Before going to discuss the role of employees in the service sector, we believe it is important to distinguish between products and services. Services in most simple terms are acts, processes and performance. Services can also be defined as any activity or benefit that offer one party to another that is essentially intangible and does not involve the possession of anything [1]. These definitions give us a good idea of what services are. We can give examples of a barber, a tailor, or a restaurant as services. Products on the other hand are deals that material character, such as a car.
In today's world, services are becoming increasingly important in the economy of any country. As said Louis V. Gerstner in 01 "The services are going to move in this decade to be the leading edge of the industry." This quote comes from the former CEO of a company that claims to be the world's largest service firms in the world, IBM. The importance of services in the world today can be further underlined by the fact that the services made up nearly 80% of the Member States of the US gross domestic product in 03 [2].
If we talk in the Pakistani context, we can see that the Pakistani economy structure has changed from a mainly agricultural base to a strong service base. Agriculture now accounts for only about 20% of GDP, while the service sector for 53% of GDP with wholesale and retail trade forming 30% of this sector [3]. This fact requires, also, that more work needs to be done on marketing services for the proper growth of the industry.
Now that we know about the difference and importance of services, we would like to shed light on the difference between the marketing of products and the marketing of services. Marketing services is thought to be different from that of a product of a lot of marketing experts. This was discovered by Gary Knisely, a principal of the consulting firm Johnson Smith and Knisely, in 1979, when he interviewed several high-ranking marketing executives who had gone to work in the consumer services sector after a wide experience in the field consumer goods packaged. There are generally considered to 4 Ps of marketing of packaged goods and that of the product, price, place and promotion. But when it comes to services, it is believed that there are three additional P that should be taken into consideration for the marketing services namely, people, process and physical evidence [4].
The fifth P ie people include both employees and customers as customers play an important role in the service delivery process. But we're going to focus on employees regarding this article is concerned. From the above it is evident that employees play an important role in the marketing services vary due to the reason that employees are involved in providing a service process eg a waiter in a restaurant is actually the conductor of the whole process concerning the customers. So it is of great importance that gives the right image to the client or the client might not return. So, those employees who are a part of service delivery, we can call them employees of the customer service contact, play an absolutely critical role in building a reputation for any service.
The importance of the contact customer service employees can be understood because of the following statements, which will also show that the reason why the employees can be the most valuable asset of an organization of services. Contact customer service employees are very important because:
o They are the service
o They are the organization in the eyes of the customer
o They are the brand
o They are marketers [4]
in many cases, in a service, there is only the employee and nothing else that is dependent on for example the haircut service, athletic trainers, legal services, etc. This means that the service offered by the business is the employee. So, investing in employees is equal to invest in the manufacture of a product.
An employee contact customer service can reflect the image of the service organization, even if he or she is not directly providing the requested service. If you get into a hospital, every employee who meet from the receptionist to the clerk could influence your opinion of this organization. Thus, employees sometimes do become the eyes of the customer organization.
employees also become the brand for a service. A good example can be a university that is well known among students. The quality of most universities is judged by the caliber of teachers who teach there. When a student interacts with a professor, he has positive feelings about the university only when he feels that the teacher is knowledgeable and understanding and has complete control over his subject. It can be said that one reason, among others, LUMS is thought to be better than other universities is due to the perception that his faculties contains more doctorates than anyone else, so having a better quality of education than others. Thus, an employee also becomes the brand for a service.
Because the contact employees represent the organization and can directly influence customer satisfaction, which play the role of marketing. They physically embody the service and are walking billboards from a promotional point of view of [4] If we are on the road and you see a person sitting on a motorcycle, going to deliver a free delivery, or deliver letters or documents, you can tell by the their appearance, clothing or even type of vehicle which membership organization. Thus, even when the employees of the service are only doing their duty, they act as marketers for their organization.
Here we would like to refer to Mr. Dennis Harting saying: "What is the most valuable asset that a company has? And 'the name, customers, goodwill, physical resources, or product line? the answer is that it is none of these. the most valuable asset of a company are its employees. Any organization will go only as far as the people that are driving it. in fact, a company is really just a group of people who interact for a common purpose. They are the ones who make up the organization. "[5].
He also states that "It is important that managers and owners begin to realize that employees are the most valuable asset any organization can have. Those who accept this new business model will structure their compensation program and bonuses to reflect this belief. "
above discussion only points to one thing, in general for all businesses, and especially for any service company, employees are by far the most valuable assets. We feel personally that in Pakistan are the employees still not given the place and importance. He feels that more attention should be paid to the role of employees in the services and investment sector should be done to improve the most valuable asset of the services.
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