What Are The Distinctive Characteristics Of Services

Features of Services: viii Major Features of Service Marketing

Article Shared by

Everything you need to know almost features of services. Services are unique and iv major characteristics separate them from appurtenances, namely intangibility, variability, inseparability, and perishability.

The services literature highlights differences in the nature of services versus products which are believed to create special challenges for service marketers and for consumers ownership services.

To help sympathize these differences a number of characteristics that depict the unique nature of services take been proposed.

The peculiar characteristics of services create challenges and opportunities to the service marketers. Services have some of import characteristics that have implications for marketing.

Learn nigh the features of services. They are:- 1. Intangibility 2. Perishability 3. Inseparability 4. Heterogeneity 5. Ownership 6. Simultaneity 7. Quality Measurement eight. Nature of Need.

Features of Services: 8 Silent Features / Characteristics of Service Marketing

Features of Services – Elevation viii Features: Intangibility, Heterogeneity, Simultaneity, Quality Measurement, Nature of Demand and a Few More than

Services have some salient features which necessitate a new vision, a distinct arroyo and a world-class professional excellence to market finer and profitably. The professionals not well enlightened of the backdrop find information technology difficult to brand artistic decisions. It is against this background that we go through the salient features with the viewpoint of their instrumentality in making the marketing decisions.

Feature # 1. Intangibility:

Intangibility is an of import consideration that complicates the functional responsibility of a marketing director, especially while influencing and motivating the prospects/customers. The goods of tangible nature tin can be displayed, the prospects or buyers can have a view and they can even test and make a trial before making the buying decisions. The selling processes are thus constitute easier. We are aware of the fact that services are of intangible nature and it is intangibility that complicates the job of decision-makers.

While motivating, they find it difficult to perform and display and the positive or negative opinions regarding the services come only later the completion of the using process. The client can't touch the services, they admitting can't smell them. In a truthful sense, it is not a physical object. It has mental connotations. According to Carman and Uhl, a buyer of products (goods) accept an opportunity to see, touch, hear, smell or sense of taste them earlier they buy.

Of course, we don't find the same thing with the services product. It is the professional excellence of decision-makers that counts here, that influences the entire process and that helps them substantially. While selling or promoting services, we need to concentrate on benefits and satisfaction which a buyer tin can derive subsequently buying. We can hardly emphasise the service itself.

Every bit for example, the banking organisations promote the sale of credit cards by visualising the conveniences and comforts the holders of the credit cards are probable to get from the same. Services acquit with them a combination of intangible perceptions. Equally for instance, an airline sells the seat from ane destination to another.

Hither, it is a matter of consumers' perception of the services and their expectations not smelling or tasting the services. They expect safety, fast, decent services. A service by nature is an abstract phenomenon. Thus, it is right to mention that due to intangibility, the selling and marketing of services get much more complicated.

Feature # ii. Perishability:

Another point complicating the task of a professional is the nature of perishability that nosotros find in the services. The goods if not sold today can be stored, preserved for further selling. Thus, the run a risk element is here in a different form. But in the context of services, if nosotros fail to sell the services, it is lost only not for today merely even for the future. If a labour stops to work, if a seat in the shipping remains unsold, if a sleeping room in a hotel remains unbooked, a chair in a movie house hall remains vacant; we find the business not-real and the opportunities are lost and lost forever. The services can't be stored or preserved.

Unutilised or underutilised services are found to be a waste. A building unoccupied, a person unemployed, credit unutilised, vacant beds in a hospital are economical waste. Of grade, this is due mainly to its perishability. This makes information technology essential that decision-makers or the executives past using their professionalism minimise the possibilities of economic waste product. The opportunities come up and you need to capitalise on the same by using your excellence.

Characteristic # three. Inseparability:

This is also a characteristic that complicates the chore of professionals while marketing the services. The inseparability focuses on the fact that the services are non of separable nature. Generally, the services are created and supplied simultaneously. Similar the dancers, musicians, dentists and other professionals create and offer services at the aforementioned time. In other words, the services and their providers are the aforementioned. Donald Cowell says, "Goods are produced, sold and so consumed whereas the services are sold and then produced and consumed."

It is inseparability that makes the chore of marketing services a bit difficult. The goods are produced at one point then distributed by others at other points. In the services, we find the selling processes making ways for the generation of services. The professionals while marketing the services thus bear the responsibility of removing or minimising the gap between the services-promised and services-offered.

Goods are produced, sold and then consumed but the services are sold, produced and and so used. The inseparability thus makes it essential that the service-providers are acting and behaving professionally so that the marketing processes are not to pave the avenues for a degeneration in the quality.

Characteristic # four. Heterogeneity:

Another feature is heterogeneity which makes it difficult to plant standard. The quality of services tin't exist standardised. The prices charged may be too high or too low. In the example of entertainment and sports, we discover the same matter. The same type of services can't exist sold to all the customers fifty-fifty if they pay the same price.

The consumers charge per unit the services in a different way. Of grade, it is due to the difference in the perception of individuals at the levels of providers and users. The heterogeneity factor makes it difficult to market place efficiently. The professionals by using their excellence acquit the responsibility of minimising the problem.

Feature # five. Ownership:

Information technology is also ownership that makes it significant to market place the services in a bit dissimilar way. The goods sold are transferred from one place to another, the buying is likewise transferred and this provides to the buyers an opportunity to resell. In the case of services, we don't discover the aforementioned thing. The users accept but an access to the service. As for example, a consumer tin can employ personal care services or Medicare services or can apply a hotel room or swimming pool, however the buying rests with the providers.

An expert opines, "A service is whatsoever activity or benefit that ane party can offer to another that it is essentially intangible and does not issue in the ownership of anything." Hither, it is articulate that ownership is non afflicted in the procedure of selling the services. The consequence of ownership has besides been clarified by another good.

He says, "Services are those separately identifiable, essentially intangible activities which provide want satisfaction and that are not necessarily tied to use sales of a product or another services. To produce a service may or may non require the utilize of tangible appurtenances. However, when such employ is required, at that place is no transfer of permanent buying to these tangible appurtenances."

The same theme of not transferring the ownership has as well been supported by Batesan. Here, the focus is on the point that transfer of ownership simplifies the chore of a marketer since he/she can utilize it every bit a motivational tool. In case of services, the professionals experience difficulties because we don't find any scope for the transfer of buying. The professionals thus demand to be more careful while selling or marketing the services.

Feature # half-dozen. Simultaneity:

Services can't be delivered to customers or users. Services don't motion through the channel of distribution. For availing the services, information technology is essential that the users are brought to the providers or the providers go to the users. It is right to say that the services have limited geographical areas.

Carman and Uhl say, "Producers of services generally accept modest-sized operations than exercise producers of appurtenances, largely because the producers must travel to get the services or vice versa. When the producers travel to the buyer, time is taken abroad from the product of services and the cost of those services is increased. It also costs time and money from buyers to travel to producers of services and these economies of time and travel provide incentive to locate more than services centres closer to prospective customers which results in smaller service center." This can be clarified by a suitable example. Hotel rooms can't be brought to the users; airplane can't exist brought to the customers, etc.

Characteristic # 7. Quality Measurement:

The quality of service requires another tool for measurement. We can't measure it in terms of service level. It is very difficult to rate or quantify the total buy. As for example, we can quantify the food served in a hotel but the fashion a waiter or a carrier serves it or overall environs or behaviour of other staff can't be ignored while rating the total process. Hence, we tin decide the level of satisfaction at which the users are found satisfied. A firm sells atmosphere, conveniences, consistent quality, status, feet, moral, etc.

Feature # 8. Nature of Need:

While going through the features of services, we can't underestimate the cistron related to the nature of demand. Generally, the services are institute of fluctuating nature. Particularly during the summit flavour, we find an abnormal increment in the need. As for instance, the mobility of rider is plant increased, specially during the union season or during an of import festival.

The tourists adopt to become the tourist spots or resorts particularly during summer when we observe the conditions condition suitable. The cricket stadiums are used in winter. The golf courses remain unused during the winter. The public transport facilities are used considerably during the beginning and end of function hours. There are a number of examples to prove the peak hr when we find an aberrant increase in the demand position.

The aforesaid features of services brand it clear that the professionals working in the services sector demand excellence to make available to the customers the promised services without a gap. If the executives working in the different service generating organisations comport the potentials to empathise the specialities in the services to be sold, they tin practise the best possible to sympathize the expectations of customers.

This simplifies the process of satisfying the customers. It is not meant that the professionals working in the appurtenances manufacturing organisations don't need excellence. The focus is on the signal that since the services equally a product are found of sensitive nature and the expectations of customers are institute high, it is essential that the professionals empathise the services vis-a-vis the customers. This makes an assault on the multi-dimensional problems likely to crop up in the process of selling services.

Features of Services – 4 Main Characteristics: Intangibility, Inseparability, Variability and Perishability

Services are unique and four characteristics separate them from goods, namely intangibility, variability, inseparability, and perishability.

i. Intangibility:

Services are intangible, that is, they cannot exist seen. Services existence acts, deeds, and performance tin can be experienced but non possessed. That is, a service dissimilar a practiced cannot be sampled, seen, touched, and felt before their consumption. For instance, it is impossible to sample surgery, travel, and theatre performance.

Similarly, an insurance encompass bought for life or a motorcar or the service provided by a matrimony counsellor or consultant cannot be seen, touched, or smelled. On the other hand, the tangibility of a boob tube set or a mobile phone allows customers to see, bear upon, hear, and even smell them.

The results of a service experience are discernible to just those customers who feel information technology. A sample class by a teacher, sample consultation of a physician, sample experience of a hotel, or a sample flight is distinct from what it purports to exist sample of. The sampled result is different from the service effect that suggests it being a sample of. Each service feel is singled-out and unique.

Service intangibility is the fundamental reason that their marketing assumes unlike dimensions from physical products. Bateson considers it as a very disquisitional distinguishing feature. Intangibility can have two aspects—palpable intangibility that implies lack of touch power and mental intangibility that means hard to grasp something mentally.

This makes service buying difficult for customers. Service buyers therefore bank upon cues to form judgement about marketed services. The extrinsic elements that environment a service are oftentimes used by consumers every bit indicators of quality of service. For instance, a hotel's quality is judged by tangible elements such equally building, backyard, anteroom, decor, paintings, staff dress, and lighting.

2. Inseparability:

Goods being concrete entities are separable from their production systems. For instance, a mobile phone may be manufactured in China and packed, stored, and shipped to the markets where it is sold to end customers. Goods are separable from their producers in terms of time and place.

Whereas, services do not allow this flexibility; they are non inseparable from their producers. For instance, a surgeon'due south surgery, flight of an airline, makeup of an artist, and a hotel's stay cannot be separated from their producers. This inseparability between the service product and service producer unfolds unique challenges for service marketers.

The lack of separation does non permit services to go to markets without taking service production system along with it. This makes interaction between consumer and service production system essential for its cosmos and marketing. For example- health services crave patients to get to health clinics and a traveller must check in an aircraft in order to exist able to use their services. On the other side, customers do not go to Nokia's mill or Toyota'due south plant to buy their products.

The lack of inseparability in services blurs the boundaries between production systems and markets. In marketing of appurtenances, production takes identify in factories and goods travel to markets for sales. Yet in services, this sequence is thwarted because of inseparability.

There are ii options—either the customers move to service systems or the service system moves to customers. When patients, students, and travellers movement to hospitals, schools, and aircrafts respectively, the market moves to production system. On the other hand, when hotels open up branches and doctors pay visit to patient's firm, the product system moves to markets.

Inseparability makes centralized production difficult in services. This is a radical departure from appurtenances marketing. Goods production is generally centralized at some locations in order to reap the advantage of large scale. Services are performed in real time.

Inseparability makes customer-provider interaction mandatory in case of services, which further makes operations and marketing intersect with each other. Services therefore are co-created experiences. This often breeds conflicts between the 2 functions.

Absence of their conflict resolution frequently sits at the eye of poor customer satisfaction. The interactions between provider and customer may differ in terms of intimacy and involvement. The interactions betwixt doctor and patient is intimate and involving and whereas in retail information technology is not then.

iii. Variability:

Physical goods are produced with a high degree of standardization. They are factory produced or assembled in large numbers with enormous consistency. It is rare to observe two cakes of soap like Pears or 2 pieces of car like Alto different from ane another. However, this kind of similarity is near impossible in services. For instance, ii visits to a medico or two lectures of a professor are never exactly same. Ii separate stays at a particular hotel are unlikely to be an exact replica of one another. Variability is inherent in services because of their peculiar characteristics including intangibility and inseparability.

There are several reasons that brand standardization of services difficult. Beginning, intangibility prevents setting upwardly of precisely defined standards for service product, their conformance, and command. The advances in quality like zero defect has been possible due to their tangible character.

Physical appurtenances have tangible dimensions that permit setting up of quality standards, deviations measurement, and their minimization. Second, service variability is caused by human involvement and customer- provider interactions. Services are produced and consumed in real time.

Unlike appurtenances, services cannot exist produced and then quality checked. The lack of separation betwixt product and consumption prevents post-product quality control. 'A major departure between production marketing and service marketing is that nosotros cannot control the quality of our products as well as a P&G control engineer on a production line can command the quality of his product.

When y'all buy a box of Tide, you tin be sure that it will piece of work to go your clothes clean. When you buy a Vacation Inn room, you are certain to some lesser per centum that it will work to give a good night's slumber without any hassle, or people banging on walls and all the bad things that can happen to y'all in a hotel'.

Each service episode tends to be unique in its own correct. The interaction between client and provider cannot be programmed and controlled cent per cent. In spite of a highly regimented service delivery procedure, each customer brings unique psycho-social attribute to a service see.

For instance, service encounters are afflicted past moods and personality combinations betwixt provider and customer. For instance, service provider'due south mood and emotional state despite loftier training is difficult to control like a machine. Similarly, 1 customer is unlikely to have similar mental state in two service episodes. Service inconsistency manifests in unlike forms.

For instance, quality variation tin can be experienced across different service outlets, for example two branches of Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) may provide dissimilar service experience. Variations in service tin can likewise be plant across time too. For instance, the service quality between lunch and dinner services of a restaurant may differ.

4. Perishability:

Services cannot be stored like goods because of simultaneity of product and consumption. Unlike goods, which savor separation between production and consumption, services are produced and consumed at the same time. For example, most of the consumer durable companies accumulate inventories prior to the arrival of festive seasons.

These inventories allow them to meet overfull demand later when festivals make it. All the same, this luxury is not possible for a service marketer. For case, hotels and airlines cannot create stocks of their rooms or seats to supply them during the fourth dimension of excess demand. Inventory is non possible in services.

The lack of inventories profoundly reduces flexibility of service firms in coping with fluctuating demand conditions. The inability to marshal service supply every bit per demand situations causes service to suffer from revenue loss when demand exceeds capacity and incur excess cost when need is less than available capacity.

Consider the instance of a typical airline company. During the prime travel fourth dimension during morning and evening between cities such as Mumbai and New Delhi, the demand for travel more often than not exceeds capacity. Similarly, restaurants take to turn away their customers during lunch and dinner time and cinema theatres neglect to adapt need during prime number shows.

The unaccommodated customers are lost acquirement opportunities. On the hand, during the non-acme fourth dimension aircrafts, restaurants, and cinema theatres face demand conditions far lower than bachelor capacity. Unused capacity is undesirable because assets remain idle.

Unoccupied theatre, airline, and restaurant seats cannot be stored and carried over to cater supply during the time of backlog demand. In service industries, output is wasted if it is non consumed simultaneously. The 'unused capacity in a service business is rather like having as running tap in a sink with no plug, the flow is wasted unless customers, or their possessions that require servicing, are present to receive it'.

Goods marketers are improve equipped to align their supply according to demand atmospheric condition due to their ability to maintain inventories as a buffer. Services on the other hand stand to lose due to the absenteeism of inventories.

Features of Services – 4 Of import Features (With Bug and Marketing Strategy)

The services literature highlights differences in the nature of services versus products which are believed to create special challenges for services marketers and for consumers buying services. To help empathise these differences a number of characteristics that describe the unique nature of services have been proposed.

These characteristics were first discussed in the early on services marketing literature and are generally summarised equally intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity and perishability.

Although, there has been a argue on the effectiveness of the four characteristics in distinguishing between products and services and used both as the basis for examining services buyer behaviour and developing services marketing strategies.

It is, therefore, important to establish the extent to which these characteristics reflect the perspective of the consumer. A U.s.a.-based report by Hartman and Lindgren (1993) found that consumers did non use the four characteristics in distinguishing betwixt products and services.

Bitner, Fisk and Brown (1993) suggest that the major output from the services marketing literature upwardly to 1980 was the delineation of 4 services characteristics- intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity and perishability. These characteristics underpinned the example for services marketing and made services a field of marketing that was distinct from the marketing of products.

four I'due south of Services Backed by an O:

Services have 4 distinct characteristics that need to be internalised by service professionals to create opportunities in the market place, to enhance both height and bottom line growth for the business firm. Leading researchers have zeroed on Intangibility, Inseparability, Inconsistency, and Inventory while others mention Buying as well. All these characteristics are providing opportunity as well as challenges to the service marketer.

The distinct characteristics of services demand individual focus while taking decisions regarding their organisational set up-up.

They are mentioned below:

Feature # one. Intangibility:

It is one of the most important characteristics of service products. It has no concrete dimension and attributes. Service is a human activity, a functioning, and an try. The customers purchase functioning equally they cannot run into, touch, hear, taste or scent a service earlier they decide to buy the product.

This makes the perception of service quite subjective. For e.g. a heir-apparent of health club package, for weight loss cannot encounter what the event volition be till the programme is over. Therefore, the customers for many services take to purchase them on trust equally they cannot be inspected before use. In case of goods, a consumer can touch, taste and sample the production. The intangible nature of services makes consumers concerned nigh their providers.

For e.g. in case of Global Trust Bank, a few years dorsum, the investments made were non every bit per Regulatory norms, and when it was released in the press, it left many customers uneasy almost the financial instability of GTB and there was a withdrawal of deposits as investors' trust were shaken. Some customers lost total faith and stopped banking.

In fact some service providers like life insurance agents every bit per IRDA accept to undergo 100 hours preparation to go a license to practice and then that they are trained in their profession.

Service products are mostly intangible just are marketed with tangible prove. This is referred to as tangibilising the intangibles. While services often are accompanied with concrete evidence that enables the consumer to make the product less abstract and more than tangible, there will always be an intangible element to the service product.

The level of tangibility in the service offer is based on iii criteria:

i. Tangible appurtenances which are included in the service offer and consumed past the user.

2. The physical surroundings in which the service production/consumption process takes identify, and

iii. Tangible evidence of service operation.

Where goods course an important component of a service offer, many of the practices in appurtenances marketing can exist practical to this part of the service offer. A firm's promotional efforts must state the benefits to be derived from a service rather than stressing on the service itself. Information technology is used to communicate the nature and quality of service.

Accept for instance an experience on a flight, the total service experience is an aggregate of many components such every bit experience at the airdrome, the nature of services on lath, the inflight entertainment. Here, in that location are some tangible elements but nearly are intangible elements.

Intangibility of services leads customers to take difficulty in evaluating competing services, perceiving and assessing high levels of risk placing more emphasis on personal information sources and often using cost as the basis for assessing quality. Hence direction responds past reducing service complexity, stressing more on tangible clues, focusing on service quality and facilitating discussion of mouth recommendation.

While some services are rich in such tangible cues like retail outlets, restaurants, other services provide relatively piddling tangible evidence like life insurance.

In case of restaurants, it represents a mix of tangibles and intangibles and in respect of the food element, few of the particular characteristics of services marketing are encountered. Therefore, production of the food can be separated from its consumption and the perishability of nutrient is less significant than the perishability of an empty table which results in loss of business. The presence of a tangible component gives customers a visible ground to judge quality.

The tangible elements of the service offered comprise not merely those appurtenances which are exchanged merely also the physical surround in which a service encounter takes place. Within this surround, the blueprint of buildings, their cleanliness and the appearance of staff nowadays important tangible testify which may be the but basis on which a buyer is able to differentiate one service provider from another.

Tangibility is further provided by evidence of service production methods. Some services provide many opportunities for customers to meet the process of production, indeed the whole purpose of the service may be to see the product process like dramas or skits.

Oft this tangible show can exist envisioned before a decision to purchase a service is made, either past direct ascertainment of a service being performed on somebody else like watching the sculptor work on a statue or indirectly, through a description of the service production process by brochures which illustrate and particular the service process similar teaching. On the other hand, some services provide very few tangible clues almost the nature of the service production procedure.

The lack of physical evidence, which intangibility implies, increases the level of uncertainty which a consumer faces when choosing between competing services. The service marketer'southward program consists of reducing consumer doubt by adding physical bear witness and the development of strong service brands; in contrast goods marketers augment their products past calculation intangible elements such as afterwards sales service and improved distribution.

Characteristic # 2. Inconsistency (Heterogeneity or Variability):

This characteristic of service as well referred to as heterogeneity, is a function of human involvement in the delivery and consumption procedure. The inseparability of the production and consumption aspects of the service transaction refers to the fact that service is a operation, in real time, in which the customer cooperates with the service provider.

Inseparability is a feature of a service indicating that information technology cannot be separated from the service provider of the production. Therefore a great deal of effort has to go into standardisation of delivery. Since buyers' and service providers' interpersonal substitution is involved, there is opportunity for customisation, which can be the Unique Selling Proposition.

Inconsistency occurs largely because dissimilar service providers perform a given service on different occasions. The service performed past an individual provider may differ over a period of time because interaction between customer and provider may vary. Every time a service is performed, the process and the customer feel are different.

Services that are provided past individuals rather than equipment will vary, depending upon which individual performs the service, and these will even vary with the same service provider from one chore to the next. The service will also vary co-ordinate to the caste to which clients involved in the product of the service agree.

The degree to which the service firm designs the service delivery system to control variability volition influence the quality of the service experienced by the customer.

Customer uncertainty can exist reduced by a combination of automation, standardisation and rationalisation. Notwithstanding, inseparability may exist desired by those customers who want customised service, rather than standard approaches that are not advisable for private situation as in instance of interiors for bungalows in exclusive schemes for high net worth individuals.

Just it is not possible to standardise service industry output. In instance of trips by the Shatabdi Limited betwixt Delhi and Agra, the consumer does non get the same quality of service twenty-four hours later on twenty-four hour period due to different service personnel, snacks, music etc.

The performance of a faculty in a lecture, is not of same standard in each performance, as information technology will depend on a host of factors like preparation, mood, participation of the students, ambience etc. In case of an income tax consultant, he may provide a different service experience to a high net worth individual and a salaried course clerk because of varying needs and depends on his moods and pressures at the time of the day when the interaction is taking place.

In order to provide consequent services, the firms should standardise staff operation through careful' planning, control and automation. Firms which are automated have less people and hence they accept lower inconsistency in services. A garage which has installed auto car launder facilities with mounting of the vehicle on the ramp can provide consistent services. Banks have installed Automatic Teller Machines to provide consequent services due to automation. Fountain, Cola and Pepsi vending machines are another examples.

While these firms achieve high homogeneity in service commitment, they increase the risk of being inflexible and the staff reacts poorly to the unforeseen problem. Inconsistency is an opportunity and firms can strengthen their brands past customisation with greater empowerment to the staff.

For services, variability impacts upon customers not just in terms of outcomes simply likewise in terms of processes of production. It is the latter point that causes variability to pose a much greater problem for services, compared to goods. Because the customer is normally involved in the production process for a service at the same time as they consume information technology, it can be difficult to carry out monitoring and control to ensure consistent standards.

The opportunity for pre-commitment inspection and rejection which is open to the goods manufacturer is non normally possible with services. The service must unremarkably be produced in the presence of the customer without the possibility of intervening quality control.

Particular problems can occur where personnel are involved in providing services on a one-to-one basis, such as hairdressing, where no easy method of monitoring and control is possible.

Characteristic # 3. Inseparability:

Many services are created, delivered and consumed simultaneously through interaction between customers and service producers, whereas goods generally, are produced get-go and consumed later on. Every bit the customers are involved in the product process, the service quality becomes difficult to measure out and control.

For eastward.k. a doctor creates, delivers all his services simultaneously merely the consumer presence is required during the performance of the service. This ways that in many cases, people are involved meantime in the production and marketing efforts of the service organisations.

In almost of the cases, the customer receives and consumes the services at the service provider's bounds. Since inseparability characteristic generally means the direct interaction between the service provider and customer, it is direct selling.

Inseparability leads customers to beingness co-producers of the service either lone or with other co-consumers and often they have to travel to the point of product service. The management has to respond to this past separating product and consumption. It has to monitor consumer producer interaction and focus on continuous improvement in the service delivery system.

Production and consumption are separable for goods. On the other hand, the consumption of a service is said to be inseparable from its means of production. Producer and consumer must collaborate with each other in order to realise the benefits of the service; both must normally run across at a time and a place which is mutually user-friendly in such a way that the producer can straight pass on service benefits.

For services, marketing becomes a means of facilitating complex producer-consumer interaction, rather than being merely an exchange medium.

Moreover, the service cannot be stocked by the distribution partners, as in case of goods. This poses a major limitation for the service provider. For e.grand. a machine mechanic can simply repair, say, 4 vehicles per day. Thus individual service seller's services cannot be sold in many markets or multi locations. This feature limits the scale and attain of performance of a service firm.

At that place are other services which can be sold past a representative of the main service provider e.g. insurance amanuensis, travel agent, but at the final betoken of service delivery the service provider'south presence is a must. Such services are generally sold past the institutions producing them.

The degree of involvement between transacting parties is dependent upon the extent to which the service is 'equipment based' or 'people based'.

Feature # 4. Inventory (Perishability):

The perishability of services describes the real time nature of the product. Unlike appurtenances, the consumer cannot store the service and the absenteeism of the power to build and maintain stocks of the product means that sudden demands cannot be accommodated as it can be done in example of goods.

The buyer may decide to delay the consumption just may not consume more in advance than the requirements. For the buyer of services, the fourth dimension at which they cull to apply the service may be critical to its functioning and therefore to the consumer's experience, for due east.g., in a Pune Municipal Transport motorbus the feel in the blitz hr is very different than in lean hours.

Consumption of services is directly linked to the experience. In case of services, inventory costs are related to capacity utilisation. In idle service product surroundings, the inventory cost relates to reimbursing staff along with any needed equipment. Eastward.g. If a lawyer is available but there is no customer during that period, the fixed cost of the idle lawyer's opportunity is the inventory carrying cost.

Some services take characteristics, where need for them fluctuates, considerably past season and by day of the calendar week and even hr of the day. An airline which offers seats on a 6.00 am flight from Mumbai to Delhi cannot sell whatsoever empty seats one time the aircraft has left at six.00 am. The service offering disappears and spare seats cannot exist stored to meet a surge in demand which may occur at 8.00 am.

Few services accept a constant pattern of need over a period of time. Many testify considerable variation like daily variation in cyber cafes towards the evening/night , weekends for travel by railways between Pune-Mumbai, seasonal for hotels, cyclical for mortgages or an unpredictable pattern of need like emergency repair services like electricity after trees falling on electricity lines.

For a travel agent, the need fluctuates co-ordinate to time and period and is linked to holidays in school and colleges, in summer and winter coupled to festivals like Diwali, Durga Puja, and Christmas etc., wherein the demand peaks.

The combination of perishability and fluctuating demand present challenges for marketers engaged in planning, pricing, promotion and distribution of services. The cellular companies try to spread out need for their services by pricing off top hours to make them more bonny to callers.

They offer "happy hour" rates to increment traffic in lean periods of the day. The services providers focus on strategies for effective capacity management to reduce the inventory costs. Hence, even if volumes tin can exist enhanced with a lilliputian margin over variable price, the house should push for it.

An date with a dentist at a given time, on a given day, cannot be stored and if patient cancels the appointment final minute, the revenue is lost. The firms must monitor their chapters and review it periodically to ensure customers get meliorate service besides as resources of the business firm are optimally utilised.

Many services are bought fifty-fifty before they are experienced equally in case of alimony. Here the service firms accept to tackle two issues- kickoff, they take to develop image and reputation to attract customers; secondly, they must retain customers, equally competitors try to attract them away, even though they have withal to feel the service.

Perishability occurs considering of the inability to store services, inelasticity of curt-term supply. This results in demand patterns existence irregular with just in time production of services and if managed effectively congestion occurs at peak periods and loss of chapters at off-peak periods. Pricing and promotion are used extensively to encourage customers to utilise services at a fourth dimension when it is convenient to the service operator in club to have better capacity utilisation.

To manage these characteristics efficiently the service provider has to use the optimum strategies. "The Problems and Strategies in Services Marketing" adapted from Parasuraman, Drupe and Zeithmal, "Problems and Strategies in Services Marketing", and "Journal of Marketing" are described for ready reference.

Problem:

i. Intangibility:

i. Cannot be easily displayed

ii. Cannot be patented

2. Inconsistency:

i. Standardisation hard to achieve

two. Hard to gear up upward quality control

3. Can only predict quality or determine it afterwards the service is performed

3. Inseparability:

i. Harder to mass produce

two. Less efficient than production goods

4. Inventory:

Customers must be present

Marketing Strategy:

1. Intangibility:

i. Provide tangible clues

ii. Stimulate discussion of rima oris

iii. Use personnel sources

iv. Utilize postal service purchase communication

2. Inconsistency:

i. Stress on standardisation and performance

ii. Focus on employee preparation

3. Programs, operation evaluation

iv. Licensing and other forms of credential requirement

3. Inseparability:

i. Demand strong training programmes, incentives

2. Focus on personal attending

4. Inventory:

i. Focus on convenience, saving fourth dimension, faster service

ii. Extended hours

iii. Focus on competence and expertise

4. Predict fluctuating demand

v. Manage chapters to residual supply and demand

In addition to the 4 I's of services, ownership has been identified as a distinguishing feature of services past some researchers including Kotler.

Ownership is some other distinguishing feature of service. The inability to own a service is related to the characteristics of intangibility and perishability. In case of service, when it is performed, no ownership is transferred from buyer to seller. The buyer is merely buying the right to a service procedure such as the employ of a automobile park or a solicitor's time.

A stardom should be drawn between the inability to own the service act, and the rights which a heir-apparent may acquire to have a service carried out at some time in the hereafter. In case of service, the buyer has temporary admission to or use of it.

What is owned is the benefit of service, not the service itself, e.g. for a holiday tour package to picturesque Manali in Himachal, the heir-apparent has access to hotel, mountains, snowfall, waterfalls, rivers etc. but doesn't own any of them.

The disability to own a service has implications for the design of distribution channels, so a wholesaler or retailer cannot take title, as is the case with appurtenances. Instead, direct distribution methods are more than common and where intermediaries are used, who mostly deed equally a co- producer with the service provider.

Features of Services: Superlative half-dozen Features: Perishability, Irresolute Need, Intangibility, Inseparability, Heterogeneity and Pricing of Services

The peculiar characteristics of services create challenges and opportunities to the service marketers.

These are given beneath:

1. Perishability:

Every bit a marketable commodity, a service has a high caste of perishability. Time element assumes unique importance. If a service is not used today, it is lost forever. It cannot be Stored. It cann6t be carried forward. Unutilised services are economic losses. A building unoccupied, a person unemployed, credit not utilised, a transport, a wagon or a warehouse loaded to simply half its chapters, empty rooms in a 5 star hotel are illustrations representing perishable nature of services and business which is lost forever.

2. Changing Demand:

The market for services has wide fluctuations. These fluctuations in demand may be seasonal or even by weeks, days or hours. During non-elevation hours we need less transport. The use of public transport fluctuates greatly during the day. During night we demand less telephone services. Tourism as well has seasonal demand. Cricket fields are unused in the rainy season. Golf courses are non used in the wintertime.

3. Intangibility:

A physical product, due east g., a television set set, a fridge, terelene saree, idli-dossa, confront cream, are visible and physical products. You lot can see them, feel them, taste them, smell them and even eat or enjoy their possession. It is non possible to run into, feel, sense of taste, and smell services before they are bought. A service by nature is an abstract phenomenon. Information technology is not a physical object.

Information technology has mental connotations. While selling or promoting the sale of a service we take to concentrate entirely on the benefits and satisfaction a buyer tin can derive after buying that service. Nosotros cannot emphasize the service itself.

Banks promote the sale of credit cards by emphasizing the conveniences and advantages derived from possessing a credit card. Central card of the Central Depository financial institution of Republic of india is a new convenience card—Convenience taking on a new name. It is the offset of its kind to be launched by a nationalised banking company in Republic of india. Whether you are out on business, shopping or just dining out, you don't take to pay cash or requite a cheque. By holding a central card you lot can discover a new way of life.

In this way a bank marketer can promote the sale of any bank service by stressing the benefits, conveniences and other advantages derived from that particular service. The telephone visitor stresses how the apply of phone can reduce costs of selling and storage by using long-distance calls. Of grade, sale of a service, e.yard., insurance, involves a existent claiming. The burden of selling an intangible production similar service falls mainly on the promotion mix.

4. Inseparability:

Personal service cannot be separated from the individual. Some services are created and supplied simultaneously. Dentist, musician, dancer, and such other professionals create and offer service at the aforementioned time. Hence, due to inseparability, direct sale of many services is the only channel of distribution. The market for offer personal services is leap to be limited.

A person can sell his service simply to a limited number of customers in a day. Still, when an institution is acting as a creator of a service, we may take its representatives or agents to sell that service. For example, a travel agent, an insurance broker, a finance broker, may stand for and sell the services supplied by a tourist organisation, insurance company and financial institutions.

5. Heterogeneity:

The quality of services offered by the competing firms cannot be standardised. Even the quality of the output of services sold by one seller cannot be uniform or standardised. For case, a technician cannot offer equal quality of service when he is repairing a number of television sets.

Similarly, it is hard to guess accurately the quality of services. Payment of price and the quality of actual functioning may not have perfect correlation Price paid for a service may be too high or too low in relation to actual operation. This is particularly significant in the case of sports and amusement services.

six. Pricing of Services:

Perishability, fluctuations in demand and inseparability in services involve significant implications in pricing. Consumers may postpone purchases or perform some services themselves. Competition plays a secondary role in many services. Quality of services cannot be fully standardised.

There are many difficulties in pricing of services. In regulated services we take cost plus pricing. Usually prices of other services are adamant on the basis of demand and contest. Variable pricing policy is also used in services Discounts are also offered in many services, east.thou. insurance, hotel, etc.

Features of Services

Services have some important characteristics that accept implications for marketing.

Feature # ane. Intangibility :

Services are intangible. "They cannot exist tasted, felt, heard, or smelled before they are bought". Intangibility created bug for marketing as it makes very difficult to make consumers convinced near the qualities of a product to encourage its purchase. Therefore, a lot depends on the reputation of the service provider.

Every bit services are intangible, they cannot be patented, legally, and new service concepts tin can therefore easily exist copied past competitors. … Decisions about what to include in advertising and other promotional materials are challenging, as is pricing. The actual costs of a 'unit of service' are difficult to determine and the toll quality relationship is complex.

Feature # 2. Inseparability :

Services are inseparable from the providers, whether persons or machines. For example, a musician'southward functioning or a lawyer's counsel cannot be separated from them. Equally the quality of the services is highly personal or inherent, another person may not be able to return exactly the same quality. For example, one musician cannot be a substitute for another.

The inseparability imposes limits on the supply of service of a certain quality and prototype. Several strategies are in use for getting around this limitation. For case, the number of patients attended to by an eye specialist tin exist increased by having administration to do the standard routine examinations and the specialist doing but the vital, critical, part of it. Recorded cassettes (i.due east., making the service in the product form) can increase the attain of the operation of a musician, although for many it may not be as appealing as enjoying it alive.

Characteristic # 3. Variability :

The quality of service is highly variable. Different people or organisations may not exist able to make the quality of their service exactly the same always. Even when the same person provides a service, the quality may vary at different times. The quality of the food served past a restaurant often varies. Consistency in quality is very important. Quality of the people providing the service, standardising service performance process and monitoring customer satisfaction can assist improve service quality.

As Zeithaml and Binter indicate out, "considering services are heterogeneous across fourth dimension, organisations, and people, ensuring consequent service quality is challenging. Quality actually depends on many factors that cannot be fully controlled by service providers, such equally the ability of the consumer to articulate his/her needs, the power and willingness of personnel to satisfy those needs, the presence (or absence) of other customers, and the level of demand, for the service."

Feature # 4. Perishability :

Services are perishable in the sense they cannot be stored, resold, or returned. This creates problem to adapt supply with demand. This is sought to be adjusted to by methods such as – differential pricing like off season discounts by airlines, hotels, lower telephone charges during lean hours, advance reservation organization etc.

Simultaneous Production and Consumption :

A corollary of the perishability characteristic of service is simultaneous production and consumption. Unlike goods, which are oftentimes produced outset, then sold and consumed, most services are sold first and and then produced and consumed simultaneously.

Equally a result, service providers play "a role as part of the production itself and as an essential ingredient in the service feel for the consumer". The simultaneous production and consumption make demand supply direction very challenging.

"The quality of service and client satisfaction will be highly dependent on what happens in 'real time', including actions of employees and the interaction between employees and customers. Similarly, it is not usually possible to gain significant economies of scale through centralisation. Usually operations need to be relatively decentralised so that services tin be delivered directly to the consumer in convenient locations."

Features of Services – Top vi Features: Intangible, Inseparability, Perishable, Heterogeneous, Customer's Participation and Ownership

1. Intangible:

'You cannot touch on; you just can feel it'. Ex – In case of child intendance heart, a women takes care of children from morn to evening, what is seen their? nothing. Simply everything is performed, done, felt. No physical, material exists but an intangible character is simply provided. The kids are maintained from still evening. A pure service has no tangibility. In way designing, the designer designs some design and transfer them to model. The model demonstration services only intangibles exists nothing is given but everything is obtained.

There may be partial tangibility in services. Ex Railways the Jana-shatabdi railroad train (Transportation) the main service is intangible just the dinner, lunch provided would be tangible. The very nature of intangibility is that, their production and consumption instantly takes-place. No ownership is transferred i.east., If you go for a movie by paying Rs. 100/- information technology does non mean that you became owner of the theatre.

two. Inseparability:

Both the production and consumption should go hand in hand. They cannot be separated. In instance of Beauty Parlour, the services provided along with the hair- dressing should be enjoyed simultaneously. You cannot post-pone it. The sale production consumption is the routine activities of services. You purchase a ticket for motion picture, and then enter theatre, movie starts, and then consumptions accept place. As and when moving picture moves you have to consume it, because, both are inseparable.

3. Perishable:

The basic feature of the services is that, if you lot practise non use, they volition perish or die themselves When motion picture is going on, in a particular seen, if you close the eyes, then it is missed forever because, in the aforementioned fourth dimension you do non got information technology 2nd time. No store value. At the pinnacle period the services not used will non be obtained in the lean-period.

4. Heterogeneous:

There cannot exist a standard services. Ex – Whenever yous get for Dazzler Parlour, y'all won't go the same service as previously experienced. Homogeneity cannot be incorporated. Because, rendering service involves homo element and homo element cannot be standardised. He is affected past psychology, behaviour, instincts, etc. Hence, marketing of services is hard, still customer are habituated to accepts its heterogeneity.

5. Customer's Participation:

The unique nature of services is that, customer should participate at 100%, otherwise services cannot be given. Ex – If flick is moving, customers should open the eyes. If he fails to participate in the deed of picture show moments, it cannot be enjoyed. Facial cannot be performed unless face is shown to beautician.

half-dozen. Ownership:

The buying to services does non exist. A person who goes to theatre cannot with the chair, as he has not paid for it.

The amount paid by the customer is for the observing the running flick but not for annihilation else. Hence, neither the service ownership is transferred nor obtained both by the seller and heir-apparent.