Customers Expectations and Delight
Introduction In today’s ultra competitive business environment merely meeting customer expectations is not enough. In order to effectively differentiate themselves from the competition, service providers need to focus on exceeding customer expectations to create customer delight and create a pool of loyal customers. Therefore, when deciding on a service delivery design, it is imperative for…
The Changing Face of Services Marketing
Marketing of Services has emerged as an important sub discipline of marketing in its own right. It has evolved phenomenally to emerge as a major field of study with far reaching implications in today’s increasingly service driven economies. It is then, only natural, to wonder what is the future course that this field of study…
Is Automation Making Customer Service Better or Worse?
How Does Automation of the Customer Service Function Impact the Customers? Log into any customer service portal and, chances are that you would come across what is known as bot that responds to you and engages you in providing answers and solutions to your questions and problems. Even when the customer calls the IVR or…
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.
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.”
The defining characteristics of a service are:
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.
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.
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.
Given below are the fundamental differences between physical goods and services:
| Goods | Services |
| A physical commodity | A process or activity |
| Tangible | Intangible |
| Homogenous | Heterogeneous |
| Production and distribution are separation from their consumption | Production, distribution and consumption are simultaneous processes |
| Can be stored | Cannot be stored |
| Transfer of ownership is possible | Transfer of ownership is not possible |
Article Written by
Malvika Mishra is an accomplished HR Business Consultant and Learning & Development specialist with over a decade of experience spanning organizational development, leadership training, and content creation. She holds an MBA and a Post Graduate Diploma in Guidance & Counselling, enabling her to combine business acumen with a deeply people-centric approach. Her work focuses on management practices, corporate governance, diversity & inclusion, and preventive mental wellness as a critical organizational capability. Malvika is known for bridging academic rigor with real-world workplace application.
Article Written by
Malvika Mishra is an accomplished HR Business Consultant and Learning & Development specialist with over a decade of experience spanning organizational development, leadership training, and content creation. She holds an MBA and a Post Graduate Diploma in Guidance & Counselling, enabling her to combine business acumen with a deeply people-centric approach. Her work focuses on management practices, corporate governance, diversity & inclusion, and preventive mental wellness as a critical organizational capability. Malvika is known for bridging academic rigor with real-world workplace application.
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