Service in the conditions of customized consumption

The definition of "service" is an object of research in the field of marketing, economics, sociology, philosophy, but scientists have not reached a consensus about its essence. There are approaches that involve the identification of service and services, service and value-added services together, the service definition as a phenomenon, etc. These approaches are presented in the materials of the article with their comparative benchmarking. The article also presents the author's view on the phenomenon through the prism of customized service consumption. The author hypothesizes that the individualization of consumer demand has led to the widespread use of tools to customize not only in terms of the product itself, but also other processes that accompany its consumption: design, marketing and so forth. It is assumed that in these conditions the service is key tool to personalize the product and establish relationships "consumer-producer". The author proposes a definition of service as a set of tools to increase the value of consumption of the product, manage processes and environment relations arising in the manufacture, marketing and operation of a particular product.