Microsoft Word Volume 2 Service and Service Quality Final docx

Table 1: Salient Service Definitions from Service Marketing and Service Operations 
SOURCE 
DEFINITION 
SERVICE MARKETING
 
Zeithaml, Bitner & Gremler 
(2009) 
Services are deeds, processes, and performances provided or coproduced by one 
entity or person for another entity or person. 
Grönroos (2000, p.46) 
A service is a process consisting of a series of more or less intangible activities, that 
normally, but not necessarily, take place in interactions between the customer and 
service employees and/or physical resources or goods and/or systems of the 
service provider, which are provided as solutions to customer problems. 
Lovelock & Wirtz
(2007, p.15) 
Services are economic activities offered by one party to another, most commonly 
employing time-based performances to bring about desired results in recipients 
themselves or in objects or other assets for which purchasers have responsibility. In 
exchange for their money, time, and effort, service customers expect to obtain value 
from access to goods, labor, professional skills, facilities, networks, and systems; 
but they do not normally take ownership of any of the physical elements involved. 
Vargo & Lusch (2004) 
Lusch & Vargo (2006) 
Service [is] the application of specialized competences (knowledge and skills), 
through deeds, processes, and performances for the benefit of another entity or the 
entity itself. 
SERVICE OPERATIONS 
Johnston & Clark (2005) 
From the customers’ perspective, service is the combination of the customers’ 
experience and their perception of the outcome of the service. (OR Service is the 
combination of outcomes and experiences delivered to and receive by a customer.) 
The service experience is the customers’ direct experience of the service process 
and concerns the way the customer is dealt with by the service provider. The 
service outcome is the result for the customer of service delivery. 
Fitzsimmons & 
Fitzsimmons (2006, p.4) 
A service is a time-perishable, intangible experience performed for a customer 
acting in the role of a co-producer. 
Teboul (2006) 
Service is front stage. Delivering a service involves a contract, an interaction 
between the service provider and the customer. Customers are an integral part of 
the service delivery as they are “transformed” or simply interact during the 
transaction.