Service Design Issues
The presence and involvement of the customer, the intangible elements of service and the variable demand for services are significant for the design of such operations. We can approach these matters by:
- engineering the procedures of service delivery and even automating the service.
This approach stresses efficiency. We must understand the effects of de-personalisation and reduced levels of contact with customers- particularly if we move processing elements away from the point of contact with the customer to a back-office function. The introduction of automated teller machines by the clearing banks offers one illustration. Tele-sales services are another example.
If our design objectives focus factors relating to utilisation and efficiency in order to cope with demand variability and associated low utilisation then this is akin to taking a manufacturing or industrialising approach to service design. Customer participation (makes demand variability more difficult to manage and unpredictable) so - design may try to
- take the customer out of the process wherever possible and adopt industrial process design strategies for the processes not involving the customer.
- if the customer's presence is unavoidable, use the customer as labour.
- increase staff flexibility and balance capacity with demand.
Various strategies are possible:
- designing from a customer service quality (content and quality of interactions/experience) perspective. The design emphasis here is understanding and enriching the customer experience but there is a tension here with ensuring consistency and control over what is being delivered. The customer-oriented approach involves researching and then determining relationships between perceived quality and then balancing the costs and benefits of various systems of service delivery. A total quality approach to service design enables the firm to specify its service objectives as well as its operations, bench-mark against with its rivals and secure improved competitive advantage.
A and B are not mutually exclusive.
Industrialising and depersonalising a service undermines key facets of the service operation. Similarly, unnecessarily high specification of service quality incurs high costs without guaranteed appreciation or willingness to pay by the customer. Choices thus have to be made.
Pure service does not exist. Most services have an element of product transformation operations integrated with the delivery of the service. Often methods useful in designing, implementing and evaluating product operations are relevant in service contexts. Indeed production managers have a lot to learn from the service ethic. Yet service operations managers face problems that may be insignificant to production managers who would meet such situations far less or not at all.
Comparison of service with product operations makes it clear that the following are important influences on service design.
- customer participation
- using the customer as labour
- waiting and the inability to stock a service
- managing variability in demand
- the intangible aspects of a service
- how efficiencies can be secured and
- how quality can be secured
Consider the case of the holiday to Aghios Nikolios.
Service Design, Quality and Intangibles
Quality (as measured by customer satisfaction) much depends on the intangibles in the service package. Thus designs that seek to limit, shape and control to improve utilisation and reduce costs may transform the quality of the customer experience. How?
- by reducing consumer choice. This is exemplified by the cable company offer which groups channels into packages A, B and C. You cannot have a few elements of A, two from B and one from C - it is a take or leave it situation. It simplifies matters for the provider.
- by equalising, routinising, simplifying intangible elements which various people within the customer range may value. But "I do not want a standard, looks the same bathroom". The company answer to this is "Fine - but it will cost you a premium - and even then we may not be able to control the quality". Nevertheless, simplification and routinisation for some customers may get in the way of their enjoyment and interpretation of the experience.
- policies to secure staffing and thus flexibility in capacity management have a knock on effect in that less skilled staff are used and additional training is required where staff loyalty and competences are key quality elements.
- Quality costs. The service level - as agreed or as specified - has to be delivered and there are costs of failure. If we can identify the levels of service quality and service components that customers value - we can cost these and evaluate both their contribution and how much customers will pay for them. In designing the service we can ensure that the design elements target the right service systems, transactions and experiences which command staff attention, skills, expenditure and other resources.
Inspiring and maintaining customer confidence
The news on 20th November 1996 that there had been a fire in the Channel Tunnel 12 miles underground from the French coast - would have hit the confidence of potential customers and their perceptions of service quality. Where the service prompts uncertainty then the customer is uncertain about what to do.
Will the train arrive on time or not? Will I be able to get to work?
The customer may receive contradictory or too little information. The client's confidence may be undermined by the service provider's own displays of uncertainty or difficulty in co-ordinating parts of the service well enough. The typical response is to complain that "this shower couldn't manage the proverbial trip round a brewery" or the customer votes with their feet.
Ensuring that a service has internal consistency is important. It maximises confidence.
- staff providing the service need to speak as one and not be seen to contradict each other. They must focus on the customer's problem not the difficulties that they feel other departments have created. They need to liaise with each other and sort out internal communications difficulties - away from the customer. Inter-departmental wrangling should not be part of the customer experience.
Lyth and Johnston (1988) recommended a nine step procedure to ensure that the service efficiently provides the requisite quality. Their recommendations identify general means as well as aims. Elements in the service package must be consistent and service personnel and managers must agree what customer needs are and how (methods/practices) their "satisfactions" can be achieved. If these are not shared there will be disjointed views on how to deliver the service. Customer uncertainty results.
© Maintained and developed by C Jarvis