The Intangibility of Services (I) Service Characteristics Requires great marketing skills in ‘tangibilising’ intangible offerings, i.e., in surrounding them with “hard” peripheral attributes Technical superiority and long term vision in new service development, in order to protect a service from its non-patentability Special pricing know-how, i.e., what is the cost of a service? Creative communications skills, i.e., what message to communicate?
The Intangibility of Services (II) Criticism to the distinguishing power of intangibility Increasing knowledge and Repeated use of a service nullifies intangibility The inability of customers to physically evaluate services is also the case in some goods Many goods have intangible elements too