The Four I's Of Service
The Four I’s of Sevice
Dell Incorporated
The four I’s of services help distinguish services and goods. In some cases companies are not clearly labeled service or good related offerings. Dell Incorporated offers computers for sale, which are goods. The company also offers service related products to assist consumers’ such as product support, education, consulting, networking, and providing system integration (Anonymous, 2008). When a company offers services it is important to market that service appropriately taking into consideration the four I’s of marketing service related products.
The four I’s of service are intangibility, inconsistency, inseparability, and inventory (Kerin, R., Hartley, E., & Berkowitz, W., 2006). Intangibility consists of services that cannot be seen, held, or touched before the purchase decision. These items are more service related items such as cleaning, repair work and other like items than products. Due to the difficult nature of selling an intangible product there needs to be a marketing push to show the benefit of the service to the customer. The second “I” is inconsistency. Services that are offered to consumers can also be affected by inconsistency of the workers who provide the service. The service can be dependent on the person’s capabilities and job performance. In order to help alleviate this problem, businesses should use standardization and training procedures that are consistent with all employees. There can also be inconsistency in development, pricing, and promoting of services, which should be standardized as well. The third “I” is inseparability. Inseparability is when consumers cannot differentiate the service itself and the person who delivered the service. An example of this would be if you called Dell support to get assistance troubleshooting your setup of your new computer. While you were attempting to receive assistance with the troubleshooting the associate...
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