must attract both sides at once, and that the way it splits its prices between the sides matters.
• An ecosystem is a set of partners whose activities must line up for one value proposition to work. Adner (2017) describes it as a structure of partners, activities and links. Jacobides, Cennamo and Gawer (2018) add that each partner's contribution is worth more because the others are present.

In the practice scenario, Judy's company is a direct service firm. It selects the performer, signs the agreement with the home team and delivers the appearance. It would become more like a platform only if many teams and many performers found each other through it, under rules it sets. Using YouTube does not make Judy's company a platform, because YouTube, not the company, sets the rules between viewers and creators.

The appearance does depend on an ecosystem. Several parties have to do their part, from the home team that pays to the authority that confirms the performer may be paid.

An ecosystem map draws a line only where something actually passes between two parties: money, an approval, information or a right to use images. The performer's large following is useful, but on its own it moves nothing between the parties. A signed agreement with the home team is a link, because it moves money and obligations.

A useful map shows where one missing link, such as permission for the performer to be paid, would stop the whole appearance.

Who creates the value, and who is paid for it?

Value creation is the benefit an exchange produces. Value capture is the share of that benefit each party keeps, in money, reputation or data. The two can be very unequal. At a game-day appearance, the home team captures ticket sales and sponsor goodwill, while the performer and the translator do much of the work that creates the evening.

Unequal shares are normal in business. The manager's task is to make the exchange explainable to each party.

Three questions help. What was promised, and in which language? Who agreed, and who can refuse or renegotiate? What happens if the arrangement changes, for example if payment is late? The customer value table answers these questions for each row.

Trust helps an exchange begin, and written terms keep it running. A performer who posts happily about the game has not thereby agreed to let a sponsor use her photo. A team that says "we can do it" in a meeting may mean "we will look into it". As Week 10 showed, a promise counts only when the decision log shows it as approved by the person with authority.

AI in customer contact: one risk to watch

Week 3 set the course rule for AI: a person stays responsible for judgment and review. Huang and Rust (2018) argue that service tasks need different kinds of intelligence, so routine tasks can be automated more easily than tasks that need judgment or care. The risk specific to this week is a fan-facing chatbot that answers questions in Korean and Chinese. It might promise a photo session with the performer that she never approved, which would cross her red line. So an automated reply should say that it is automated, never confirm anything involving the performer's time or image, and pass such questions to Mina.

Who pays under each option?

The worked example used Option A · Expansion. The other two options have different customers.

Option B · Boutique is a small cross-border talent and advisory service for a few clients. Option C · Content-centered return is a return to content, advertising, food service and personal brand. The table gives a starting point for each. This week does not choose between them; in Week 17 you choose one and defend it.

Class practice: a customer value table

This practice is done without AI tools. Your teacher will tell you which worksheet to use and how to submit it.

1. Name one offer. Choose one option and write one sentence: who receives what, at what price, paid when. Label any number you invent.
2. Fill a customer value table for four parties. For each party, write its roles, what it values and what it gives or risks.
3. Mark the payer and the main risk bearer. Write one piece of evidence that would show the payer will really pay, and say where it sits on the evidence ladder.
4. Check each other's work. Swap with a classmate. Your classmate looks for one party that is missing and one assumption written as if it were a fact. Revise one row.

Key points and what you bring to Week 13

• An audience shows attention. A market needs a payer who will pay, on terms the company can deliver.
• Keep eight roles apart: user, buyer, payer, influencer, partner, worker, beneficiary and risk bearer. One party can hold several roles.
• Value is created when a service is used, and each party values something different. Some of those values conflict.
• Test willingness to pay by climbing the evidence ladder: interview, written offer, paid pilot and renewal. Payment timing is part of the price.
• Judy's company is a direct service firm that depends on an ecosystem. Map the links where money, approvals, information or rights actually pass.

For Week 13. Bring your customer value table. Week 13 asks when each payer actually pays, and whether Judy's company can pay the performer, the translator and the travel costs in the weeks before the home team's money arrives. You will build a cash calendar.