Generic Approaches to Service System Design

Direct interaction between customer and employee is generally very high with services, while there is little direct interaction between customers and employees in the technical core of a manufacturing firm.

Customer service involves a consideration of what is needed to treat the customers in a desirable

Service management combines the required services with organizational solutions and thus new generation user service becomes simplified. These forthcoming services are necessitated to be interrelated and combined in order to meet the demand of socio- economic factors such as environment analysis, safety measurement, climate management, agriculture modernization

In customer service, the telephone is the second most important link (Lucus, 2015). Modern business use telephones in their day-to-day operations and to communicate with both internal and external customers (Lucus, 2015). Traveling to meet with customers and vendors face to face can be expensive and time-consuming (Lucus, 2015). With the technology of today, you can dial a telephone number or type a text into a cell phone and connect to a customer or vendor half-way around the world almost instantaneously (Lucus, 2015). With fax machines and computer modems, documents and information can be sent in a matter of minutes to customers and vendors miles away (Lucus, 2015). With all those tools, readily available more companies have set up both inbound and outbound telephone staffs (Lucus, 2015). Companies are expanding their customer contacts and are more likely to reach total customers satisfaction through those types of trained specialist (Lucus, 2015).

This course focuses on services management in general and service operations in particular. It explores the elements that unite services, that differentiate service processes from non-service processes and that differentiate various types of services from each other. Customers generally participate in the service process, often with direct and uncensored interactions with employees and facilities. The resulting

This is an introductory course intended to provide the student with a mix of theoretical and practical knowledge about managing service operations in businesses such as financial services, retail hospitality, healthcare,

Operation is also about creating goods and services and it is known as the transformation process which turns a range of inputs into the desired output (services) having the requisite quality level. Management is the process which makes the combination and transformation of various resources used in the operations scheme of the organization .If the same concept is extended to services management, then the

The service industry interacts with our lives on a daily basis. Services can be defined as deeds, processes and performances. When considering the differences between products and services, intangibility and the fact that a service cannot be touched, tasted, viewed or tried on are terms often used (McColl-Kennedy & Kiel 2000). Services differ from goods in essentially four ways: (1) intangibility; (2) inseparability; (3) heterogeneity; (4) perishability (Kotler, Brown, Adam, Burton, Armstrong 2006). To deliver a quality service, managers also pay attention to the importance of tangibles that support service delivery as well as service delivery blueprinting. Managers must also accept that service failures occur and be able to

Tangible goods, or rather manufactured goods, have been the dominant medium of exchange for centuries. However, recent decades have proved that it is no longer the case as there has been a prevalence of being service oriented (Vargo and Lusch, 2004:1-2). Services, as defined by Vargo and Lusch (2004), are  “the application of specialized competences (knowledge and skills) through deeds, processes, and performances for the benefit of another entity or the entity itself (p.2).” Utilizing services gives businesses an edge, a competitive advantage, particularly in an evolving competitive market, something which Metalfrio is definitely part of (Vargo and Lusch, 2004:9).  Those businesses that learn to adapt tend to do well. In addition, Vargo and Lusch (2004) write this shift to services is also a shift from producer perspective to a customer perspective (p.2). Thus, it leads to more of a collaborative effort where co-creation leads to adding value to the service rather than a product having value (Vargo and Lusch, 2004:6). Also, customers rather develop relationships with those that can provide a range of related services over an extended period of time, thus allowing businesses retain their clients for the long term (Vargo and Lusch, 2004:13). Overall, service oriented marketing is a direction that businesses should be headed towards to ensure that they can remain relevant and competitive in the

The lean principles can be applied to service operations, as service operations are “organized systems of production processes” with the same potential for improvement through implementation of lean precepts as manufacturing operations (Benson, 1986 in Duclos et al., 1995). Manufacturing employ processes that add value to the inputs used in creating final products, which is in a way similar to services (Canel et al., 2000). Silvestro et al. (1993) classified service processes into three major headings of professional, service shop and mass. These three majors headings are further classified into six different dimensions of equipment/people focus as the main element of the service delivery is provided by equipment or people; customer contact time per transaction; the

“Services are acts, deeds, performances, or relationships that produce time, place, form, or psychological utilities for customers” (Roberta S. Russell, 2014, p.194). Besides, there are some other explanation of service design: Service design is all about making the service you deliver useful, usable, efficient, effective and desirable (UK Design Council, 2010); Service design aims to ensure service interfaces are useful, usable and desirable for the client’s point of view and effective, efficient and distinctive from the supplier’s point of view (Birgit Mager, 2009); When you have two coffee shops right next to each other, and each sells

Service customer interaction can also be between the customer and technology. The customer may be required to interact with technology in a technology based service encounter to experience the service on offer. In such a service encounter the customer is in control and might be willing to participate but not possessing the necessary skills, knowledge and abilities to operate the machinery for example for a customer to purchase goods online or book a hotel reservations using the company’s website requires the customer to be computer literate hence when not and fails to place an order the service on offer would be deemed by the specific customers as of poor quality. Lovelock and Gummesson (2004) suggest that the service offer and encounter are less variable when machine-intensive technologies are utilised in service encounters since variability of the service encounter posses a great threat to the quality of service on offer. In a case where the customer successfully interacts with the technology in the service

Leading the industry by providing personal, honest and effective service that results in an advantageous business relationship with our customers, partners and suppliers;

According to the customer contact approach proposed by Chase and Tansik [1,6,7], customer contact activities should be decoupled from non-contact activities to do justice to their different design requirements and maximize the efficiency of the service delivery system. Consequently, service organizations consist of a front stage and a back stage. In the back office customer contact is passive or nonexistent, service processes may be designed with manufacturing-like principles in mind [6]. The process may take advantage of standardization and automation to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of operations. While in the front stage customer contact is high and active, it brings about unavoidable inefficiencies, and the human relation skills become a dominant factor in designing the process [6]. Study [8] adds that moving some of the back-stage functions from developed areas (or even countries) to underdeveloped regions may increase greatly efficiency because of the reduction in labor costs and taxation. 2.2.2 Decoupling for Speed, Quality and Sales Opportunities However, back-stage tasks need not only be viewed as tasks where

The major differences between goods and services in operations management are their goods, inventory, customers, labor and location. One major difference in the tangibility of their output. For example, a service firm would entail consultancy, training or maintenance, this is an intangible product. These services are not tangible object, but still provide a “product” for the customer. A good would be a tangible for the consumer. A company manufactures a certain product and the consumer is able to physically receive it. For example, A manufacturer such as Coke, Nestle, Honda and BMW. Another difference between a service and goods is their inventory. Service forms do not hold inventory, they provide a service when their customers ' need it. Manufacturers produce goods which creates an inventory. Inventory levels are created through supply and demand. A lot of companies only have a certain level of inventory in order to utilize their “space”. In addition a major difference between goods and services is their customer relationship. There is a high customer contact in the service industry. The service industry caters to their clients; meaning they adjust their service to the needs of the customer. For example, a consulting firm may only need to do four hours of work with a certain customer and twelve hours with another. In manufacturing goods there is low customer contact. Manufactures can produce their customers goods without having them submit an order, because they can