The notion of “service” is a very important one, with an increasing role in an expanding economy which becomes the condition of sustainable and long-term development. The technical services that must be assured differ according to the type of product. In Romania, the market economy towards which we are moving today is characterized by an abundant production, an intensive national and foreign competition, a supplying facility all over the region. Through their decisions, consumers and users direct production, encouraging thus distributors through their forms of distribution. In all companies the commercial function includes a series of activities that concentrate on "obtaining an optimal market quota, achieving benefits indispensable for an efficient activity, and meeting consumers and users' requirements ". This conception identifies with the marketing one, and the services become an integral part of the dynamics that characterizes the actions which complete the proper commercial administration. The company must pay much attention to all these, the services being considered successful facts and elements that generate actions which must be included in activities such as selling, advertising and promoting.marketing, service, client

Ciochina, Iuliana

Decuseara, Razvan

Iordache, Carmen

Panoiu, Laura

English

Research Papers in Economics

The notion of “SERVICES” in modern economy 
 
 
Conf. univ. dr. Iuliana Ciochina, 
“Constantin Brâncoveanu” University Pitesti, 
Faculty of Management Marketing in Business Affairs Râmnicu Vâlcea 
iulianaciochina@yahoo.com 
 
Lect. univ. dr. Carmen Iordache, 
“Constantin Brâncoveanu” University Pitesti, 
Faculty of Management Marketing in Business Affairs Râmnicu Vâlcea 
Iordache72@yahoo.com 
 
Lect. univ. dr. Laura Panoiu, 
“Constantin Brâncoveanu” University Pitesti, 
Faculty of Management Marketing in Business Affairs Râmnicu Vâlcea 
laurapanoiu@yahoo.com 
 
Asist. univ. drd. Razvan Decuseara, 
“Constantin Brâncoveanu” University Pitesti, 
Faculty of Management Marketing in Business Affairs Râmnicu Vâlcea 
dec_vl@yahoo.com 
 
Abstract 
 
The notion of “service” is a very important one, with an increasing role in an 
expanding economy which becomes the condition of sustainable and long-term development. 
The technical services that must be assured differ according to the type of product. 
In Romania, the market economy towards which we are moving today is characterized 
by an abundant production, an intensive national and foreign competition, a supplying facility 
all over the region. Through their decisions, consumers and users direct production, 
encouraging thus distributors through their forms of distribution. 
In all companies the commercial function includes a series of activities that 
concentrate on "obtaining an optimal market quota, achieving benefits indispensable for an 
efficient activity, and meeting consumers and users' requirements ". This conception identifies 
with the marketing one, and the services become an integral part of the dynamics that 
characterizes the actions which complete the proper commercial administration. The 
company must pay much attention to all these, the services being considered successful facts 
and elements that generate actions which must be included in activities such as selling, 
advertising and promoting. 
 
Keywords: marketing, service, client 
 
The notion of “service” is a very important one, with an increasing role in 
an expanding economy which becomes the condition of sustainable and long-
term development.  
  1At the same time, technical services constitute an important marketing 
tool. Thus, we can appreciate that, when the product characteristics and the price 
of different offerers are more or less alike, the buyer will choose the goods 
according to the services that are offered. In conclusion, the marketing 
researcher must find out the services that buyers want and what it is being 
offered by the competitive part.  
This information permits the calculation of the marketing cost, the 
formulation of the marketing plan, the choice of the distribution networks, 
elements necessary in order to assure the services that the buyer requires. 
The technical services that must be assured differ according to the type of 
product. They may include the following categories: 
  consulting services as regards the way of handling and using products; 
  services of complaining that include complaints’ investigation and the 
repairing of out-of-order products or of those damaged because of the 
offeror’s guilt; 
  products repairing and maintenance; 
  spare parts assuring; 
  operators' qualification; 
  the guarantying of performances and the usage time; 
That is why, we may appreciate that everything is a service in any 
activity. 
The state, the public administration offers to the citizens of a country the 
service of a general organization and of a financial administration indispensable 
to any community. 
Producers offer to consumers the service of providing them goods of the 
quality they need by the payment of which are obtained the amounts of money 
necessary for the resumption of the production process. 
Companies providing banking, insurance, transport, and maintenance 
services, offer different kinds of possibilities, means, facilities, security. 
Distributors and merchants focus on providing consumers and 
  2professional users with productive goods. In addition they also provide services 
that encourage the buying process. 
Natural persons and governmental or non-governmental bodies whose 
duty is to offer conciliation to the users in view of directing their activity are 
valuable missionaries of services. Consumers return the services to distributors, 
producers, to the state and to economy on the whole, changing the monetary 
values they obtained for their products and maintaining public activities 
functioning through taxes payment. 
It is, thus, a continuous chain of services which also imply notions such 
as: quality, the value of the services provided the improvement and extension of 
these services.  
The notion of service involves: 
  an effort, that of assisting the development of a “job feeling”; 
  a research activity for finding the means of services adjustment to the 
real needs, of spreading and applying, services organization and 
promotion; 
  a certain consistency in creating a framework of favorable 
circumstances on general and personal level, the results justifying a 
good service, 
  in every community there are private interests far from complying with 
the general interest, frequently characterized by a selfishness that 
underestimates perspectives. 
Within the relationship between producers and distributors the common 
immediate interest is that of making transactions, as efficiently as possible. The 
strict confinement to this purpose reduces the value of these relations, reducing 
them to orders and deliveries, to a mechanism characterized by sporadic 
operations. Each person remains in his circle of specialized activities and tends 
to confine himself to his own economic functions. Still, we may consider that 
each party tends to see further and to establish a constructive collaboration. 
Thus, the distributor actually conveys permanently the information he 
  3obtains from the producer, in order to direct the first in his research for 
achieving a productive activity in permanent evolution. At the same time, the 
producer offers the distributor a totality of technical and commercial knowledge 
that he owns in order to help and encourage him. 
These reciprocal services are not compulsory but they have an 
unchallenged importance for the future. 
At the same time, the notion of service can be found in the relations 
among distributors, consumers, and professional users, among jobs and different 
sectors in economy. 
That is why the value of the notion of service has grown in importance 
and it can be taken for a function of the commercial activity. By supplying with 
goods suited for all requirements, by completing the idea of business and 
transaction with jobs offer, quality is improved and thus, this function acquires a 
more human value that accentuates its social usefulness. 
In Romania, the market economy towards which we are moving today is 
characterized by an abundant production, an intensive national and foreign 
competition, a supplying facility all over the region. Through their decisions, 
consumers and users direct production, encouraging thus distributors through 
their forms of distribution. 
Within this type of economy, producers are evidently interested in raising 
the value of the services offered for their products that enables them to assist 
distributors. The latter are for a more extended "notion of services", which will 
differentiate competitors, will draw the buyers' attention, and will require a 
higher degree of fidelity on the customers' part and will draw potential 
customers. 
At the same time, the quality of serving is the basis of services marketing, 
the product being represented by performance, that is exactly what the 
customers are buying. A better performance will lead to competitiveness growth 
by gaining customers' trust, by strengthening institutional image, and, at the 
same time, to a growth in products selling. 
  4Services characteristics influence promotional activities. The use of new 
promotional techniques - based on the utilization, during promotional activities, 
of some components of the system of services creation and delivery - reflects the 
strong relationship between the product and promotion on the one hand, and the 
very complex role of services, on the other hand. 
As a consequence, by developing “the job feeling”, there is a growth in 
the number and fidelity of the customers and in the importance of their buying. 
A well served customer remains a customer; a well known post-selling service 
becomes an element that generates future sales, increasing, at the same time, the 
reputation and the notoriety as well as the sources for new customers. Even if 
objections can be made, or the efforts done are underestimated, most of the 
customers know to appreciate and they become well-intended promoters, 
important sustainers of a mark or of a supplier. 
The service is also favorable from another point of view, as it can be 
interpreted as a simply gratuitous act and has as final aim profitableness growth 
and satisfying consumers' requirements. 
On the other hand, in comparison with the large industrial companies 
power, with the integrated firms and the groups of more and more numerous 
firms in the field of production and distribution, middle and little size enterprises 
can, with the help of direct and personal services, exceed their position and, at 
the same time, increase the number of customers. That is why it is appreciated 
that the establishment of a competitive market economy requires an 
improvement in the role of services. 
We cannot talk about the same force and plenitude of this attitude in all 
countries. Thus, if in the Anglo-Saxon countries and in the USA “the job 
feeling” functions as a true institution, in the Latin countries it is regarded as an 
individual feature. 
We are sometimes likely to mistake it with kindness, gentility or to 
consider it a surface attitude, an apparent manifestation known as “commercial 
smile”, without making any difference between true and the false services 
  5In all companies the commercial function includes a series of activities 
that concentrate on “obtaining an optimal market quota, achieving benefits 
indispensable for an efficient activity, and meeting consumers and users' 
requirements”. This conception identifies with the marketing one, and the 
services become an integral part of the dynamics that characterizes the actions 
which complete the proper commercial administration. The company must pay 
much attention to all these, the services being considered successful facts and 
elements that generate actions which must be included m activities such as 
selling, advertising and promoting. 
At the same time, the sustainable commercial development is directly 
related to the degree of satisfaction of the customers, who are situated on 
different links of the distribution chain which is the essential purpose of the 
service. Customers always pay attention to the services offered and, in case of 
discontent, they do not hesitate to address another supplier. Studies show that 
about 2/3 of the customers who abandon their usual suppliers are determined to 
do so because of faulty or insufficient services; only 1/3 of these customers raise 
the problem of the price or of the products quality. 
“Companies that introduce successfully a new concept of serving always 
determine ambitious competitors to imitate them. Superior carrying out is vital 
in supporting the innovator concept of the serving activity. This is due to the fact 
that serving quality in an organization is directed by an inspired manager, with 
an organizational culture directed toward the customer, an efficient use of 
information and technologies.” 
Assuring the fidelity of some customers may be considered a second 
purpose of services. This fidelity may be relative but its level may influence the 
efficiency of the company activity. 
“By offering excellent services at any time, you can turn all your 
customers into champions. Your best customer is the satisfied one.” 
A third purpose, perhaps the most important one, is the increase of 
business importance by growing the amount of attracted buyers-customers (new 
  6customers as a consequence of the services offered, more sales as a result of the 
growth in the services number).  
The symmetry between: 
  domestic and foreign marketing activities; 
  the processes of attaining “customer services” and “employee services” 
performances; 
  the internal customer's behavior (the employee) and the external one's 
(the customer emphasizes the opportunity of some researches 
regarding customers' contribution to services productivity, the 
interdependence between the main elements of services marketing, and 
the one between the main strategies of the services organizations and 
the components of services marketing. 
Once achieved, these goals encourage the company development that is 
wholly dependent on their commercial development. In the case of enterprises 
the problem of services must be well determined, as it is characterized by a 
multitude of aspects. As in the case of other commercial activities, the 
enterprise's interest is that of defining its services policy, its objectives, and 
strategies. This must be in accordance with the other policies regarding the 
market, the customers, the prices, the distribution, promoting.  
Services policy elaboration must be adapted to services needs, to 
customers' problems as much as possible. That is why, the elaboration methods 
must have in view the partial elaboration of different actions, the result of the 
comparison made between the degree of obtained satisfaction and the desires 
previously expressed. Thus the objectives and the strategies of developing a 
framework proper for this services policy can be established.  
During the process of services policy application there have been 
identified three stages. 
a)  the stage that precedes the selling; 
b)  the stage during the selling that have in view purchasing facilities; 
c)  the after-selling stage. 
  7All these stages must assure the continuity of the activity of services, of 
the means and methods of selling (without being mistaken with selling 
promotion). 
As in the case of any other field, a certain job feeling must be obvious in 
actions which must be organized on the basis of general ideas in order to be 
constructive and efficient. 
 
Bibliography 
1.  Grigorescu Daciana, Services and quality, Marketing-Management, 
Romanian Marketing Association. 
2.  Cafferky E. Michael, Leave the customers to promote their business, 
Business Tech International SRL Publishing Hause, Bucharest, 1996. 
3.  Cornel Somesan,  The role of services integrated marketing, 
Marketing-Management, 1-2/2002, Romanian Marketing Association. 
4.  ***, Marketing official magazine, Introduction to export market 
research. Romanian marketing association 1-2/1981, p. 38. 
  8

Leave the customers to promote their business,

Marketing official magazine, Introduction to export market research. Romanian marketing association 1-2/1981,

Services and quality, Marketing-Management, Romanian Marketing Association.

The role of services integrated marketing, Marketing-Management, 1-2/2002, Romanian Marketing Association.

The notion of “SERVICES” in modern economy

The notion of “SERVICES” in modern economy

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Research Papers in Economics