Question

Services differ from products in several important ways. Describe the distinctive characteristics of services.

Answer 1

Distinctive characteristics of services:

a) Intangibility: Services are intangible in nature. Unlike the products, services cannot be touched, tasted, heard, smelt until they are bought. To make service more tangible, management is required to reduce the customer uncertainty by evidence creation such as brochures to make the customer understand about the service being offered.

b) Inseperability: Production and consumption of services are inseperable. They are produced and delivered at the same time, sometimes on the presence of customers, sometimes via communication. Thus utmost care should be taken by the service provider to meet customer demand and satisfaction.

c) Perishability: Services are perishable. They cannot be stored for future use. Services that are not used today become economic waste. Unpredictable fluctuations in demand can not be met unless a viable strategy is incorporated to match between supply and demand.

d) Heterogeneity: Service units differ from one another. It is difficult to provide same level of quality output. Customers too cannot judge the quality of service before purchase. Heterogeneity of services results in difficulty to establish a standard for services.

e) Lack of ownership: A customer can only have access to services but they cannot own them unlike the products which can be owned by the customer.