CARA'S TIPSCharacteristics and marketing of services; agricultural marketing in Nigeria
WAECNECO
What the syllabus asks
WAEC: Services marketing (supports WAEC topic 4 “Products”, incl. services; NECO trade curriculum) and agricultural marketing (supports WAEC topics 1 history, 4 primary products, 12 distribution and 15 facilitators). Kept from the subject plan. JAMB does not examine Marketing.
NECO: Services marketing (supports WAEC topic 4 “Products”, incl. services; NECO trade curriculum) and agricultural marketing (supports WAEC topics 1 history, 4 primary products, 12 distribution and 15 facilitators). Kept from the subject plan. JAMB does not examine Marketing.
What you will learn
- Define services and explain their four characteristics.
- Classify services in several ways.
- Apply the 7Ps to Nigerian services.
- Explain service quality, service recovery and demand management.
- Define agricultural marketing and explain features of farm produce.
- Explain problems of agricultural marketing in Nigeria and solutions.
- Describe channels, the marketing-board era, grading, storage, processing and supporting institutions, with margin calculations.
Key points
- Services are intangible activities that do not transfer ownership.
- I-I-V-P: intangibility, inseparability, variability, perishability.
- Classification: consumer/business, public/private/non-profit, professional, contact level.
- 7Ps add people, process and physical evidence.
- Quality (RATER) and service recovery; manage demand with pricing and reservations.
- Nigerian services: banking (CBN, NDIC), insurance (NAICOM), telecoms (NCC), transport, education, health.
- Agricultural marketing moves produce from farm to consumer.
- Farm produce: perishable, seasonal, bulky, variable, unstable prices.
- Problems: storage, roads, insecurity, grading, middlemen, information, finance.
- Marketing boards 1947/1949, Commodity Boards 1977, abolished 1986.
- Grading, storage, processing and cold chains add value.
- Co-operatives, NCX, warehouse receipts, ABP (2015), insurance and NEPC support marketing.
Start here: Services: meaning and characteristics
A service is any activity or benefit that one party offers to another which is essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything. Examples: banking, insurance, transport, telecommunications, education, health care, hairdressing, tailoring, hotels, repairs, legal and accounting services, entertainment and tourism. Services make up a large and growing share of modern economies, including Nigeria’s, where telecoms, banking, trade, entertainment (Nollywood and music) and information technology have expanded rapidly.
WAEC topic 4 mentions services among products, and NECO trade syllabuses cover them too. Services are marketed differently from goods because of four special characteristics.
1. Intangibility
Services cannot be seen, tasted, felt, heard or smelled before they are bought. A patient cannot inspect an operation in advance. Buyers look for signs of quality: the building, equipment, staff appearance, certificates, reviews and price. Marketers make services “tangible” with brochures, uniforms, logos and testimonials.
2. Inseparability
Services are usually produced and consumed at the same time, and the provider is part of the service. A haircut cannot be made in a factory and stored. The customer is often present, so staff–customer interaction matters, and the number of customers one provider can serve is limited.
3. Variability (heterogeneity)
Quality varies with who provides the service, when and where. Two nurses in the same hospital may give different experiences; the same bus driver may be calm in the morning and tired at night. Firms reduce variability through careful recruitment, training, standard procedures, and customer feedback.
4. Perishability
Services cannot be stored for later sale. An empty seat on a flight from Lagos to Abuja, an unused hotel room or a doctor’s idle hour is lost forever. Firms manage this with pricing (cheaper off-peak fares), reservations and part-time staff for busy periods.
Some textbooks add lack of ownership: the customer pays for use or access (a hotel room for a night), not ownership.
Why do airlines offer cheaper fares for early-morning flights? Services are perishable; unsold seats are lost, so lower prices fill seats that would otherwise be empty.
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Practice questions
- intangibility
- perishability
- variability
- ownership
Show answer
A: intangibility
Use physical evidence to reassure.
- perishability
- tangibility
- durability
- inseparability
Show answer
D: inseparability
Provider and customer meet.
- profit
- patents
- physical evidence
- packaging
Show answer
C: physical evidence
7Ps.
- assurance
- responsiveness
- reliability
- tangibles
Show answer
B: responsiveness
Reliability is dependability.
- empathy
- assurance
- reliability
- tangibles
Show answer
A: empathy
Assurance is confidence/knowledge.
Key words
- Service
- Intangible activity offered for sale without ownership transfer.
- Intangibility
- Cannot be seen or touched before purchase.
- Inseparability
- Produced and consumed at the same time.
- Variability
- Quality differs by provider, time and place.
- Perishability
- Cannot be stored for later sale.
- Physical evidence
- Tangible cues of service quality.
- Service recovery
- Putting right a service failure.
- Agricultural marketing
- Moving farm produce from farm to consumer.
- Post-harvest loss
- Produce lost after harvest through spoilage or damage.
- Grading
- Sorting produce into quality classes.
- Standardisation
- Setting quality standards.
- Marketing board
- State sole buyer of export crops (abolished 1986).
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