Business services are a broad category of products and services that benefit businesses without producing physical goods. They can be anything from administrative tasks to transportation services.
In difficult economic times, consumers often cut back on services that they consider extras. This can be a good time to evaluate your business service and make sure it is valuable to customers.
A service is an intangible item that provides benefits by facilitating a change in something, such as a customer or their physical possessions, or something else, such as an intangible asset. Examples include medical, training and insurance services.
Services are usually provided by people, and not by machines. They cannot be stored for future use like goods can, and they must be delivered as needed.
There are two major types of service-based businesses: business-to-business, or B2B, and social. The former helps other companies accomplish their goals for a flat or hourly rate. They help their customers operate their business, reduce costs, or generate more output.
Social services are those that benefit society, and they are funded through taxes or charitable organizations rather than through direct sales. However, they can raise funds from sales transactions to enhance their efforts.
A service-based business can be a very lucrative enterprise if you have the right idea, a solid foundation and a strong business model. But to succeed, it takes a different approach than running a product company. To do that, you need to get four critical elements of service design working together – customer experience, customer insight, operational efficiency and a competitive advantage.