Service

Service is any act, performance or experience that one party can offer to another. The process would or would not tie with the physical product but there is no ownership involved. "Services are economics activities that provide time, place, form utility, problem-solving while bringing about a change in, or for, the recipient of the service." Services deliver the intangible value like knowledge, utility or care, convenience to the party who need it. (Lovelock, 2004) The service sector is actually leading any country's economic growth, especially in the developed countries (it contributed 70% to 80% of the GDP).(Agrawal 2007) It requires least amount of cost because the physical materials often not an important issue when setting up the services business. However, the profit it brought is relatively higher than the goods selling.

Every customer likes to be treated well and caring as they think they deserved it after the payment. Services enable the similar products to be differentiated and it has become the competitive advantages within the challenging world.

Basically a service manager's responsibilities are building, maintaining, and managing customer relationship. They need to do the report base on the routine communication with the customer and record the critical incidents. With the defining of the service scope, service levels and key performance indicators services providers are able to handle the customer requirements better. (Sarah, 2005)

Servqual was once adopted to measure on ten aspects of services quality, which is reliability, responsiveness, competence, access, courtesy, communication, credibility, security, understanding or knowing the customer and tangibles. "It measures the gap between customer expectation and experience." (Wikipedia, 2007) When times go by, scholars had refined it to "(1) reliability, capability to respond dependably and accurately as what has promised: (2) assurance, knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence; (3) tangible, appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication materials; (4) empathy, caring, individualized attention the firm provides its customers; and (5) responsiveness, eagerness to solve customer's problem instantly." (Cook, 1999)

Bibliography

1. Manageability (2003), A Definition of "Services". Retrieved on 9th September 2007 from http://www.manageability.org/blog/stuff/what-is-a-web-service/view

2. SS&C (2007), Customer Service is Important. Retrieved on 9th September 2007 from http://www.ssctech.com/e-news/article.asp?A=3118&V=2

3. Morgan Hamilton (2006),