The concept of marketing has conventionally been viewed by public service professionals as inappropriate to organizations concerned with the delivery of public good services. However, the adoption of private sector based approaches to theorganization of public services in many post-modern western economies has forced a fundamental reconsideration of the potential contribution of marketing to thedelivery of public services. Against such a backdrop this paper critically reviews the underlying characteristics of public sector services and through articulating aclassification of such services based on the nature of the organization-service user interaction, explores the application of particular conceptualizations of marketing to discrete categories of public services. © 2003, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.