What should be the service strategy/focus of Service Organizations like Banks, Hospitals,Law Firms, Retail stores and Restaurants?

full agree with ms. ghada                  .

I think that Effective management of services require an understanding of marketing and personnel as well as operations.Services often take the form of cycles of encounters involving face-to-face, phone, electromechanical, and/or mail interactions.

First: Context of service

1. Service Business is the management of organizations whose primary business requires interaction with the customer to produce the service. Examples are: Banks, Airlines, Hospitals, Law firms, Retail stores, and Restaurants.

Within this category, there are two distinctions:

A. Facilities-based services, where the customer must go to the service facility, and

B. Field-based services, where production and consumption of the service take place in the customer’s environment.

2. Internal services is the management of services required to support the activities of the larger organization. Functions include, data processing, accounting, engineering, and maintenance. Their consumers are the various departments within the organization that require such services.

Second: classification of service strategy  

Service firms can be classified according to their various characteristics. This allows clarification of the relationships between firms and customers and of potential strategies for competition.

A simple classification of services is by capital intensity and labor skills. This allows services to be grouped into equipment-based services and people-based services.

1- Equipment-based services can then be subdivided into automatic services such vending machines and automated car washes; services monitored by unskilled labor, such as dry cleaning and movie theaters; and services operated by skilled labor, such as excavating, airlines, and computer services.

2-People-based services are subdivided into those utilizing unskilled labor, such as lawn care, security guards, and janitorial service; those utilizing skilled labor, such as appliance repair, plumbing, catering, electrical work, and auto body repair; and professional services such as law, medicine, accounting, and consulting.