An analysis of customer service in an optometric practice

M.Comm.

The importance of service is constantly increasing in most economies (Gronroos 1988), and service is becoming exceedingly vital to success for manufacturers of goods as well. Service is very frequently referred to as the definitive competitive tool (Kyj 1987; Coppett 1988) and some writers (Quinn and Gagnon 1986) have warned that services if not managed suitably could follow manufacturing into decline, as inattention to quality, emphasis on scale economies, and short-term orientation predominates. Indeed Levitt (1981) has questioned the services-goods dichotomy, and states that all products, whether they are services or goods, possess a certain amount of intangibility perhaps the fundamental difference between the two referred to by most other writers. It is this intangibility which is seen as being the fundamental distinguishing characteristic of services.