Before moving on to discuss the role of employees in services, we believe it is important to differentiate between products and services. Services in simpler terms are facts, processes and performances. Services can also be defined as any activity or benefit that one party offers to another that is essentially intangible and does not result in ownership of anything. [1]. These simple definitions give us a good idea of ​​what services are. We can give examples of a hairdresser, a tailor or a restaurant as services. Products, on the other hand, are offerings that are tangible in nature, such as a car.

In today’s world, services are increasingly important in the economy of any country. As Louis V. Gerstner said in 2001, “services are going to come to the forefront of the industry this decade.” This quote comes from the former CEO of a company that claims to be the world’s largest services company, IBM. The importance of services in today’s world can be further emphasized by the fact that services comprised almost 80% of the Gross Domestic Product of the United States of America in 2003. [2].

If we talk in the Pakistani context, we can see that the structure of the Pakistani economy has changed from a mainly agricultural base to a strong service base. Agriculture now only accounts for about 20% of GDP, while the service sector accounts for 53% of GDP and wholesale and retail trade form 30% of this sector. [3]. This fact also requires that more work be done on the marketing of services for the adequate growth of the sector.

Now that we know the difference and importance of services, we would like to shed some light on the difference between product marketing and service marketing. Many experienced marketers think that marketing a service is different from marketing a product. This was discovered by Gary Knisely, director of the consulting firm Johnson Smith and Knisely, in 1979 when he interviewed several high-ranking marketing executives who had worked in the consumer services industry after extensive experience in the consumer goods industry. packaged. Generally, 4 P’s are considered in packaged goods marketing, namely Product, Price, Place and Promotion. But when we talk about services, it is believed that there are three additional P’s that need to be considered for services marketing, namely People, Processes and Physical Evidence. [4].

The fifth cake People include both employees and customers, as customers also play an important role in the service delivery process. But let’s focus on employees as far as this article is concerned. From the above discussion, it is obvious that employees play an important role in service marketing due to the various reasons that employees are involved in the process of providing any service, for example, a waiter in a restaurant is in actually the driver of the entire customer-related process. Therefore, it is of great importance that he gives the correct image to the client, otherwise the client may never come back. So those employees who are part of the delivery of services, we can call them customer contact service employees, they play an absolutely crucial role in building a reputation for any service.

The importance of customer service employees can be understood from the following statements, which will also show why employees can be the most valuable asset of a service organization. Customer contact service employees are very important because:

or are the service
o Are the organization in the eyes of the customer
or are the brand
or are merchants [4]

In many cases, in a service, there is only the employee and nothing else, that is, the employee is the service, for example, haircuts, physical trainers, legal services, etc. This means that the service offered by the company is the employee. Thus, investing in the employee is the same as investing in the manufacture of a product.

A customer contact service employee can reflect the image of the service organization even if he or she is not directly providing the required service. If she walks into a hospital, every employee she meets, from receptionist to clerk, could influence her opinion of that organization. Therefore, employees sometimes become the organization in the eyes of the customer.

Employees also become the brand of a service. A very good example can be that of a university that enjoys a good reputation among students. The quality of most universities is judged by the caliber of the professors who teach there. When a student interacts with a professor, she has positive emotions about college only when she feels that the professor is knowledgeable and understanding and has full control over her subject. We can say that one of the reasons, among others, why LUMS is believed to be better than other universities is due to the perception that its faculty contains more PhDs than any other, thus having a better educational quality than others. Thus, an employee also becomes the brand of a service.

Because contact employees represent the organization and can directly influence customer satisfaction, they play the role of marketers. They physically embody the service and are walking billboards from a promotional point of view. [4] If we are on the road and see a person sitting on a motorcycle, going to make a free delivery, or to deliver letters or documents, we can tell by their appearance, clothing or even the type of vehicle to which organization they belong. So even when service employees are just doing their duty, they act as salespeople for their organization.

Here we would like to refer to Mr. Dennis Harting who says “What is the most valuable asset a company has? Is it the name, the customers, the goodwill, the physical resources or the product line? The answer is no.” is none of these The most valuable resource of a company is its employees Any organization will only be as far as the people who lead it In fact, a company is really just a group of people interacting with a common purpose They are the ones who make up the organization.” [5].

He also states that “it is important that managers and owners begin to realize that employees are the most valuable asset any organization can have. Those who embrace this new business model will structure their compensation and bonus program to reflect this belief.” .

The above discussion only points to one thing, generally for every business, and particularly for any service business, employees are definitely the most valuable assets. We personally feel that in Pakistan employees are still not given proper place and importance. One feels that more and more attention must be paid to the role of employees in services and investments must be made to improve the most valuable asset of services.