The features of services refer to the special characteristics that differentiate services from goods in the marketplace. Services are intangible, perishable, and usually involve active participation by both the service provider and the customer. All these features play a very crucial role in defining how services should be delivered, marketed, and consumed. The understanding of features of services is very significant for businesses operating in a service-oriented industry, enabling them to devise strategies that could improve customer satisfaction, service delivery, and competitive advantages. In this article, we will explore the features of services, their implications, and how businesses can use these features to improve the quality of their services and customers’ experiences.
Intangibility: The Key Feature of Services
One of the key features of services is that they are intangible. Services cannot be touched, seen, or stored as physical goods are. This characteristic poses both challenges and opportunities for service providers and consumers.
Challenges of Intangibility
- Perception of Quality: Since services cannot be physically inspected before consumption, customers often rely on intangible factors such as brand reputation, testimonials, or the provider’s expertise to gauge service quality.
- Inability to Test Before Purchase: Consumers cannot physically examine services before they are purchased, which may lead to uncertainty or reluctance in making a purchase.
Overcoming Intangibility
Service providers often use tangible cues to make their offerings more appealing:
- Branding: Strong brand identities, customer reviews, and guarantees help bridge the gap created by intangibility.
- Physical Evidence: Service businesses may provide brochures, websites, or sample services to give customers something tangible to associate with the intangible offering.
Examples of Intangible Services
- Consulting: Advice from an expert or consultant is intangible, and clients must trust the advisor’s reputation and previous success.
- Education: Learning, training, or educational services are intangible, and their value is often realized only after completion.
Inseparability: The Simultaneous Production and Consumption of Services
Another characteristic of services is inseparability, or the fact that services are produced and then consumed together. This inherently makes services different from all goods manufactured, stored for a long time, and then sold separately.
Implications of Inseparability
- Customer Participation: Customers often play an active role in the delivery of services. For example, in a hair salon, the customer’s preferences directly influence the outcome of the service.
- Service Provider and Customer Relationship: The service delivery is often intertwined with the interaction between the customer and the service provider. The quality of this interaction can greatly impact the overall service experience.
Examples of Inseparable Services
- Health Care: A medical service is delivered at the moment of consumption, and the patient’s interaction with the healthcare provider is crucial to the quality of the service.
- Transportation: The provision of a transportation service (such as a taxi ride) involves both the driver and the passenger simultaneously.
Variability: The Impact of Human Factors on Service Quality
Another significant feature of services is variability, meaning the tendency of service quality to vary from one provider to another, from one customer to another, or even from one occasion to the next.
Causes of Variability
- Human Involvement: Since services are often delivered by people, human factors such as mood, skill, and training can affect service quality.
- Customer Expectations: Different customers may have different expectations, which can influence how they perceive the service and whether they consider it to be of high quality.
Managing Variability
- Standardization: To reduce variability, service businesses often focus on creating standard operating procedures (SOPs) or training systems for employees.
- Customization: Despite the challenge of variability, many services are customized to meet the specific needs and desires of customers, which can enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Examples of Variable Services
- Restaurants: The quality of service in a restaurant can vary based on the server, the time of day, or even the customer’s interaction with the staff.
- Tourism: A tour guide’s performance can differ significantly depending on their experience, knowledge, and engagement with the group.
Perishability: The Time-Sensitive Nature of Services
Perishability is another distinct characteristic of services. Service products cannot be stored for future sales like goods. Services cannot be kept in inventory; if offered, not consumed at that time, they are lost.
Implications of Perishability
- Demand Forecasting: Service providers must accurately forecast demand to ensure they have enough capacity at the right time. For instance, hotels and airlines often use dynamic pricing to manage demand and optimize occupancy.
- No Inventory: Since services cannot be stored, service providers must balance supply and demand in real-time. This makes the management of service resources, such as staffing and availability, critical.
Strategies to Manage Perishability
- Reservations: Many service industries use reservations to manage demand and ensure that their services are fully utilized.
- Price Flexibility: Offering discounts or promotional offers during off-peak times can help maximize service consumption and reduce the impact of perishability.
Examples of Perishable Services
- Airline Flights: If a flight is not fully booked, the empty seats are lost once the flight departs.
- Live Performances: A concert or theater performance cannot be rescheduled once it has passed, meaning that unsold tickets result in lost revenue.
Lack of Ownership: Services Cannot Be Owned
The peculiar feature of services is that they cannot be owned. Unlike goods, consumers do not possess a physical item. Instead, services are consumed in real-time and do not result in ownership.
Implications of Lack of Ownership
- Temporary Benefits: Consumers experience the benefit of a service during the time it is delivered but do not retain it after the service is completed.
- Experience Over Ownership: For many services, the focus is on the experience rather than the product itself. For example, a vacation or a medical treatment offers a temporary experience that is gone once completed.
Examples of Non-Ownership Services
- Education: While you may benefit from the knowledge gained during an educational course, you do not own the education itself.
- Legal Services: After receiving legal advice or representation, the service is over, and there is no tangible asset to retain.
Conclusion
Services differ in several features, and these are intangibility, inseparability, variability, perishability, and lack of ownership which define how services are consumed, experienced, and provided to customers. While these characteristics create challenges and opportunities for service providers to achieve customer engagement, manage quality in real-time, and maximize efficiency in the delivery of their services, they can easily enhance customer satisfaction, bring better outcomes from services provided, and be differentiated within the marketplace.
Features of Services FAQs
What does the intangibility of services mean?
Intangibility refers to the fact that services cannot be touched or physically inspected before consumption. Customers often rely on other cues, like reputation or reviews, to assess service quality.
How does the inseparability of services affect customer experience?
The inseparability of services means that production and consumption happen simultaneously. The quality of a service depends on both the service provider’s performance and the customer’s participation.
How can businesses reduce the variability in service quality?
Businesses can reduce variability in service quality by standardizing processes, training employees, and ensuring that customer expectations are well-managed.
Why are services considered perishable?
Perishability refers to the fact that services cannot be stored. If a service is not consumed at the time it is offered, it is lost forever. This creates challenges in managing capacity and demand.
What are some examples of services where customers do not own the product?
Examples of services that cannot be owned include education, legal services, and medical treatments, where the benefit is experienced during the service but not retained after completion.
