While service firms have to put up with the fact that the customer comes inside the factory, this is not always strictly true. It might be more appropriate to say that a fundamental dilemma facing services marketers is to decide on the extent to which they want the customer to come inside the factory.
It has been argued that service firms would more successful if they provided less service, not more! They should industrialize themselves, and become more like mass producers of goods than benevolent panderers to the whims of individuals. Rather than try to solve the problems that arise in service firms, they should try to eliminate them. Don't fix the system, change the system. In doing so, they will be giving the customers what they really want, not more service, but less service! To many marketers in general, and service marketers in particular, this might sound like heresy. However, a simple Web example allows us to illustrate vividly these points.
Consider how you would normally obtain a telephone number that you were unable to find. You would call directory inquiries, carefully enunciate the name, and what you know of the address of the desired party, wait while the operator found it (hopefully!), and then listen to a computer voice rapidly read the number. A Web site, Switchboard.com, is a giant national database that contains the names, telephone numbers, and addresses of more than 100 million households and a further million businesses in the U.S. Visitors simply type in a name to get a listing of all of the people in the country by that name. Further information that the visitor has, such as state, city, or street name, helps narrow the search considerably. The visitor is able to print and keep the listing, once found, and also use the Web site to automatically send a postcard to the person just tracked down. This is the Web site for which the length of visit is one of the longest--for once visitors realize its potential to find one number, they immediately see its value in being able to search for, and contact, long-lost family members, friends, and schoolmates. Yet, this unique service is entirely produced by machines.
The directory assistance example illustrates how redesigning the system to provide less service, by replacing the human element with a machine, actually provides more service. Customers now have access to more information, which is so often the core element of any service.
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