Page 68 - DMGT522_SERVICES MANAGEMENT

Navneet Kaur, Lovely Professional University
Unit 3: Nature/Characteristics of Services

Unit 3: Nature/Characteristics of Services Notes

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
3.1 Types of Services

3.2 Nature/Characteristics of Services
3.3 Summary
3.4 Keywords
3.5 Review Questions

3.6 Further Readings
Objectives

After studying this unit, you will be able to:
Describe the nature or characteristics of services
Describe the various types of services
Introduction

Information scientists are often providing services (e.g. advice, or searches), rather than physically
distinct products. Marketing experts acknowledge that marketing a service is more difficult
than marketing a tangible product. They identify the following as being characteristic of services:

Intangibility the service cannot be touched or viewed, so it is difficult for clients to tell in
advance what they will be getting;
Inseparability of production and consumption the service is being produced at the same
time that the client is receiving it (e.g. during an online search, or a legal consultation);

Perishability: unused capacity cannot be stored for future use. For example, spare seats on
one aeroplane cannot be transferred to the next flight, and query-free times at the reference
desk cannot be saved up until there is a busy period.
Heterogeneity (or variability): services involve people, and people are all different. There
is a strong possibility that the same enquiry would be answered slightly differently by
different people (or even by the same person at different times). It is important to minimise
the differences in performance (through training, standard-setting and quality assurance).

Non-ownership: The final distinguishing feature of a service is that, unlike a physical
product, the consumer does not secure ownership of the service. Rather the customer pays
only to secure access to or use of the service. Again the hotel room is a good example.
Similarly, with banking services, although the customer may be given a Cheque book,
credit cards, etc. they serve only to allow the customer to make use of what he or she is
actually buying, namely, bank services.
People often try to overcome some of these difficulties by ensuring that the physical
manifestations of the service (the people running it, the library building, printed search results,
web pages, etc.) indicate the quality of the service. The people running the service are more
likely to inspire confidence in the service if they are responsive, reliable, courteous and competent.

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