Birat Shrestha

NCM, BBA,
KU,
March
2020
Costumer Interaction with
Service Operations
 They are service directed at peoples bodies –
health care, education lodging, therapy
 To receive the services the customers must
be physically enter the service system as they
are an integral part of the process
 Being transported, fed, lodged, restored to
health, made more beautiful,
academically qualified, entertained
 The customer must be prepared to cooperate
with the service provider for service quality
 They are services directed at physical
possessions – servicing, washing and cleaning,
repair and maintenance, storage, delivery
 Customer ask a service organization to provide

tangible treatment for some physical possession

 They are quasi-manufacturing operations
and do not involve simultaneous production
and consumption
 Customers are less physically involved with this

type of service than with people processing

services – people and package transfer services
 They are services directed at people’s minds –
education, advertising, PR, art and entertainment
of live concert in TV, news and information,
consulting and professional advice, psychotherapy,
entertainment, religious activities
 Anything touching people’s mind has the power to
shape attitudes and influence behavior
 The recipient does not necessarily need to be
available at the service factory – just mentally in
communication with the information being
presented
 Services in this category can be “inventoried” for later
date than their production in the form of video,
content downloading facility
 They are services directed at intangible assets
– accounting, data processing, programming,
software development, designing
 Information is the most intangible form of
service output, but it may be transformed
into more enduring tangible forms such
as reports, books, digital files
 It is an information based services like a
market researcher seeing opportunities to
publish useful insights that they have gained
from reviewing trends over time
Four Categories of Service Operations
 Pre-purchase Stage
◦ A person’s decision to buy and use services reflects arousal
of an underlying need
◦ Information search depends upon if the purchase is
routine and relatively low-risk, or a first time usage of the
service
◦ Applying for a college or choosing a restaurant
 Service Encounter Stage
◦ Its core of a service experience involving series of contacts
with the chosen service provider
◦ Its service process part like reservation, ordering, receiving
the service
◦ Services can be high and low contact based
 Post-encounter Stage
◦ Customer continue the ongoing evaluation of service
quality
◦ Service satisfaction depends upon the customer
expectation
◦ Recommendations are based on customer
 Customers Seek Solutions to Aroused Needs
◦ People buy goods and services to meet specific needs or
wants
◦ Needs can be short-term or a long-term problem based
◦ External marketing oriented sources may stimulate
service needs
◦ A consumers review and clarify their needs and start to
explore potential solutions and suppliers
◦ Alternative (evoked set) solutions might involve deciding
among different approaches to addressing the same
basic problem like choosing between a movie theatre or
downloading the movie from Internet, cable service
company or Netflix
 Customers evaluate service quality by comparing
what they expect with what they perceive, receive
from a particular supplier
 Customers believe they have received high-
quality service, if their expectations are met or
exceeded – if the service experience does not
meet their expectations, customers may
complain, spread negative W-O-M, or switch
 Perceived service quality results from comparing
the service you perceived you obtained against
you expected to receive
 Service expectations may be based on prior
experience, word-of-mouth, news stories,
advertisements
 The components of customer expectations
◦ Expectations embrace several elements, including desired service,
adequate service, predicted service, and a zone of tolerance
◦ Zone of tolerance falls between desired and adequate service
levels
 Desired and adequate service levels
◦ The type of service customers hope to receive – wished for level
◦ A combination of what customers believe can and should be
delivered in the context of their personal needs
◦ Customers are realistic and have a threshold level of expectations –
adequate service – minimum level of service customer will expect
without being dissatisfied
 Predicted service levels
◦ The level of service that customers actually anticipate receiving,
which directly affects how they define “adequate service on
that occasion
◦ If good service is predicted, the adequate level will be higher
than if
poor service is predicted
◦ Customer prediction of service may be situation-specific
 Zone of tolerance
◦ Range of service within which customers don’t pay
explicit attention to service performance –when
service falls outside this range, customers will react
positively or negatively
◦ The size of zone of tolerance can be larger or
smaller for individual customers, depending upon
competition, price, specific service attributes, which
can influence the level of adequate service
◦ Desired service level tend to move up in response
to accumulated customer experiences
Factors Influencing Customer Expectations of Service
 Search Attributes
◦ This helps customers evaluate a product before purchasing it –
style, color, texture, taste, and sound features allow customers to
try out, taste, test drive a product before purchasing it
◦ The tangible characteristics help customers understand and
evaluate product value and reduce uncertainty or purchase risk
◦ In service physical evidences are shown for customers to help
evaluate the services – Ads, interiors, equipments
 Experience Attributes
◦ When attributes can’t be evaluated before purchase,
customers
must “experience” the service to know in prior
◦ Vacations, live entertainment performances, sporting events come
into this category
 Credence Attributes
◦ Product characteristics that customers find impossible to evaluate
confidently even after purchase and consumption
◦ The customer is forced to trust that certain tasks have been
performed from which benefit will result
◦ The examples can be consultancy service, “quality of repair and
maintenance,” a doctor’s service etc.
 Service Encounters as “Moments of Truth”
◦ Cascade of customer interaction with the service firm
◦ Customer receive a snapshot of the service quality
◦ Negative experience in any one can lead to dissatisfaction
◦ Any encounter can be critical in determining customer
satisfaction and loyalty
◦ Initial first time encounter will create the first
impression
◦ Initial phone contact or face-to-face experience with a
company representative can impact customer service quality
perception
◦ A customer can judge a service of a firm to be of poor quality if
she/he is put on hold or behaved rudely through phone,
even though the service is good
◦ Many positive experiences add up to a composite image of high
quality (service, food, serving process, billing in a restaurant)
◦ Early encounter are most important
◦ One critical encounter destroys 30-year relationship –
see example in note

◦
Moment of Truth [MOT]
 High-Contact
◦ Entails interactions throughout service delivery between
Services
customers and the organization
◦ Interaction throughout service delivery between
customers and service provider - face-to-face encounter
(customer also plays the role), creating service quality
perceptions
◦ Customer enter the service factory
◦ The customer’s exposure to the service provider
takes place on a physical and tangible in nature with
service processing
◦ Hotel, Restaurant, Airlines, Hospital, College
 Low-Contact Services
◦ Customer contact takes place through the medium of
electronic or physical distribution channels
◦ Remote encounters (ATM, website, mail-order)
◦ Phone encounters (voice tone, knowledge)
Technology Based Service Encounters
Self Service Technologies (SSTs)

Satisfying SSTs Dissatisfying SSTs

 Solved intensified  Technology failure

need (rescued) (PIN numbers or

 Better than system)
alternative (time  Process failure
save) (package delivery)
 Did its job  Poor design
(worked as it (confusing menus)
should)  Customer driven
failure (inabilities)
 Service Encounter Themes

Employee response to service delivery system

Recovery
(gifting or apologizing the customer)
Employee response to customer needs and
Adaptability requests
(special treatment to special needs)
Unprompted and unsolicited employee actions
Spontaneity (special attention, surprised extras, not required
services)
Employee response to problem customers
Coping (interacting with problematic customers in
a satisfactory way)
 The Servuction (service & production) System
◦ Service Operations
 Service personals (actors)
 Stage set (physical facilities, equipments, tangibles)
 Inputs are processed and elements of the service products are
created
 Front-stage operations are supported by backstage operations
(ordering, account keeping, billings)
◦ Service Delivery
 Final assembly and product delivery to customers
 Visible elements – building, equipments, personals
 Service delivered through Self-serving machines, IVR (Interactive
Voice Response) systems
◦ Other Contact Points
 Embraces all points of contacts with customers
 High and low contacts
 How Confirmation or Disconfirmation of Expectations
Relates to Satisfaction and Delight
◦ Satisfaction is an attitude-like judgment following a purchase
act of series of consumers product interactions (negative
disconfirmation – if the service is worse than expected;
positive disconfirmation – if the service is better than
expected)
◦ Customer delight (unexpectedly high level of performance
and customer expectations are raised)
◦ Strategic link between customer satisfaction and corporate
performance (customer satisfaction is the central to the
marketing concept)
◦ Getting feedback during service delivery (improves the
likelihood that the customer will remain loyal)
Thank You/Best Wishes