SERVICES
Meaning and Definitions
Although services, besides goods and services, a marketer also markets eight other entities like Events, Experiences, Persons, Places, Properties, Organizations, Information and Ideas; yet it is generally clubbed together and is widely known as goods and services. Service: Definitions, Concept, Characteristics, Importance, Classification and the Customer Service Gap Model
which is one of the most developed countries in the world, is having a 21% – 79% mix of goods and services. Goods are physical, tangible articles, while Services are nonphysical and intangible in nature and can also satisfy a need like goods. Financial services – Banking, Telecom, DTH, Courier, Hotel, Airline, Multiplex, Train, Doctors, Lawyers, Healthcare and Management Consultancy are all examples of services.
SERVICES
The advancement in the economy, a country moves from a goods producing country to a service oriented country. Some of the services are provided to cover the risk irrespective of its immediate need. This includes the business of all intangible services delivered to the customer. The quality of the services can be assessed largely on the behavioral dimensions of the customers and service providers. Since a large number of services are highly intangible, it is difficult to measure and control the quality and they cannot be standardized like products.
DIFFICULTIES' TO KNOW
1.This makes it difficult for the customer to evaluate the quality and for employers to measure and control the quality.
2.Some of the tangible services where both the goods and services are provided to the customer, like restaurants and supermarkets, also come under the purview of the services marketing.
3.The spectrum of services range between the degree of intangibility and tangibility of the offerings delivered to the user.
4.The services cannot be stored, warehoused or otherwise kept on hand for sometime when the demand is high. visit rajam furniture to services.
EXAMPLE
The example may be cited of an insurance company who serves the client till he or his life insurance is alive without looking for instant or short-run benefits. However, there are some services that have standardized deliveries like ATM services of banks. The interior consultants, tailors, restaurants and the like render the customized services. The example may be cited of the service rendered by the Attorney in preparing the will document of his client as the tangibility may be seen as the physical evidence in preparing the document while the brain work done to prepare the same may be intangible.
The inseparability of the buyer and service provider may be seen on many occasions while designing and delivery of the services. Many services are process rather than discrete transactions and the talents and attitudes of the person or team providing the service can dramatically alter the outcome and the level of customer delight.
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The buyer-provider relationship Service – Concept of Services
Services are the major component and somehow influenced by the service motives of any business. The service are much needful to develop and make safeguards of customers interest. Moreover, services are complementary and decisional part of marketing in service marketing as the knowledge, skill, communication and customer-friendly attitude of buyer and provider determine the quality of service and the degree of customer satisfaction. Its production may or may not be tied to a physical product.’ – Kotler, Armstrong, Saunders and Wong.
Distinctive Characteristics
* Services are economic activities that create value and provide benefits for customers at specific times and places as a result of bringing about a desired change in – or on behalf of – the recipient of the service.’ – Christopher Lovelock
* Service, marketing academics and practitioners argued that services required special treatment as a result of their distinctive characteristic; intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity and perishability. These characteristics were outlined during the “crawling out” stage.
* A service business is one in which the perceived value of the offering to the buyer is determined largely by the services provided to him than the products offered. Some offerings are clearly services like enjoyment of movie, art exhibition or an athletic event.
* Some of the service offerings also have the product component like the buying of contact lenses also requires proper eye examination and evaluation of the vision parameters are the offerings of the service in the process.
* Services are all or mostly tangible. The services are also time-sensitive as they cannot be back ordered. In view of the difficulty of quality assessment of the services it is always risky for the customer to purchase the same.
* The services are largely delivered as per the customer’s prescription unlike products which are often standardized. This is called as simultaneity. In some cases the physical evidence will be there of transaction that took place but the work done to execute the transaction will be tangible. A service is any activity or benefit that one party can offer to another, which is essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything. The services are largely need-based and called for immediate attention or delivery to the customer.
Services are required when there are patients
!!!Marketing, on the whole, can be divided into goods marketing and services marketing. In marketing, services marketing essentially deals with the products, which are intangible in nature. Services are created through a direct interaction between the service provider and the customers.!!!
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