The most obvious difference between a good and a service is the tangibility property where a good is tangible in that it can be touched, seen and even smelt. A service on the hand is intangible in the sense that it can neither be seen nor touched. Goods involve change of ownership from the seller to the buyer whereas service provision involves the customer’s judgments on the service to be offered according to the company’s long term reputation.
Goods, once produced, are all uniform in that they have a similar nature all the way from the manufacturer to the final consumer unlike services whose provision depends on the service provider and consequently, they are different in nature. Goods and services are also different in their ability to get destroyed where goods are not easily destroyed.
This means that they can be stored for later use. Services, however, are perishable in that they lack shelf life as they are delivered at one instance. For instance, an empty seat during a flight cannot be stored to be sold to a customer later. It is already a loss for the owner while a good may be kept and sold on a later date (Shostack, 2000, p. 1).
The concept of value
Customer’s concept on value is the willingness to buy a certain good or service. Such value may not only be defined by the good or service itself, but by the market place. In this focus, the customers that form part of a certain company’s products or services are the determining factor for other customer’s willingness to pay for the same good or service. Setting customer’s satisfaction needs as the main objective of any company is therefore the only way that the company can get maximum profits.
This is because the satisfaction of the customer is the driving force towards the willingness to pay the company well enough to allow for good rewards for the company. Therefore, as long as the customer finds value in a company’s products and services, reasonable payments for the same can never be a problem for the customer. In other words, customer value depends on the customer’s benefits due to preferrability compared to the cost of the product.
The total customer’s value therefore includes a combination of the value of the product itself, the value of the services available say in the delivery of the product, the value of the staff and the image value of the company in terms of reputation. Basically the above determinants of value involve monetary factors, time consumption in obtaining a product as well as the energy involved in obtaining the same (Recklies, 2006, p. 1).
Customer’s perception of value may as well depend on the features of a product. Features of a product are directly linked to the quality of the product. When customers are choosing the good to buy, they first check the features of that product.
For instance, a mobile phone with features such as internet access, a large phone book and other storage services memory, inbuilt camera, just to mention but a few, is more likely to be preferred by many customers than one which lack such features. There are certain features, therefore, that customers look for in a product because they associate the features with quality of the product. Such products would serve them better and therefore the customers will be willing to buy them at reasonable costs.
Reference List
Recklies, D. (2006). Understanding and Managing Customer Perception. Web.
Shostack, G.L. (2000). Fundamental Differences between Goods and Services. Web.