Heterogeneity:

Services are heterogeneous because it is impossible for the individual sellers to standardise the output. Each "unit" of the service is different from other "units" of the same seller. It is also difficult to standardise the "output" of different sellers in the same service industry. For example:-

• The shoe-shine boys in Nairobi cannot provide a service of the same quality from one customer to another every time.
• An airline cannot give the same quality service on each flight

It is difficult to judge the quality of a service, e.g. repair work done by a mechanic on different vehicles.Nobody can forecast the quality of a service before purchasing is made. If you pay for a ticket to watch a football game, you will in the end find that:-

• It was according to your expectation, or
• It was better than your expectation, or
• It was below your expectation.

The marketers of services should be careful and pay particular attention to the "product-planning" stage (i.e. service planning stage) of the marketing programme. Consistency of quality must be adhered to all the time, despite the problems which have been discussed above.