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Discusses the need to market nursing as a career with regard to the present unsatisfactory nature of the current mix of trained/untrained nurses, length of service and relative costs, and wastage being high. Examines the relevance of basic marketing concepts for nursing, stating above all, the target audience must be critically defined. States marketing strategy must ‘sell’ nursing – but only to the right people. Reviews current marketing programmes, local and national, evaluating various aspects of nurse recruitment using economic and moral success as the ‘twin peaks’. Concludes that developing a more effective marketing strategy would, in the long term, attract better, more suitable nurses to the profession.

The service encounter between an organisation′s employees and its customers, and the ensuing implications for service operations and management are important. Attention is focused on employment strategies to include selection and training, the development and implementation of customer care programmes and the management of all interpersonal relationships within an organisation.

Concerned with customer service/quality in service sector organizations, reviews some of the core literature in which service quality is defined and its determinants are identified. Follows with some examples of research completed in the Manchester School of Management which focus on the measurement of service quality in the health care sector; namely, hospital in‐patients, general practice patients, and users of family planning services.

A research initiative, focused on quality customer care in service organisation and recently completed in the Financial Services Research Centre, is presented. Empirical data was collected from a number of major UK companies financial services, retailing and leisure and the findings which are summarised here relate to three elements of the project: an investigation of the nature and extent of customer care programmes, an assessment of consumer expectations of service quality and the perceptions of service received, and an evaluation of employees′ perspective on the provision of service quality within their organisations.

The quality of service and customer care in the context of the marketing of services are considered. The focus is on distinguishing characteristics of services, definitions of service quality and the use of consumer research to assess expectations of and satisfactions with service quality — providing examples from a variety of organisations. Particular attention is given to the interpersonal interactions between contact personnel in service companies and customers, and the need for internal marketing, a consumer orientation, and the consequent provision of customer care, with reference to a number of examples in the tourism and financial service sectors.

In the turbulent world of fashion retailing, competitive advantage is achieved by first targeting not simply in terms of demographics but also in terms of lifestyle and attitude to fashion, and secondly by creating a store image congruent with that of the target market. The findings of past studies are brought together and the results of a lifestyle and store image questionnaire which was administered to customers of a well‐known retail fashion chain in the UK are presented Analysis was focused on lifestyle and store image and included the identification of clusters of customers with similar profiles.

Findings are presented from an empirical investigation among the youth market for financial services. Attention is focused on account ownership and use of services, together with attitudinal data pertaining to banks and building societies and the services they provide; of particular interest is evidence of split banking and bank switching. Overall, the heterogeneity of the youth market with respect to needs, attitudes and behaviour is highlighted, and a number of implications for the marketing strategies of banks and building societies are suggested.

Discusses the increasing school‐leaving population and the number of school children entering full‐time further education, and the proportion of school‐leavers in full‐time further education remaining constant and around 21/22 percent. Proposes that UK clearing banks should be targeting these young people to open accounts with their grant cheques, therefore perhaps persuading them to say with the banks after graduation. States that specialist student advisers, or officers, may be seen as key personnel by helping banks to establish and maintain a ‘feel good’ image with students, showing that banks understand the relevant needs of young people, and providing a good service to them. Concludes that it is not surprising that banks are, in general, turning attention more to school leavers, and in particular to those reaching early employment.

Consumption of fresh food such as fish, wholemeal bread, fruit and vegetables is rising, but this is not the case with eggs, whose sales are falling. Changes in the structure of egg retailing and in consumer eating habits are considered. The role of fresh foodstuffs generally in a company's competitive strategy are considered.

Investigates school‐leavers and students, but more importantly, primary groups of schoolchildren are being targeted, because of their growing power as consumers – even affecting others in purchasing products – such as own family members. Chronicles that the majority of children seem to save extensively at school or the Post Office, building society or bank, etc., and examines this in detail – particularly school savings schemes. Looks at different school systems, numbers of children involved and schools without a scheme. Discusses further pros and cons of saving schemes and also the implications of these for bank marketing. Concludes that the present project has been essentially exploratory, but further research might well be required.