Why is it particularly difficult to manage service operations?

People play a dominant role in service operations, both as employees in labor-intensive operations and as customers. Simply meeting customer expectations is not enough today. McDonald's and other companies are trying to exceed customer expectations. Unlike manufacturing operations where goods are made and stored in cost-effective locations and then sold to the customer, services cannot be stored because they are consumed immediately when and where the customer chooses. Measuring intangible service quality is more difficult than measuring product quality.