Keeping the service promise

Designing delivery systems

Dr. James Stanworth

Jamesstanworth@btinternet.com

A few important features of service

Intangible Perishable Heterogeneous high variation Simultaneous production and consumption -customers are part of the production process Often customers do not own the assets

Managements view:
Responsible for delivering benefits that we cannot see or touch Through staff who may be remote from us and with the support (or otherwise) of customers.
James Stanworth NCKU 05/2005

What do we (customers) value in services?

Service customers often value the process dimensions as much as, if not more than, the outcome dimensions of service. Examples
Visit to the Doctor the bedside manner has a significant influence on patient satisfaction. Responsiveness, empathy, assurance important parts of checking-in and staying in a hotel.
James Stanworth NCKU 05/2005

Delivering what the customer values - The service delivery system (SDS)
Where the final assembly of the elements takes place and the product is delivered to the customer. (Christopher Lovelock)
All apparatus physical and procedural required by front-line and support staff.
A SDS should:
Customer friendly Employee friendly and Incorporate a feedback loop

(Albrecht and Zemke)

James Stanworth NCKU 05/2005

Albrecht & Zemkes principles

- Customer friendly

Customer friendly?
An example: Harrods Department store, London.
For a long time the store closed at 6 p.m. But customers had to buy their goods before 5.45 p.m. Why? So all staff could go home at the same time.

How often do you see rules like this?

Whose benefit are they for?
The provider, The employee
James Stanworth NCKU 05/2005

Not, usually, the customer

An exercise
Step 1. Get into groups and think of a service failure. Step 2. Who did you complain to? Step 3. What might have caused the problem? It might have been caused by
A) B) C)

Albrecht & Zemkes principles

- Employee friendly & incorporate a feedback loop

Employee friendly
Often service failures are caused by delivery systems not supporting, or even making it hard for staff to deliver service.

Feedback loop
It should be easy to give feedback. Tarp research less than 5% complaints reach head-office Important to close-the-loop.
James Stanworth NCKU 05/2005

Why design the service delivery system?

Designing quality into services:
For products >90% quality problems are designed into the systems that make them. (Demming, 1986, Juran,
1992)

Similar problem in services c.>80%. (Edvardsson 1993)

Large costs of poor quality

Risk of service terrorists spreading negative word-of-mouth. Costs of failure compensation, resources (staff time etc.). Recovery is hard and often not effective.
James Stanworth NCKU 05/2005

Methods of service design

High quality services do not happen by accident. A systematic a approach to design is required. There are two approaches to design that we are going to review:
1. Flowcharting / Service blueprinting
Ideas from product design and manufacturing (Shostack,
Kingman Brundage)

2. Cycle of Service approach

Ideas based on the differences of products and services
(Mahesh and Stanworth)
James Stanworth NCKU 05/2005

Methods of service design

- Blueprinting
Front stage
Line of interaction staff and customer contact
Physical evidence / Servicescape Standards Scripts Customer role

Back stage
Line of visibility what should the customer see? Line of internal physical interaction staff-to-staff contact. Line of internal IT interaction
James Stanworth NCKU 05/2005

Methods of service design

- Cycle of service (1)

Cycle of service in Anglian Water Services 1. Identification of a customer profile:

Front-line staff and supervisors were put into groups. Each group thought about customers they served.

2. Profiling the customer type

3. Plotting the current cycle of service
Customers assess service one moment of truth at a time. Each moment of truth customer makes a positive or negative assessment of the service.
James Stanworth NCKU 05/2005

Methods of service design - Cycle of service (2)

4. Identifying frequently occurring negative moments of truth.
Water is a brown colour
Very hard to find the Anglian Waters telephone number First contact on phone good the greeting.

Profile: Black single mother, with 3 children, working long hours.

Angry customer phone James Stanworth NCKU to complain. 05/2005

Customers clothes are damaged from the brown water ask for proof Big form to fill-up. Have to wait a long-time for the money to come.

Designing the service delivery system

- The cycle of service approach (5, 6 & 7)

5. 6.

Plotting the future C.O.S. Identifying particular positive MOTs to delight the customer. 7. Eliminating negatives to deliver the positives.
Example of removing 2 negative MOTs and making a MOT to delight the customer

Staff visits customer, makes assessment & writes a cheque.

Customers clothes are damaged from the brown water ask for proof Big form to fill-up. Have to wait a long-time for the money to come.

James Stanworth NCKU 05/2005

Designing the service delivery system

- The cycle of service approach (8 & 9)

8. Time bound planned for improvement

Managers developed plans to turn the ideas into action & presented them to Customer Service Director.

9. The spirit of service delivery

A lady was washing her hair. The workman turned off the water to do some work. She came out of her house. Her hair was half washed.
James Stanworth NCKU 05/2005

The workman asked how long she needed the water. He turned on the water again for 15 minutes. Changed his meal time for the customers convenience.

Exercise
In your groups please discuss the merits of both approaches. A few ideas:
Whose perspective does each approach adopt? What is the aim of these two techniques (outcome)? etc.

James Stanworth NCKU 05/2005

Design of service delivery systems

Effectiveness (focus on the customer), then efficiency (focus on the business) If services are designed for the business convenience (employee friendly) then there will be many problems, including:
Too much focus on efficiency (see Dogbert cartoon). Funny, but many services have been designed like this. Focus on dimensions that the business thinks is important to customers (UPS on time delivery to greater interaction time and profits).

Start with an approach, like the cycle of service, then move to use flowcharting.
James Stanworth NCKU 05/2005

James Stanworth NCKU 05/2005

Anglian Water Services:

Provide rural attractions

Some Offices lot of contact thro phone Take waste water away

Provide drinking water

Handle payments, customer records, advice etc. For 5m customers

Maintain their network of facilities (pipes etc.)

James Stanworth NCKU 05/2005

References and further reading

Service America in the New Economy, K. Albrecht and R. Zemke, McGraw Hill, 2nd Ed, 2001 The role of service design in achieving quality, B. Edvardsson, in, The service quality handbook, Eds, E.E. Scheuing and W.F. Christopher, New York, Amacom, 1993 Designing services that deliver, G.L. Shostack, Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb, 1984, pp.133-139 Service mapping: Its all in your point of view, J. Kingman-Brundage, in, 2nd International Conference in Service Industry Management, Eds. P. Eiglier and L. Langeard, AIE, France, 1992 Key concepts in the design of delivery systems: How well does QFD meet expectations?, J. Stanworth and W.R. Lee, NCKU Cross-straights conference, 05/05 The internal service encounter, D.D. Gremler, M.J. Bitner, The international journal of service industry management, 5, 2, pp 43-56 New service development: Creating memorable experiences, J. Fitzsimmons and M.J. Fitzsimmons, Sage, 1999. Service marketing in Asia, C. Lovelock, J. Wirtz and H.T. Keh, Prentice Hall, 2002 The quality 75, J. Bicheno, Picsie Books, Buckingham, 2002
James Stanworth NCKU 05/2005