What Is Service?
Whether you’re ordering food at your local restaurant, visiting an urgent care clinic or receiving a housecleaning service from an agency, service is all around us. It’s what makes the difference between a pleasant experience and a disappointing one. And it’s the focus of a huge proportion of our world’s economy. Yet, many people have a hard time understanding what exactly service is.
In business, service is a special form of product that includes activities like consulting, repairs and hospitality. It can be offered individually or bundled with other products such as tours and travels. Services are different from goods in that they cannot be owned or stored, and instead, they’re consumed at the point of delivery.
The intangible nature of services makes it difficult for consumers to understand their benefits and values, which can often be overlooked. As a result, companies that offer services must work harder to differentiate themselves and communicate their value proposition. It’s also more challenging to measure the effectiveness of services than it is for a physical product. This is why it’s essential for businesses that provide services to invest in customer relationship management (CRM) tools to keep track of their performance.
Some people use the word service to describe a personal act of kindness, such as helping an elderly neighbor carry groceries or volunteering at a charity. However, the term is more commonly used to refer to the broader range of business activities that companies and governments offer to their customers. The services industry spans everything from trade and transport to finance and education, with virtually all companies falling into this category unless they produce raw materials or manufacture goods.
While it might seem easy to define what a service is, it can be difficult for businesses to apply this perspective to their own operations. In fact, most businesses have financial, physical and personnel systems that rely on the existing definition of a service, so changing the viewpoint can be challenging.
Fortunately, there are ways to make it easier to see what makes a service unique. The first step is to identify and define the core elements of a service, such as its capacity to generate value for customers, the ease with which it can be delivered, and the speed at which it can be provided. Once these are clear, the rest of the components can be identified and defined.
For example, a restaurant’s ability to satisfy guests is largely dependent on two things: the friendliness of their staff and the rapidity with which they turn tables. Achieving both of these requires a highly-specialized workforce and an infrastructure built to deliver those services. In order to scale, a restaurant may need to invest in mobile POS solutions, cloud-based CRMs, and field service management software that allows them to send out real-time dispatch notifications to their team members. This will ensure that each service is delivered as efficiently and effectively as possible. And it will also give the restaurant the flexibility to adapt to the changing needs of its customers.