Service – Introduction & Definition
Service
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. This includes the
business of all intangible services delivered to the customer.
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.
The spectrum of services range
between the degree of intangibility and tangibility of the offerings delivered
to the user. 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.
The
world economy nowadays is increasingly characterized as a service economy. This
is primarily due to the increasing importance and share of the service sector
in the economies of most developed and developing countries. In fact, the
growth of the service sector has long been considered as indicative of a
country’s economic progress.
Economic
history tells us that all developing nations have invariably experienced a
shift from agriculture to industry and then to the service sector as the main
stay of the economy.
This
shift has also brought about a change in the definition of goods and services
themselves. No longer are goods considered separate from services. Rather,
services now increasingly represent an integral part of the product and this
interconnectedness of goods and services is represented on a goods-services
continuum.
Definition
Marketing, on the whole, can be divided into
goods marketing and services marketing. Although according to Philip Kotler,
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. 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.
The
American Marketing Association defines services as - “Activities, benefits and
satisfactions which are offered for sale or are provided in connection with the
sale of goods.”
“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. Its production may or may not be tied to a
physical product.” – Kotler, Armstrong, Saunders and Wong
“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
According to Philip Kotler:
“A service is any activity or benefit
that are being an offer to another that is essentially intangible and does not
result in the ownership of anything.”
The characteristics of services are briefly
stated here:
(i) It is a core area or an activity or a
task of business,
(ii) It is a major component and denotes
a parallel size of business,
(iii) Services may be collateral activity
and have a supplementary service to support the core area of business,
(iv) A service is an act or performance
offered by one party to another,
(v) It is an ideology or concept or an
approach based on customers’ orientation,
(vi) A service is an economic activity
that creates values and provides benefits for customers,
(vii) The service process may be tied to
a physical product and the performance is transitory,
(viii) Services are based on the concepts
of rational behaviour and the norms of ethical values,
(ix) Services may be treated as the
philosophical part in the form of art and a systematically part in the form of
‘science’,
(x) It is prominent task to serve at the
input as well as output stages in any value creation process,
(xi) It serves as dynamic platform to
accommodate professional attitudes,
(xii) It is provided by a person who
processes a particular skill, quality, competencies and learning aspects,
(xiii) Services having the continuous
process within their performance,
(xiv) Services may be characterised as
intangibleness, inseparability perishability, heterogeneity in nature and does
not normally result in ownership of any resource,
(xv) Service is based on different
environmental factors.
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