Why is it that the quality of services is more difficult for consumers to evaluate than the quality of products?

Answer 1

Products have a fairly set measurable. They are expected to work as advertised and it's fairly easy to see if it isn't. eg: A clock doesn't show the time.

Service is harder because there's different levels of expectation in both the provider and the consumer. There's also people's opinions, which are very subjective. One person may think that a checkout clerk that simply states the total is acceptable, whilst another will view that person as surly.

That said, if the sales assistant fails to answer questions about products when asked, for example, then that is quite easy to see so it's not impossible.

Answer 2

Service quality is an assessment of how well a delivered service conforms to theclient's expectations. Service business operators often assess the service quality provided totheir customers in order to improve their service, to quickly identify problems, and to betterassess client satisfaction. Product quality is the group of features and characteristics of asaleable good which determine its desirability and which can be controlled by a manufacturerto meet certain basic requirements. Most businesses that produce goods for sale have aproduct quality or assurance department that monitors outgoing products for consumeracceptability. The reason why service quality more difficult to define than product qualitybecause service have more diverse quality attributes than products although service andproduction share many attributes. For example, a smart phone user. The user will define thequality of the service when using the service through the seller of the smart phone in theaspect of the tangibles, service reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. The userdefines the quality of the product whether it can fulfil the expectation and satisfaction of theuser when using the product through the performance, features, reliability, conformance,durability, serviceability, aesthetics and perceived quality.