Characteristics of Services (7) Flashcards
What are the four unique characteristics of services?
- intangible 2. perishable 3. highly variable 4. inseparable from the people or technology that provide them
Services are intangible because you cannot ____ or ______ them as you can with products prior to consuming them.
see or touch
Services are _____ because you cannot see or touch them as you can with products prior to consuming them.
intagibile
Do services have a physical presence?
No
Using a commercial airline flight as an example, you can purchase a ticket to fly somewhere, but the flight itself isn’t tangible. It’s not possible to try the flight out first to see if your travel experience is pleasant. You simply have to experience the flight. You can’t know in advance if it will arrive on time or if it will experience turbulence.
The intangible nature of services has _____ and _______ implications
business, marketing
A firm that devises an effective service will often find that competitors _____ the service.
copy
Are services easy or difficult to copy?
difficult
In the product world, most firms patent their innovations to protect them from competitors who would copy them. Services, however, are much harder to protect that way.
Is displaying and communicating about services easy or difficult?
difficult
Using words to describe the experience and benefits of a service is a _______ particularly for complex services
challenge
For example, your investment advisor might recommend a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) as an investment, and you’d naturally ask your advisor to explain a REIT. In response, your advisor would probably hand you a 20-page prospectus — though if you were to read it, you would probably still not fully understand an REIT or its benefits.
Is pricing services challenging or easy?
challenging
Why is pricing a service challenging?
because consumers often don’t have reference information to evaluate services based on pricing.The main reason is familiarity: most of us know about how much a gallon of gasoline costs, but not about cost, for example, to have a tooth filled at the dentist.
In the absence of any other information, cost serves to signal _____, so when comparing options, consumers will assume the more expensive service is the
________ quality.
quaility, highest
But this often isn’t true, making cost a flawed evaluation criterion because the highest price service is not always the highest quality.
Consumers perceive _______ risk in services
greater
why do consumers percieve greater risk in services?
Product manufacturers have more options, such as guarantees and warranties, to eliminate the negative consequences of an unsatisfactory purchase. While services can have guarantees too, customers tend to rely on the reputation of the service provider since there is not a tangible product from which to judge quality.
For services, customers tend to rely on the..
the reputation of the service provider since there is not a tangible product from which to judge quality.
Why is the reputation of the service provider important?
there is not a tangible product from which to judge quality.
Many services are ________ to evaluate
difficult
The quality of some services is relatively easy to assess. Most of us know when we’ve received a good haircut, meal from a restaurant, or manicure. What about using the services of a lawyer: were the services you got better than what another lawyer could provide? How can you know? For many services, like consulting, education, healthcare, legal, and accounting, it is difficult to evaluate if the service was average, good, or great.
For many services, like consulting, education, healthcare, legal, and accounting, it is difficult to _______ if the service was average, good, or great.
difficult
How can a marketer address service intangibility?
marketers must take full advantage of services’ tangible elements, conveying the benefits and setting the expectations for consuming the services.
As services have no physical presence, it harder for providers to _____ services and _______ what they are. This ________ nature also means, as indicated above, that consumers often have trouble ________ services. For these reasons, consumers tend to view services as _______ purchases than products.
price, communicate, intangible, evaluating riskier
what does perishablity mean?
services are created or produced at the time consumers need them.
Perisability means that services are created or produced at the ______ consumers need them.
time
A flight scheduled to leave on a certain day and at a certain time may depart with 15% of the available seats on that flight unsold. The opportunity to fill those seats is gone forever, so the seats on the flight are perishable.
When the flight departs, the sun sets, or any other point of no return is passed, the oppurtunity to provide those services during that opportunity window has…
ended forever
The perishable nature of services has ______ and ________ implications:
business, marketing
BUSINESSES CANNOT HOLD SERVICES IN _________
inventory
Businesses can forecast _______ demand, then manufacture and warehouse _______ in anticipation of that demand.
product, product
Why is impossible to to warehouse or hold services in inventory, even in anticipation of strong demand?
services are intangible and perishable
Why is it impossible to perfectly balance supply and demand for services?
When demand is low, providers may lose money because they must keep people and resources at the ready. There are also times when demand far exceeds supply, when providers wish they could exploit the demand, but don’t have the capacity to do so.
