Instead, there are a legion of ASPs with similar mission statements and general offerings. At this point, we have concluded that the real variable in all of this is the service level a provider can guarantee. Service can encompass anything that the customer values. If that is a combined solution that includes everything from soup to nuts, then that is what the successful service provider is going to have to offer. What's left is service.
Service is both hard to provide and significantly valuable to the customer.
Look at automobile dealerships as a parallel example. You could buy a particular model of automobile from any number of car dealerships. We bet that the number is higher than zero and probably a significant number to boot. What you were buying was service, even if that service was characterized as customer care. Since service is the critical variable in the service provider market, one would expect that the better the quality of service provided and the more that service corresponds to the needs of the customer, the higher the price that can be charged.