What is most important to a company's success - a good product or friendly, fast service?

There are five essential differences between services and goods. The first is that a service is an intangible process that cannot be weighed or measured, whereas a good is a tangible output of a process that has physical dimensions. This distinction has important business implications since a service innovation, unlike a product innovation, cannot be patented. Thus, a company with a new concept must expand rapidly before competitors copy its procedures. Service intangibility also presents a problem for customers since, unlike with a physical product, they cannot try it out and test it before purchase. The second is that a service requires some degree of interaction with the customer for it to be a service. The interaction may be brief, but it must exist for the service to be complete. Where face-to-face service is required, the service facility must be designed to handle the customer's presence. Goods, on the other hand, are generally produced in a facility separate from the customer. They can be made according to a production schedule that is efficient for the company. The third is that services, with the big exception of hard technologies such as ATMs and information technologies such as answering machines and automated Internet exchanges, are inherentlyheterogeneous-they vary from day to day and even hour by hour as a function of the attitudes of the customer and the servers. Thus, even highly scripted work such as found in call centers can produce unpredictable outcomes. Goods, in contrast, can be produced to meet very tight specifications day-in and day-out with essentially zero variability. In those cases where a defective good is produced, it can be reworked or scrapped. The fourth is that services as a process are perishable and time dependent, and unlike goods, they can't be stored. You cannot "come back last week" for an air flight or a day on campus.

And fifth, the specifications of a service are defined and evaluated as a package of features that affect the five senses. These features are

• Supporting facility (location, decoration, layout, architectural appropriateness, supporting equipment).
• Facilitating goods (variety, consistency, quantity of the physical goods that go with the service; for example, the food items that accompany a meal service).
• Explicit services (training of service personnel, consistency of service performance, availability and access to the service, and comprehensiveness of the service).
• Implicit services (attitude of the servers, atmosphere, waiting time, status, privacy and security, and convenience).

all together

and also team work, 

I would rate them equally. If your product is good but somehow your service is not good, you will loose your customer and vice versa if your service is good but you are not confident of product quality then also you will be in bad light.

So i feel you should have a quality product along with having excellent service which will help in having lasting impact on your customers ...

A Helping Hand

For a product's success customer satisfaction is the most important factor, for that the product has to be good and should meet the expectation of the customer, similarly without a reliable fast freindly service customer retention will be impossible.

I believe in all company success this three aspect is important; Good product, friendly and have fast service.

A good product always comes first, without a good product no customer will be satisfied no matter how good and friendly your services are.

PEOPLE who makes the PRODUCT, render fast SERVICE & make PROFIT that brings SUCCESS.

Without a good product, friendly and fast service is of no use and that will not win the hearts of the customers. and otherwise good product without the friendly and fast service is also not going to lead to success. First the Good product and in addition to friendly and fast service will definitely win the heart of the customer and lead to the success of the company.

in my opinion, the heart of your business success lies on the customer satisfaction and the quality product being offered.

In order  for a business to succeed, the  fast and friendly  customer service is important.  

In doing so, it  will help increasing the customer  loyalty, enhance  the  profit  of the company to  generate   a higher income.

And  at the end of the day happy clients or satisfied customer  will   create   positive  feedback with thru  "world of month" .  This will carry out the good reputation of company.

However  creating a good quality product is also essential. they should work hand on hand.

The good product is the most important thing for the company's success, because there is no benefit of friendly and fast serving  of bad product, no one will be happy of it.

A good product prevails basically in the long run. If a company offers a good product it will, often than not, sell itself without much help from the sales people, regardless if they are friendly and quick.

On the other hand, if your product is less than good, the fast and friendly service will only be helpful in the beginning of the sale. In the end, the customer's satisfaction towards your product will always matter.