What is Sale?
A sale is an act of selling goods and services, usually with an aim of gaining profit. Sales mostly involve sales agents.
For example, in the sale of a house, the sales representative provides the customer with the full details pertaining the house, and the benefits it possesses as opposed to other houses.
What is Service?
A service is a support provided to a customer, after buying goods or services. A service can, however, take place before or while the sale is ongoing, so as to increase customer satisfaction. It aims at preventing customer challenges with a product, guiding implementation, assisting in upsells, creating a bond with the product, and basically answering detailed questions.
For instance, when a person buys a mobile phone, the customer service representatives provides a guarantee to ensure the mobile phone has no defects when being used up to a certain period of time. If any defects were noted within the course of the period, then they would replace the phone with a non-defective one.
Sales vs Service
The difference between sales and service is that sales involve various activities that are carried out by agents working for a business, with the purpose of selling a product or good, whereas, service aims at helping or supporting a customer throughout the process of buying a product, in order to fulfill their needs and maximize their satisfaction.
Comparison Table Between Sales and Service
| Parameters of Comparison | Sales | Service |
| Meaning | Sales involve various activities carried out with the aim of selling a product or good by specialists in an organization. | Service is the support provided to a customer throughout the process of inquiring about or buying a product or good. |
| Objective | The objective of a sale is to gain profit. | The objective of a service is to fulfill a customer’s needs and increase customer satisfaction. |
| Goal | Salespersons have specific goals regarding the number of sales that need to be generated in a specific time period. | There are no such targets that need to be achieved by people working in service. |
| Transaction | The transaction between the customer and salesperson is monetary. | The transaction between a service agent and a customer is generally non-monetary. |
| Customer | Salespersons are commonly responsible for generating new leads by reaching out to new people. | Service revolves around serving customers or business partners who are already in contact with the organization. |