Services and Services Marketing

   

                                  SERVICES AND SERVICES MARKETING

SERVICES:

According to the American Marketing Association, services is defined as Products, such as a bank loan or home security, that are intangible or at least substantially so. If totally intangible, they are exchanged directly from producer to user, cannot be transported or stored, and are almost instantly perishable. Service products are often difficult to identify, because they come into existence at the same time they are bought and consumed. They comprise intangible elements that are inseparable; they usually involve customer participation in some important way; they cannot be sold in the sense of ownership transfer; and they have no title. Today, however, most products are partly tangible and partly intangible, and the dominant form is used to classify them as either goods or services (all are products). These common, hybrid forms, whatever they are called, may or may not have the attributes just given for totally intangible services. 2. Services, as a term, is also used to describe activities performed by sellers and others that accompany the sale of a product and aid in its exchange or its utilization (e.g., shoe fitting, financing, an 800 number). Such services are either pre sale or post-sale and supplement the product, not comprise it. If performed during sale, they are considered to be intangible parts of the product.

A service is a non-material equivalent of goods . A service provision is an economic activity that does not result in ownership and this is what differentiates it from providing physical goods. It is claimed to be a process that creates benefits by facilitating either a change in customers, a change in their physical possessions, or a change in their intangible assets.

Characteristics : 

Intangibility: Services are intangible and do not have a physical existence. Hence services cannot be touched, held, tasted or smelt. This is most defining feature of a service and that which primarily differentiates it from a product. Also, it poses a unique challenge to those engaged in marketing a service as they need to attach tangible attributes to an otherwise intangible offering.

1. Heterogeneity/Variability: Given the very nature of services, each service offering is unique and cannot be exactly repeated even by the same service provider. While products can be mass produced and be homogenous the same is not true of services. eg: All burgers of a particular flavor at McDonalds are almost identical. However, the same is not true of the service rendered by the same counter staff consecutively to two customers.
2. Perishability: Services cannot be stored, saved, returned or resold once they have been used. Once rendered to a customer the service is completely consumed and cannot be delivered to another customer. eg: A customer dissatisfied with the services of a barber cannot return the service of the haircut that was rendered to him. At the most he may decide not to visit that particular barber in the future.
3. Inseparability/Simultaneity of production and consumption: This refers to the fact that services are generated and consumed within the same time frame. Eg: a haircut is delivered to and consumed by a customer simultaneously unlike, say, a takeaway burger which the customer may consume even after a few hours of purchase. Moreover, it is very difficult to separate a service from the service provider. Eg: the barber is necessarily a part of the service of a haircut that he is delivering to his customer.

         Some other characteristics are Ownership,Service in Performance, Simultaneously, Quality    measurement, Nature of Demand, Consumer, a part of production process

SERVICES MANAGEMENT

Services Marketing refers to the marketing of services as against tangible products. Services are inherently intangible, are consumed simultaneously at the time of their production, cannot be stored, saved or resold once they have been used and service offerings are unique and cannot be exactly repeated even by the same service provider.

Importance of Marketing of Services

Given the intangibility of services, marketing then becomes a particularly challenging and yet extremely important task.

• A key differentiator
• Importance of relationship
• Customer Retention