Service Variability - Meaning, Types & Example
What is Service Variability?
Service variability may be defined as the changes in the quality of the same service provided by different vendors.
The change varies because of the nature of the service, the person who provides the time of the year when it is provided and the method of delivery of the service. Service Variability is one of the important aspects for a service based organization which makes it different from a product driven one.
In this article:
Service Variability Types
Service variability can be of multiple types:
1. Request Based
Many a times service companies provide support and services for various kinds of products and services. More is the number of variability in the types of requests, more is the variability in service. If a company handling just one type of request would have more uniformity as compared to a contact center handling 100 types of requests.
2. Customer Driven
Different types of customers may perceive service in a different way. Even though all customers may want similar thing but the way they perceive it is different. Same service can be good or bad for 2 different customers. This shows that service variability is subjective to individual customers.
Also many a times customers are active part of the service process. Based on how the customers behave and participate may depend on an individual and may keep changing. This can lead to service variability.
3. Arrival or Headcount Based
This may occur because of variable footfall of customers on different days. If a customer comes on a day when there are less people, service quality may be high and better but on a day when there are too many customers, long queues, same customer might feel that the service levels are low or poor. This is a common type of service variability.
Service Variability Example
Taking the example of the telecom industry, the calls tariff in different countries varies from company to company. Companies like Vodafone, AT&T, Sprint, Airtel have different rates for same or different locations because of service variability.
Hence, this concludes the definition of Service Variability along with its overview.
This article has been researched & authored by the Business Concepts Team. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.
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