Heterogeneity
As services are produced by humans, hence no two services can be identical. Further no two customers are precisely alike and hence their experiences of the same service are different. Even the same customer can be with different frame of mind at different times – which results in differing satisfactions from the same service at different times.
Eg. A tax consultant may provide different a service experience to two different customers on the same day depending upon their needs and on whether the consultant is meeting the customer when he is fresh in the morning or tired at the end of the day. Because of this ensuring a consistent quality becomes a challenging job. The quality depends upon a number of factors like the customer, service provides, other customers (their presence or even absence) etc., hence the service provider cannot know if the service is delivered in a manner which has been originally planned and promoted. Sometimes services are provided by a third party further increasing the heterogeneity.
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