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DESIGNING & MANAGING

SERVICE PROCESSES

Chapter 8
 Overview of Chapter 8
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 Flowcharting Customer Service

Processes
 Blueprinting Services to Create

Valued Experiences and

Productive Operations
 Service Process Redesign

 The Customer as Co-Producer

 Self-Service Technologies
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Flowcharting Customer
Service Processes
 Flowcharting Service Delivery
Helps to Clarify Product Elements
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 Technique for displaying the nature and sequence

of the different steps in delivery service to
customers
 Offers way to understand total customer service
experience
 Shows how nature of customer involvement with
service organizations varies by type of service:
 People processing

 Possession processing

 Mental Stimulus processing

 Information processing
 Flowcharts for People and
Possession Processing Services
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 Flowcharts for Mental Stimulus
and Information Processing
6 Services
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Blueprinting Services
to Create Valued
Experiences and
Productive Operations
 Developing a Blueprint

 Developing a Blueprint
 Identify key activities in creating and delivering service
 Define “big picture” before “drilling down” to obtain a
higher level of detail
 Advantages of Blueprinting
 Distinguish between “frontstage” and “backstage”
 Clarify interactions and support by backstage activities
and systems
 Identify potential fail points; take preventive
measures; prepare contingency
 Pinpoint stages where customers commonly have to
wait
 Key Components of a Service Blueprint
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Define Identify
Specify
standards for principal
physical
frontstage customer
evidence
activities actions
Objectives:
Identify fail
points & risks
of excessive Frontstage
Line of actions by Line of
waits
visibility frontline interaction
Set service personnel
standards
Fail-proof
process Backstage
Support
actions by Support
processes
customer processes
involving other
contact involving IT
personnel
personnel
 Blueprinting the
Restaurant Experience: Act 1
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 Blueprinting the Restaurant Experience:
A Three-Act Performance
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 Act 1: Prologue and Introductory Scenes
 Act 2: Delivery of Core Product
 Cocktails, seating, order food and wine, wine service
 Potential fail points: Menu information complete? Menu
intelligible? Everything on the menu actually available?
 Mistakes in transmitting information a common cause of
quality failure
 Customers may not only evaluate quality of food and drink,
but how promptly it is served or serving staff attitudes
 Act 3: The Drama Concludes
 Remaining actions should move quickly and smoothly, with no
surprises at the end
 Customer expectations: accurate, intelligible and prompt bill,
payment handled politely, guest are thanked for their
patronage
 Improving Reliability of Processes
Through Fail-Proofing
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 Identify fail points

 Analysis of reasons for failure reveals

opportunities for failure-proofing to

reduce/eliminate future errors
 Need fail-safe methods for both

employees and customers

 Setting Service Standards and Targets
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 Service providers set standards for each step

sufficiently high to satisfy and even delight
customers
 Include time parameters, script and prescriptions for
appropriate style and demeanor
 Must be expressed in ways that permit objective
measurement
 Performance targets – specific process and team
performance targets for which staff are
responsible for
 Evaluated based on distinction between
standards and targets
 Setting Service Standards and Targets
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 First impression is
important
 Affects customer’s

evaluations of quality
during later stages of
service delivery as
customer perceptions of
service experiences tend
to be cumulative
 For low-contact service, a
single failure committed
front stage is relatively
more serious than in a
high-contact service
 Setting Standards and Targets for
Customer Service Processes
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Service Service
Service Performance
Process Process
Attributes Targets
Indicators Standards

• Responsiveness
• Reliability Processing time to 80% of all
• Competence approve applications in 24
24 hours
• Accessibility applications hours
• Courtesy
• Communication
• Credibility
• Confidentiality
• Listening to the
customer Creates a Base to Define Service Quality Define/Process
Measure Customer Goals for Staff Departmental Service
Satisfaction Goals
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Redesigning Service
Processes
 Why Redesign?
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 Revitalizes process that has become outdated

 Changes in external environment make existing
practices obsolete and require redesign of
underlying processes
 Rusting occurs internally
 Natural deterioration of internal processes; creeping
bureaucracy; evolution of spurious, unofficial standards
 Symptoms:
 - Extensive information exchange
 - Data that is not useful
 - High ratio of checking control activities to value-adding
activities
 Why Redesign?
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“Institutions are like steel beams—

they tend to rust. What was once
smooth and shiny and nice tends to
become rusty.”

Mitchell T. Rabkin, MD
 Why Redesign?
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 Redesign aims to achieve these

performance measures:
 Reduced number of service failures
 Reduced cycle time from customer
initiation of a service process to its
completion
 Enhanced productivity
 Increased customer satisfaction
 Process Redesign: Approaches and
Potential Benefits
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• Streamline front-end and back-end

Eliminating non- processes of services
value-adding • Improve productivity and customer
steps satisfaction

• Increase in productivity and service

quality
Shifting to self- • Lower costs and perhaps prices
service • Enhance technology reputation
• Differentiates company
• Improve convenience for customers
• Productivity can be improved by
Delivering eliminating expensive retail locations
direct service • Increase customer base
 Process Redesign: Approaches and
Potential Benefits
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• Involves grouping multiple services into one

offer, focusing on a well-defined customer
group
Bundling • A better fit to the needs of target segment
services • Increase productivity with customized
service
• Increase per capita service use
• Focus on tangible elements of service
process (facilities and equipment)
Redesigning • Increase convenience
physical • Enhance satisfaction and productivity of
aspects of frontline staff
• Cultivate interest in customers
service process
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The Customer as
Co-Producer
 Levels of Customer Participation
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High – Customer works actively with provider to co-

produce the service
• Service cannot be created without customer’s active
participation
• Customer can jeopardize quality of service outcome

Medium – Customer inputs required to assist provider

• Provide needed information and instructions
• Make some personal effort; share physical possessions

Low – Employees and systems do all the work

• Involves standardized work
 Customers as Partial Employees
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 Customers can influence productivity

and quality of service processes and
outputs
 Customers not only bring expectations

and needs but also need to have

relevant service production
competencies
 For the relationship to last, both parties

need to cooperate with each other

 Managing Customers
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• Recruit customers that possess the
Recruitment and Selection competency to perform the necessary tasks

• Are customers aware of their roles and

Job Analysis equipped with the required skills?

• Information required for them to perform

Education and Training their roles via instructions or video
demonstration
• Ensure that they will be rewarded for good
Motivate performance

• For sub-par performances, improve

Appraise customer training or change the role or
process
• Last resort: if customer is non compliant
Ending consider termination of the relationship
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Self-Service
Technologies
 Self-Service Technologies (SSTs)
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 SSTs are the ultimate form of customer

involvement where customers undertake
specific activities using facilities or
systems provided by service supplier
 Customer’s time and effort replace those of
employees
 Information-based services lend selves
particularly well to SSTs
 Used in both supplementary services and
delivery of core product
 Self-Service Technologies (SSTs)
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Many companies and government

organizations seek to divert customers
from employee contact to Internet-based
self-service
Advantages: Disadvantages:
 Time and Cost savings  Anxiety and stress
experienced by
 Flexibility
customers who are
 Convenience of location uncomfortable with
using them
 Greater control over
service delivery  Some see service
encounters as social
 High perceived level of experiences and prefer
customization to deal with people
 What Aspects Of SSTs Please Or
Annoy Customers?
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People love SSTs when… People hate SSTs when…

• SST machines are conveniently • SSTs fail – system is down, PIN
located and accessible 24/7– numbers not accepted, etc.
often as close as the nearest
computer! • Customers themselves mess up
– forgetting passwords; failing to
• Obtaining detailed information provide information as requested;
and completing transactions can simply hitting wrong buttons
be done faster than through face-
to-face or telephone contact

Key weakness: Few firms incorporate service recovery systems

such that customers are still forced to make telephone calls or
personal visits
 Putting SSTs to Test by
Asking a Few Simple Questions
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 Does the SST work reliably?

 Firms must ensure that SSTs are dependable and
user-friendly
 Is the SST better than interpersonal
alternatives?
 Customers will stick to conventional methods if
SST doesn’t create benefits for them
 If it fails, what systems are in place to recover?
 Always provide systems, structures, and
technologies that will enable prompt service
recovery when things fail
 Managing Customer’s Reluctance to
Change
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 Increasing customer’s participation level

in a service can be difficult
 Marketing communications to be used
to:
 Prepare customer for change
 Explain the rationale and benefits
 What customers need to do differently in
the future