Service characteristics. This issue makes for interesting class debates. Here, we consider several points that force us

❹ Service characteristics. This issue makes for interesting class debates.

Here, we consider several points that force us to think deeply about the nature of a product. The characteristics of services include intangibility, inseparability (they are personal in nature), variability and perishability.

What is the significance of these points at a practical level? For example, a concept such as ‘being ethical in business’, which might be marketed within an organisation, is intangible, yet it is not a service. What is it? What could be more personal and involving than buying a house?

Yet, a house is not a service. Some people use fluoride toothpaste for 10 or 15 years and still get tooth decay – surely this is an example of variability in the outcomes from using a physical product? So, what makes service encounters more variable than this? If I buy a GPS navigator and after a year I need to update my maps, surely it must be perishable? Are not the measures similar to, and in some cases, the same as, those employed in measuring service quality for an ‘almost pure’ service? Considering all of the above, are service characteristics really so different from branded goods? Justify your answer. (Learning Objective 3) (AACSB: Reflective Thinking)