Q.Identify a list of various services you use on a regular basis and identify their distinct characteristics.

How to do it: Note the services you actually use — banking/ATM, mobile and internet, transport (bus, auto, train), a restaurant meal, a doctor's visit, a tuition class, a salon, entertainment (cinema, streaming). For each, describe how it shows the five characteristics.

What to do

• Make your list of services you use regularly — for example: a bank/ATM, mobile and internet, bus/auto/train transport, a restaurant meal, a doctor's visit, tuition or coaching, a haircut at a salon, a cinema show or streaming service.
• Analyse each against the five Is, giving a one-line note per feature:
  • Intangibility — you experience it but own nothing physical (e.g., a doctor's advice, a bus ride).
  • Inconsistency — it is performed afresh and varies by provider and customer (e.g., two haircuts are never identical).
  • Inseparability — it is produced and consumed together (e.g., you must be present to watch a film in the hall).
  • Inventory (less) — it cannot be stored; an unfilled seat or slot is lost forever (e.g., an empty bus seat).
  • Involvement — you take part in the delivery (e.g., self-service at a fast-food counter, entering your own PIN at the ATM).
• Present it as a table — services down the side, the five Is across the top, a short note in each cell — and add a sentence on which feature is most striking for each service.

What to look for

• Notice that the same service can show several features at once, and that services differ from goods mainly by non-transferability of ownership and the presence of both provider and consumer.