In everyday life we all consume services. Travelling in Delhi Metro, in DTC, attending lectures, buying a book via internet and calling into a canteen for a cup of tea are all examples of consumption of services.
Service is not a thing but a process:
‘The process is the product’, but at the same time services rely upon things for their performance. A bottle of Coke is not a service, but it can be served to you. A ride in Delhi Metro is a service, but not the metro itself. A service can be rightly called, “a deed, a performance, an effort.”
Image Soucrce: titecs.com
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Services are different from products by various features:
1. Intangibility:
A service can’t be seen, touched, held, or put on a shelf, because it has no physical shape. No customer can buy physical ownership of an ‘experience’ (entertainment), ‘time’ (consulting), or ‘a process’ (dry cleaning). No service can be examined before its enactment because of intangibility.
2. Simultaneity:
In most of the cases production and consumption goes in simultaneously. A consumer has always to be present in the service factory, either the service provider comes to him (plumber) or he goes to service provider (hair salon). This simultaneity develops much more close contact with the customer. Thus, in-service production and consumption can’t be separated.
3. Heterogeneity:
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No two services can be the same, because services depend to a large extent on human actions and interactions between customers and providers. Since production and consumption goes in simultaneously, there is no chance to rectify a faulty product before it reaches the customer. Thus, heterogeneity makes it difficult to standardize the quality of service.
4. Perishability:
No services can be produced and stored before consumption, hence, they are perishable. Perishability is the main source of many of the problems of supply and demand that services marketers face. Most of the service providers, therefore, focus their marketing mix on managing demand.