Business services are activities that benefit companies without supplying physical products. They may include marketing, production, safety, cost and convenience.
A service is an abstract, perishable good that doesn’t have a physical presence. For example, a doctor’s visit to a patient is a service and not a tangible product like an airplane ticket.
In the context of business services, the four key elements that make up service design are: (i) Demand and Supply; (2) Continuity; (3) Experience; (4) Customer Attributes.
The success or failure of a service company depends on how well it delivers on each of these four elements. It also depends on how well it manages the relationships with the people who provide the service and its customers.
Product differentiation: In a product-oriented business, the products are developed and marketed in such a way that they attain a brand name identification in the marketplace. This can serve as a barrier to entry, but with services, it’s difficult to achieve a brand-name identity.
Personal services: In contrast, personal services are inconsistent in their delivery because they change based on the service provider, customers’ demands and preferences. For instance, a restaurant service is different from a hotel or tourism service because each has its own set of demands and expectations.
Business service monitoring: You can map technical services to business services so that non-technical stakeholders can see a status dashboard listing the incidents that affect them. This helps them understand the impact of an incident to their organization and gives them a sense of how critical the affected business service is to operations.