Intangibility
Unlike products services cannot be counted, measured, or felt. It is difficult to explain to the customer what a specific feature in the service will give to the customer. As services are intangible, the perceptions of customers regarding the service may differ at any given amount in time. Each customer will have a different perception and experience about the same service.
But in a hotel the quality of service is not only dependent on the courteousness of the server (intangible), but also on the food and beverages that are served (tangible).
Heterogeneity
It is easier to as the quality of a product as it is tangible and also because there are specific characteristics associated with every product. But in the case of services, there are different characteristics and different people may rate these characteristics differently.
Also as the service provided involve human interaction (service personnel, customer), it is not possible to ensure that all customers receive or perceive the same level of quality every time.
Heterogeneity has an effect on three areas- service encounter, productivity, and service quality. Management control of service organizations has to grapple with all these implication of heterogeneity of services.
Inseparability
Irrespective whether a service is provided by a person or by a machine, the production and consumption of the service cannot be separated from the source that provides it. Services involve the customer in the production process and they generally first get sold , the produced and then consumed. Thus inseparability is a general attribute of services and it has a major bearing on the service delivery.
Perishability
In case of a product, the, manufacturing and the utilization of product occur as two separate actions, with a time differential. Hence, it is easier for manufacturing organizations to control productions cost and monitor product quality. On the other hand services