Page 17 - DMGT522_SERVICES MANAGEMENT

Services Management

Notes How can the World Wide Web be utilized to create new services, even virtual services and
the use of virtual reality simulations in service (no, I don’t have the prostitute in mind)?
How do we capture the technological dimensions of the next century?

1.2.6 Service Technology

There are a few documented examples of technological disasters, yet there are many more but
less well-known, or documented, examples of technological successes. One reason for failure is
that technology is often superimposed on inefficient, outdated operational systems, in the
expectation that it will overcome inherent problems. Unfortunately there is only limited material
in the service literature about the difficulties of implementing new technology, or indeed any
categorization of the various types of technologies in use. It would also appear that managers
seem to have a difficulty in assessing the “true” impact of new technology. Furthermore,
investment in service technology does not appear to have significantly reduced costs for the
provision of services. Brunsdon and Walley refer to this as the “productivity paradox”:

What are the categories of service technologies and their relative impact?
What are the inherent difficulties in implementing new technology?
What are the success factors?

What is the relationship between investment in technology and cost reduction?
The Design of Internal Networks

Gremler et al. define internal service encounters as the didactic interrelation between an internal
customer and an internal service provider. The supply chain literature, however, has moved
away from such simplistic relationships to the idea of networks of relationships. This network
approach needs to underpin future research in the internal customer chain. Can notions of
external quality and customer satisfaction be used with internal supply chains? Slack stated that
internal customers cannot be treated in exactly the same way as external customers. External
customers usually, though not always, operate in a free market. The internal customer is often
a captive customer and so many of the current concepts of service quality and performance
measurement from an external customer perspective (e.g. customer satisfaction) have found
little credence in internal customer-supplier relationships. This seems to be changing as
organisations are looking increasingly at contracting-out internal services:
Can supply chain networks be implemented within organisations?
How well does service quality translate to internal supply networks?

What is the relationship between internal service quality and staff satisfaction and external
quality and customer satisfaction?
How can organisations cost and value internal services?
The Service Encounter

The service encounter is the crux of service delivery, yet how much do we know about which are
the right scripts, attitudes, behaviours to achieve the desired effect? How do we ensure that each
encounter in a service process has the right cumulative effect on customers’ overall perceived
service quality:
What are the “right” scripts for different types of service?
Do we know how to design and control the series of encounters that comprise the service
process?

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