Product or service?

One conflict or potential source of confusion in business is the product vs. service question. What are we selling?
Although there are a huge number of businesses selling services only, many of the businesses we work with every day are selling products of one kind or another. The problem is that selling the product generally requires some kind of service, and this is where a lot of businesses really fail, be they brick-and-mortar or online. Part of the problem is often that a company believes too much in the product, which can produce a kind of blindness to what the customer has to go through (survive?) in order to obtain or enjoy it. A few examples:

• Restaurants with with truly great food in which the inattention or incompetence of the server deprives you of the pleasure of your meal.


• Clunky, difficult e-commerce sites.


• Shops designed for everyone's convenience except the customer's.

I think the underlying idea in all of these cases is that the product is soooooo good that people will do what they must in order to obtain it.
I don't know about you, but I'm less and less likely to put up with bad service to obtain any product which I consider optional. Obviously we're all held hostage at one point or another by government bureaucracies, monopolies, health care providers, and internal service providers in our own organizations. Unfortunately, our agency might be quite limited in these situations. But when it comes to having lunch or buying a book or a pair of shoes, for me bad service is increasingly unacceptable. Why should I support that kind of business?
For businesspeople, it's worth asking what you're making your customers do in order to get to your product, and whether you're susceptible to another provider with better service.
And of course, there's always the human factor to take into account: that ice cream sure tastes better when it's served by someone who cares.