Employees

Roles in Service
Delivery
Chapter 11
  Service Culture
 The Critical Importance of Service
Employees
Topic  Boundary-Spanning Roles
discussion  Strategies for Delivering Service
Quality Through People
 Customer-Oriented Service Delivery
  Demonstrate the importance of creating a service culture in which
providing excellent service to both internal and external
customers is a way of life.

 Illustrate the critical importance of service employees in creating

customer satisfaction and service quality.

Objectives  Identify the challenges inherent in boundary-spanning roles.

 Provide examples of strategies for creating customer-oriented

service delivery through hiring the right people, developing
employees to deliver service quality, providing needed support
systems, and retaining the best service employees.
 “A culture where an appreciation for
good service exists, and where giving
good service to internal as well as
ultimate, external customers, is
Service Culture considered a natural way of life and one
of the most important norms by
everyone in the organization.”
Christian Gronroos (1990)
  They are the service.

 They are the organization in the customer’s eyes.

The Critical  They are the brand.

Importance of
Service  They are marketers.
Employees
 Their importance is evident in:
 the services marketing mix (people)
 the service-profit chain
 the services triangle
The Services Company
Marketing (Management)
Triangle

Internal Marketing External Marketing

“Enabling the promise” “Making the promise”

Employees Customers
Interactive Marketing
“Delivering the promise”
  Specific Service
 Overall Strategic Implementation
Assessment  What is being
 How is the service promoted and by
Ways to Use organization doing whom?
the on all three sides of  How will it be
the triangle?
Services  Where are the
delivered and by
whom?
Marketing weaknesses?  Are the supporting
Triangle  What are the systems in place to
strengths? deliver the promised
service?
The Service
Profit Chain

Source: An exhibit from J. L. Heskett, T. O. Jones, W. E. Sasser, Jr., and L. A. Schlesinger, “Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work,”
Harvard Business Review, March-April 1994, p. 166.
  Who are they?
 “boundary spanners”
 What are these jobs like?
 emotional labor
Service  many sources of potential conflict
Employees  person/role
 organization/client
 interclient
 quality/productivity tradeoffs
Boundary
Spanners External Environment
Interact with
Both Internal
and External
Constituents

Internal Environment
Figure 12.5
 Person versus role
Boundary-
Spanning  Organization versus client
Workers Juggle
Many Issues
 Client versus client
 Figure 12.6
Human Resource Strategies for Delivering Service Quality
through People
Hire for service
competencies and
service
Compete for inclination Be the
the best preferred
people employer

Measure and Train for

reward strong technical and
Hire the
service interactive
right people
performers skills

Develop
Treat Customer-
Retain the people to
employees Oriented Empower
best deliver
as Service employees
customers people service
Delivery quality

Include Provide
employees in needed support Promote
the company’s teamwork
systems
vision

Develop Measure
service-oriented Provide internal service
internal supportive quality
processes technology and
equipment

McGraw-Hill/Irwin © 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Benefits:
 quicker responses to
 Drawbacks:
customer needs during
service delivery  potentially greater dollar
investment in selection and
 quicker responses to training
dissatisfied customers during
service recovery  higher labor costs
 employees feel better about  potentially slower or
Empowerment their jobs and themselves
 employees tend to interact
inconsistent service delivery
 may violate customers’
with warmth/enthusiasm perceptions of fair play
 empowered employees are a  employees may “give away
great source of ideas the store” or make bad
decisions
 great word-of-mouth
advertising from customers
 Traditional Organizational Chart

Manager

Supervisor Supervisor

Front-line Front-line Front-line Front-line Front-line Front-line Front-line Front-line

Employee Employee Employee Employee Employee Employee Employee Employee

Customers
 Customer-Focused Organizational
Chart

Customers

Front-line Front-line Front-line Front-line Front-line Front-line Front-line Front-line

Employee Employee Employee Employee Employee Employee Employee Employee

Supervisor Supervisor

Manager