Question

Speedoc is a telehealth service provider in Singapore that was founded in 2017. Please conduct some more research on the company and answer the question.

Analyse how the four (4) unique characteristics of services can be applied to telehealth services and propose strategies to tackle the challenges. Here are some suggestions for you to do well in this question.

1. Your discussions should be highly relevant to the telehealth industry and be able to reveal insights about the nature and challenges of the business.
2. Suggested structures: you may want to start your discussions by talking about the theories, then elaborate the theories in the context of telehealth services. The discussions should lead to strategic recommendations under each of the four characteristics.

Answer 1

Telehealth services are the services in which health related information and services are provided through electronic and telecommunication technologies as provided by Speedoc in Singapore since 2017.

According to the Services Marketing Theory the four main specific characteristics of service are

1. intangibility - the services are intangible, that is they cannot be seen , touched or felt,  which makes it difficult to evaluate it's quality. In telehealth services the service provided are intangible as they cannot be seen or touched, . The main aim of telehealth services is to inspire confidence in the mind of consumer so, that consumer don't hesitate to make use of their services, this will improve the referrals and personal recommendation which are very important in service industry. This can be done by taking right prices, testimonial, getting positive response and by keeping employees helpful.

2. Inseparability- the services provided by Telehealth services are unique and cannot be separated from it's provider, because of this feature the customer have strong expectations about how it will be able to meet their needs like the services provided by doctors are the matter of health and any distortion will lead to disappointment of customer and loss of service market, therefore to meet this challenges the Telehealth services should conduct regular feedbacks of consumer, offer them free service if they felt dissatisfied, appointing best doctors and health providers.

3. Perishability- services are perishable in nature as it cannot be stored like goods, Similarly in Telehealth services, the services of doctors cannot be stored and in health services in order to promote customer base the Telehealth services must be able to manage demand and supply, Like during high demand such as at time Corona pandemic there is huge demand of doctors, consultant etc. To meet this challenges the Telehealth services may make provisions to have additional staff or doctors and provide same level of customer service with varying customer demand and Improve their efficiency and they can also use pricing and promotional strategies to manage the demand of services and increase their customer base.

4. Variability- the services may have different quality, it may vary from one doctor to another doctor, as in Telehealth services the services rely on human which is more susceptible to variability. To maintain quality is a real challenge, thus to manage this challenges, the Telehealth services should establish standards, procedure and take steps to ensure consistent services delivery, like giving regular training of employees, giving customer a feeling of belongingness , giving regular consultant to customer.

On the basis of above analysis, all the four characteristics of service should be manage  together to Improve the market share, maintain customer satisfaction and developing long term relationship with them . All the factors should be taken as an opportunity to build invest and earn more customer base and win over it's competitors.