1. Business Concepts
  2. Marketing and Strategy
  3. Service Variability

Service Variability

This article covers meaning, types & example of Service Variability from marketing perspective.

Published by MBA Skool Team in Marketing and Strategy Terms Last Updated: March 14, 2023Read time:

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.


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 which comprises of MBA students, management professionals, and industry experts. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.

Browse the definition and meaning of more similar terms. The Management Dictionary covers over 1800 business concepts from 5 categories.

Continue Reading:



Share this Page on:
Facebook ShareTweetShare on Linkedin