In general, a "web service" is basically just some kind of remote procedure call system implemented over the web's transport protocol (http or https). This means it is a way for one computer program to perform tasks/answer questions for another computer program, remotely (that is: not on the same computer... or at least in a manner which could be used even if it were on another computer, although the two programs in question might be on the same question).

There are an awful lot of different uses for remote procedure calls. There are also an awful lot of different implementations of remote procedure call frameworks. There are even several that fall under the ubmrella of "web services": SOAP, XML-RPC, and tons of varieties of roll-your-own.

Anyway... when somebody says something like "You will be connecting to our office via webservices", it's basically gibberish. What it probably means is that they either:

• don't know what they're talking about
• think that you don't know what they're talking about
• are completely unable to communicate with the lay person

Now... if accurate (or as close as can be approximated), what it means is that you will be using some kind application, remotely, that resides on a computer in their office. And that the means for transporting requests for the application and responses from the application, is a web protocol... even though you probably won't be using a web browser, or, really, be in any way aware of the fact that the data is traveling back and forth in web requests and responses, versus, say, emails, or UDP datagrams, or any of a billion methods for carrying data from here to there.