 Hello, learners. I welcome you to this session. In this session, we will discuss about services marketing. This is included in the become fifth semester under the marketing specialization. The concept of services marketing that we are going to discuss in this particular session will be focused mainly on the term services, what we mean by the term services. As well as the differences between physical goods and services. We will also discuss the reasons for growing importance of services. Here, some other important issues will also be discussed in another video. Let's first discuss the concept of services. Let us conceptualize what we mean by services. You avail different types of services in your daily life. For example, you visit to your nearest post office. You take an auto for traveling. If you get time, then you go to visit a particular place. So, these are the different services. We generally avail those services and we feel something. It means either we feel great, we feel happy after availing this service, or we feel dissatisfied with the kind of service provided. For example, if you visit to a doctor, sometime you feel happy, but some other people or at some other time you may not be able to feel that same feeling. So, there are different areas which need to be discussed when we discuss about these services. Another important aspect when we will discuss this service is that it is one of the important part or one of the important sector when we discussed it in terms of economic development. You all know that when we discussed the economic development, we generally discussed the contribution of different sectors like the agricultural sector, industry sector, as well as there is another sector that is services sector. These services sector comprising different hospitality industries, tourism industry, so all these contribute towards the economic development of a country. Now, in the process of economic development, the contribution of industry, the contribution of agricultural sectors sometimes may show a downward contribution and the services sector shows the upward contributions. It is an important significance here and this indicates the growing need, the growing need for different types of services. Now, let us begin what we mean by the term service. So, these are generally the activities. These activities are offered by one party to another party against a charge. So, when we will discuss the services in terms of marketing, then we will come across these different aspects of marketing like pricing, promotion, etc. So, whenever a service is offered by one party, it may be in terms of some activities in terms of some benefits against that the consumer who is availing that particular service is going to pay something. So, one party offers some activities, some benefits or an idea that is promoted against a charge. Now, these activities are tangible, means we cannot touch it, we can just feel it. These services are good, these services are not good, so we can feel, we have some perception regarding the services but we cannot touch it. If you compare it with the marketing of a physical product, for example a pen, so that is a physical product, that is tangible, we can touch it. But services, the activities, we cannot touch it. We have some perceptions, the consumer have some perceptions about that. Now, again when we avail some services, it does not result in the ownership of anything. For example, if you take rest, if you take a room in a hotel, you can avail the facilities attached to that hotel, attached to that room but you are not the owner of that room. You are availing the services provided by that particular hotel where you are staying. Now, the concept of service will be more clear when we will discuss some examples. So, first of all, these are the restaurants that you generally avail the services. Then hotels, they provide food, they provide accommodation, these are the services. So, these come under the service industry, hotels, restaurants. Hospitals are also there which provide the healthcare services to us. Then educational institutions, you are taking admission in a particular university, particular college, so you are availing a service that is educational service. So, you are availing that service and against that you are paying some charge, means the admission fees, course fees, etc. Again, you have some deposits in bank, you have insurance, life insurance, you may have motor insurance, etc. Similarly, mutual funds, you may have invested somewhere in mutual funds. So, these are all the services. Some institutions, financial institutions, banking, non-banking, financial institutions are providing these services. Then electricity services generally provided by the government and so on. So, these examples will help you understanding the institutions, the organizations that provide the different services and how we can avail these services. Now, as we are discussing about the organizations that provide services, we can classify it into public sector as well as private sector organizations. In case of public sector organizations, it is the post office, railways, police, fire, etc. So, government is involved in providing services to the citizen. So, these are the services we avail it. These are the services which helps us either in communication, either in transportation or protecting our property, etc. So, there are private organizations also which provide the different types of services. Some organizations provide these services without profit motive. For example, old age home, charitable institutions or some institutions which are advocating some special cause like women education, literacy, then advocating different cause of the society, environmental protection, etc. So, these organizations run without profit motive, though they are private organizations. Now, some private organizations provide service with a profit motive. It means this is the business. The organization wants to earn profit by providing service. They are not involved in manufacturing of physical product. They are involved in generating service, in providing service to the consumers. Like banks that we have already discussed, we keep our deposits in the bank. So, bank is a service provider. Hotels, we may have to take some food, we can take rest, then courier service, etc., etc. So, there are lots of examples. These services are provided by the private sector organizations with a profit motive. So, this is clearly a business area and the principles of marketing also applies when we are going to market the services, as it is applied in case of some physical products. Now, let us focus on the differences between services and physical product. So, this will make this concept of services more clear. Now, number one, services are intangible. We cannot touch it. The facility provided in a hotel, either we are satisfied, we are very much satisfied with that service or somewhere we may not be satisfied. So, we cannot touch, as like we touch a physical product. So, the services of a doctor, we can feel it, but we cannot touch it. Whereas, the medicine, we can touch it. We can understand the physical aspect of this particular product. So, that is tangible. So, physical products are tangible, whereas services are intangible. Secondly, services cannot be transferred, whereas the physical products can be transferred from one place to another. For example, when we have some physical product, any item you can take, for example, toothpaste. So, toothpaste is manufactured at a particular point and it is transferred to another point that is at the consumption point. So, we purchase it from the shop and we can use it. So, this is a physical product. We can identify that particular product. We can touch it and that product has come from a particular industry, somewhere it is produced and here we are consuming it. But in case of services, it cannot be transferred. Means, the hotel cannot come to you. You have to move to the hotel. You have to go to that place to avail that particular service. So, we cannot transfer it. We cannot take the help of a drug to transfer the hotel. But in case of goods, in case of physical products, we can take the help of a drug to transport the product from the place of production to the place of consumption. Now, in case of services, consumers participate in the production of the service. Means, when you go to a hotel, you take part in generating the service that is provided by the hotel. So, you are involved. You are very much involved as a customer, as a consumer when you are availing that particular service. In a restaurant, when you are ordering some food, you are sitting there. You are just experiencing the environment. So, you are participating in the process of generating the service. Whereas, in case of a manufactured product, in the manufacturing process, as a customer, you do not have to participate. You are not required to get anything. Suppose the raw materials, you are not required to take the raw materials to the factory. As a customer, you enjoy the final product produced by that particular industry. So, you are not taking part in the production process. Whereas, in case of services, you have to take part in the entire process of generating the service as well as the consuming the service. Then, fourthly, services once consumed cannot be resale. You cannot resale it. The example of a hotel, you are just taking the room for your accommodation, for your stay. So, you cannot resale that room to another person. But if you are purchasing something, suppose you are purchasing a laptop, that is a physical product. After using it, you can resale it. So, there is a scope of resale, but in case of service, you cannot resale the service that you are availing at this particular moment. So, this discussion helps you in understanding that services are very much intangible and cannot be transported from one place to another. We can just have a feeling over the service. Now, another important topic that we will discuss now are the reasons for growing importance of services. So, first of all, it is the affluence. Means, when there is an increase in the per capita income, when there is an increase in the standard of living, people generally go for availing services. For example, interior designing. You decorate your home, you design, you use the services of a professional person. Interior designer is there to help you in decorating your home. So, when you have more disposable income, when your standard of living is higher, then you are availing this kind of services. So, as the economic development is going on, you are in a position to avail some specific kind of services provided by some professional person. Secondly, leisure time. You want to spend time with your family. So, now you can decide, you can take a decision that you are going to visit a particular place. So, it comes under the tourism services. So, you avail the services, you spend time with the family by spending your leisure time and you are capable of availing this particular service. So, you spend your holidays. Suppose, in a particular hotel in Goa, you are just planning to visit it in coming puja. So, during the stay, you will enjoy the services of a particular hotel. So, you are availing the services of that hotel. Accordingly, some people visit different places for business purpose. So, it's a business tour and in that process, we take food in different restaurants. We have to take rest. So, we have to take rest. So, we go to a hotel and we take a room. So, these are the services that we are availing because of the reasons for higher per capita income, higher standard of living. We have leisure time. We can spend some amount of money for the family and we can take some holiday package, etc. Then, entertainment. Now, entertainment as a service is a very big industry itself. So, we watch movies. So, we go to a movie hall. So, these are the entertainment areas, entertainment industry where it is increasing day by day and we are availing those services. Now, some services become important because the product itself is become complex. Means, the service is tied with the physical product. For example, the fridge, the TV, the computer, the oven that you are using in your home. So, this product needs the services of some technical person. These people are trained. And as a general people, you and me are not in a position to see any technical faults. Anything that happen in that particular product, we are not able to repair it. So, we need some people who are technically sound to repair the complex product. The automobile industry. In case you purchase a car, then the after-sales service that the companies are providing. So, you have to go to the service station to avail the after-sales service where you have to move to that place. So, the car, you cannot repair it. You cannot take care of the car technically. So, you have to avail the services of trained person. So, you have to move to that particular service station. Again, another reason is that changing fashion. So, gradually the people are changing. As a standard of living, it's changing. Change in lifestyle, change in consumer taste. So, for example, the hairdressing, beauty parlour, gyms. So, you more often visit all those shops where you can avail those services. Then, the advent of internet as well as mobile technology. So, with the help of mobile, we can order food now. So, food will be available at our doorstep. We can just book a taxi over internet and we can avail the transport service. So, these are the modern technologies, the internet, the mobile technology which helps us in availing these services. And these are the reasons why the services are increasing day by day. The importance for the economic development is increasing day by day. So, in this particular session, we have discussed the conceptual framework of services along with some example. Then, we have discussed some differences between physical product and services as well as the reasons for growing importance of services in the present day context. So, in another video, we will discuss some other important aspects of services marketing. Thank you, learners.