A service is a non-material good: for example, customer service.
Originating from the Latin term servitĭum , the word service defines the activity and consequence of serving (a verb used to name the condition of someone who is at the disposal of another to do what the latter demands or orders).
This notion also provides the possibility of naming the offering of a religious celebration , a team of servants who work in a home, the money paid each year for livestock, and the human service that allows social needs to be covered and that is not related to the production of material goods.
Based on this meaning, we could establish the following sentences as perfect examples of this: "Mary and John were the housekeeper and the driver who were working for the marquises"; or "The king arrived at his palace which was looked after by a staff of more than fifteen people."
A non-material good
At the economic level and in the marketing field, service is usually understood as a set of tasks developed by a company to satisfy the demands of its customers. In this way, the service could be presented as a non-material good .
Therefore, those who offer services do not usually make use of a large number of raw materials and have few physical restrictions. It should also be noted that their most important asset is experience. On the other hand, it should be noted that those who provide services are part of the so-called tertiary sector of the industrial scale.
Characteristics of a service
Among the intrinsic characteristics of a service that allow it to be differentiated from a product, we can mention intangibility (a service cannot be seen, felt, smelled or heard before acquiring it), heterogeneity (two or more services may be similar but will never be identical or equal) and perishability (a service cannot be stored).
Other qualities are inseparability (production and consumption develop partially or completely in parallel) and the absence of ownership (those who contract a service obtain the right to receive a benefit, use, access or rental of something, but do not become owners of it).
Catering is a food and drink service that is usually offered at events.
Classification according to type
In this sense, it would be necessary to establish that there are many types of service within the aforementioned economic sector. However, among the most significant are the so-called public services and private services.
The first type is characterized by a series of activities carried out by professionals working for the Public Administration of a city, region or country. A set of actions that aim to satisfy basic and fundamental needs of citizens, such as education, health or transportation.
The second type of service mentioned, the private one, is characterized by defining actions that are carried out by professionals who depend on private companies and industries. In this specific case, therefore, the citizen acts as a client or consumer of those companies rather than as such.
Based on all this, we could establish a distinction between the two types of services mentioned as follows. Thus, for example, the health care received in a hospital dependent on the city administration is a public service, while contracting a catering service in a company is a private service.