Services have four key characteristics according to researchers: intangibility, inseparability, variability, and perishability. Services are performances rather than physical objects and cannot be touched, seen or stored. They are simultaneously created and consumed, making standardized mass production difficult. The quality of services can vary between providers and customers and even from day to day due to human interactions. Finally, services cannot be stored and their value declines rapidly, creating pressure to sell services immediately.

1. Service Concept, Characteristic
and Classification of Service
What are Services
• Gronoos (1990)
 Service is an activity or a series of activities of more or less intangible nature
that normally , but not necessarily, – take place in interactions between the
customer
and service employees and /or – physical resources or goods and/or systems of the
service provider, which are provided as a solution to customer problems.
Kotler (1991)
 Service is an act or performance that one party can offer to another that is
essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything. Its
production may not be tied to a physical product.
.

2. Service Concept, Characteristic
and Classification of Service
Nature/ characterstics of Services
Researchers have proposed four basic traits of services.
Intangibility
 Services are performances rather than objects, they cannot be seen, felt, tasted
or touched like goods.
Inseparability
 Services are created and consumed simultaneously; they cannot be stored like
goods.
Variability
 Quality and essence of service vary from producer to producer, customer to
customer, and from day to day; it is largely the result of human interaction and
all the vagaries that accompany it.
Perishability
 Services once produced cannot be stored for future use.

3. Service Concept, Characteristic
and Classification of Service
Intangibility
 At times services are further classified into:-
Physical intangibility
 that which cannot be touched.
Mental intangibility
 that which is difficult for the consumer to grasp or measure even mentally.
 Services cannot be stored They cannot be patented legally, hence can easily be
copied by competitors.
 They cannot be readily displayed or communicated leading to difficulty in
assessing its quality.

4. Service Concept, Characteristic
and Classification of Service
Inseparability
This stands for the inseparability of production and consumption.
 Customer has to be present during the service production.
 Customers frequently interact with service providers, influence them and may
even act as co-producers.
 Service producers themselves play an important role as part of the product
itself, as well as an essential ingredient in the service experience for consumer.
 And thus,
– Centralized mass production is difficult if not impossible.
– Customer experiences depend upon the interactions
– Operations need to be decentralized so that services can be delivered directly to
consumers at convenient locations.
– Involvement of customers in production process is important.

5. Service Concept, Characteristic
and Classification of Service
Variability
 Services face the difficulty of achieving uniform outputs, especially in labour-
intensive services.
– Performance and behaviour vary among service workers.
– It may even vary for the same worker dealing with different customers or on different
days of work.
 Thus, there is
– Difficulty in achieving standardization
– Difficulty in setting quality controls.
– Determination of quality is possible only after performance of service.
– Difficulty in communicating to the clients what exactly they would get.
Perish-ability
 Services cannot be stored and then sold at a later date as they perish.
And thus,
– Services have short lived value.
– Services cannot be inventoried.
– Time pressure for sale of service is extremely high.
– Capacity of services is finite.

6. Service Concept, Characteristic
and Classification of Service

7. Service Concept, Characteristic
and Classification of Service

8. Service Concept, Characteristic
and Classification of Service

9. Service Concept, Characteristic
and Classification of Service

10. Service Concept, Characteristic
and Classification of Service

11. Service Concept, Characteristic
and Classification of Service