Financial Advisors - USA

Model portfolios and third-party investment management

Learn about the wide range of professionally managed investments available through our Chief Investment Office and some of the industry’s leading investment managers

https://videos.bofa.com/video/1_0bwslg52 

Tonya Gatt 

Financial Advisor

504-586-7649

601 POYDRAS ST

NEW ORLEANS, LA, 70130

Management of Service Businesses - Processes

 

 Harvard Business Review (HBR) articles on service business  literature

 

1. Customer Fit in Service Operations (I)

Chase, Richard B. (1978), “Where Does the Customer Fit in a Service Operation?,” Harvard Business Review, 56 (November-December), 137-42.

2. Behavioral Sciences (I)

Chase, R.B., Dasu, S., 2001. Want to perfect your company’s service? Use behavioral science. Harvard Business Review (June), 79–84.

3. Service Factory – Productivity  (III)

Chase, R.B.,Garvin, D. (1989) The Service Factory, Harvard Business Review, July-August 1989 (lead article), pp. 61-69.

4. Service Science (I, II II)

Chesbrough, H. (2005) Toward a science of services. Harvard Business Review 83, 16–17.

5. Industrialization of Service – Productivity (III)

Levitt, Ted (1976), “Industrialization of Service,” Harvard Business Review, 54 (September-October), 63-74.

6. Designing Services that Deliver – Quality (II)

Shostack, Lynn (1984), “Designing Services that Deliver,” Harvard Business Review, 62 (January-February), 133-39.

7. Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work – Quality (II)

Heskett, James L., Thomas O. Jones, Gary W. Loveman, W. Earl Sasser, Jr., and Leonard A. Schlesinger (1994), “Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work,” Harvard Business Review (March/April), 164-72.

8. Quality Comes To Services – Quality (I & II)

Reichheld, Frederick and W. Earl Sasser, Jr. (1990), “Zero Defections: Quality Comes to Services,” Harvard Business Review, 68 (September/October), 105-11.

9. Profitable Art of Service Recovery – Quality (I & II)

Hart, Christopher W.L., W. Earl Sasser, Jr., and James L. Heskett (1990), “The Profitable Art of Service Recovery” Harvard Business Review, (July-August), 148-56.

10. Matching Supply and Demand (Productivity)

Sasser, W. Earl (1976), “Match Supply and Demand in Service Industries,” Harvard Business Review, 54 (November-Decem- ber), 133-40.

11. The Service Driven Company (Quality)

Schlesinger, Leonard A. and James L. Heskett (1991), “The Service-Driven Service Company,” Harvard Business Review (September/October), 71-81.

12. Effective Marketing for Professional Services (Growth)

Bloom, Paul N. (1984), “Effective Marketing for Professional Services,” Harvard Business Review (September/October), 102-10.

13. Capturing Value of Supplementary Services (Growth, Scope, Adjacent Spaces, Sustainable Innovation, Quality)

Anderson, James C. and James A. Narus (1995), “Capturing the Value of Supplementary Services,” Harvard Business Review, 73 (January/February), 75-83.

14. Cost Accounting Comes to Service Industries (Productivity)

Dearden, John (1978), “Cost Accounting Comes to Service Industries,” Harvard Business Review, 56 (September-Oc- tober), 132-140.

15. Production-Line Approach to Services (Productivity)

Levitt, Theodore (1972), “Production-Line Approach to Services,” Harvard Business Review, 50 (September-Octo- ber), 42-52.

16. Knowledge Based Busienss (Sustainable Innovation)

Davis, S., J. Botkin. 1994. The coming of the knowledge-based business. Harvard Bus. Rev.72 (Sept./Oct.) 165-170.

17.Exploiting the Virtual Value Chain (Productivity)

Rayport, Jeffrey F. and John J. Sviokla (1995), “Exploiting the Virtual Value Chain,” Harvard Business Review, 73 (November/December), 14-24.

18. Surviving the Revolution

Karmarkar, Uday (2004).“Will You Survive the Services Revolution?,” Harvard Business Review, 82 (June) 100–108.

20. Making Mass Customization Work

Pine, Joseph B., II, Bart Victor, and Andrew C. Boynton (1993), “Making Mass Customization Work,” Harvard Business Re- view, 71 (September/October), 108-19.

21. Service Life Cycle of Products

Potts, G.W. (1988), ªExploiting your product’s service life cycleº, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 66 No. 5, pp. 32-5.

22. Beyond Products: Services-Based Strategy

Quinn, J.B., Doorley, T.L. and Paquette, P.C. (1990), “Beyond products: services-based strategy,” Harvard Business Review, Vol. 68 No. 2, pp. 58-67.

23. Unconditional Service Guarantees

C.W.L. Hart, “The Power of Unconditional Service Guarantees,” Harvard Business Review, 66(4) July-August 1988, 54-62

24. Governance

Mintzberg, Henry. 1996. Managing Government, Governing Management. Harvard Business Review74(3): 75-83.

25. IT

McAfee A, Brynjolfsson E. 2008. Investing in the IT that makes a competitive difference. Harvard Business Review 86(7–8).

26. Sell Services More Profitably

Reinartz, W. and Ulaga, W. (2008) How to Sell Services More Profitably, Harvard Business Review, 86: 90-96.

27. Downstream profits

Wise, R. and Baumgartner, P. (1999) Go Downstream: The New Profit Imperative in Manufacturing. Harvard Business Review, Sept-Oct, 133-141.

29. Experience Economy

Pine, B. Joseph and James H. Gilmore (1998), Welcome to the Experience Economy.Harvard Business Review.

31. Co-opting Customer Competence

Prahalad, C.K and Venkatram Ramaswamy (2000), “Co-opting Customer Competence,” Harvard Business Review, 78 (January- February), 79-87.

32. Strategy and the New Economics of Information

Evans, Philip B. and Thomas S. Wurster (1997), “Strategy and the New Economics of Information,” Harvard Business Review, 75 (September-October), 71-82.

33. Symbols for Sale

Levy, Sidney J. (1959), “Symbols for Sale,” Harvard Business Review, 37 (July–August), 117–24.

35. Reengineering works

Hammer, M. (1990). ‘Reengineering works: Don’t automate, obliterate’, Harvard Business Review, 68(4), pp. 104–112.

36. Lean Service Machine

Swank CK. The lean service machine. Harvard Bus Review 2003; 81(10):123-129, 38.

37. Fixing Health Care

Spear SJ. Fixing health care from the inside, today. Harvard Bus Review 2005;83(9):78-91.

41. Lessons in the Service Sector

Heskett, James L. (1987), “Lessons in the Service Sector,” Harvard Business Review, 87 (March-April), 118-26.

44. Learning to love the service economy

Canton, I. D. [1984] ‘Learning to love the service economy’, Harvard Business Review, may-June, 89-97.

45. Hearing the voice of the market

Barabba, Vincent and Gerald Zaltman (1991), Hearing the Voice of the Market. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

46. Information and Competitive Advantage

Porter, Michael E. and Victor E. Millar (1985), “How Information Gives You Competitive Advantage,” Harvard Busi- ness Review, 85 (July-August), 149-60.

47. Relationship marketing

Fournier, Susan Susan Dobscha, and David Glen Mick (1998), “Preventing the Premature Death of Relationship Marketing,” Harvard Business Review, 77 (January/February), 42-51

49. Trust and virtual organization

Handy, C. (1995). Trust and the virtual organization. Harvard Business Review, 73(3), 40-48.

50. Contextual marketing & Internet

Kenny, D., & Marshall, J. F. (2000). Contextual marketing: The real business of the Internet. Harvard Business Review, 78(6), 119-125.

51. Commoditization of Process

Davenport, T. The coming commoditization of processes. Harvard Business Rev. (June 2005), 100–108.

53. Knowledge Creating Company

Nonaka, I. The knowledge creating company. Harvard Business Review 69 (Nov–Dec 1991), 96–104.

56. Value Proposition

Anderson, J. C., Narus, J. A., & van Rossum, W. (2006). Customer value propositions in business markets. Harvard Business Review, 84, 90–99.

58. Restitching

Eisenhardt, K., and Brown, S. L. “Patching: Restitching Business Portfolios in Dynamic Markets,” Harvard Business Review (77:3), May/June 1999, pp. 72-82.

59. Coevolving

Eisenhardt, K., and Galunic, D. C. “Coevolving: At Last, a Way to Make Synergies Work,” Harvard Business Review (78:1); January/ February, 2000, pp. 91-102.

61. Strategy and the Internet

Porter, M. (2001) “Strategy and the Internet,” Harvard Business Review, March-April 2001, pp. 63-78.

62. Value Disciplines

Treacy, M., and Wiersema, F. “Customer Intimacy and Other Value Disciplines,” Harvard Business Review (71:1), January/February 1993, pp. 84-93.

65. Competitor collaboration

Hamel, G., Doz, Y. L., & Prahalad, C. K. 1989. Collaborate with your competitors-and win. Harvard Business Review, 67(1): 133-140.

70. Planning as Learning

DeGeus, Arie P. (1988), “Planning as Learning,” Harvard Business Review, 66 (March/April), 70-74.

71. Competing on the Eight Dimensions of Quality

Garvin, David A. (1987), “Competing on the Eight Dimensions of Quality,” Harvard Business Review, 57, 173-84.

72. Customer-Centered Brand Management

Rust, R. T., V. A. Zeithaml, K. N. Lemon. 2004. Customer-centered brand management. Harvard Bus. Rev. 82(9) 110-118.

74. Cultural Issues

Nonaka, Ikujiro (2007) The Knowledge-Creating Company. HBR.

M. Baba and J. Gluesing (1992), Knowledge creation:  Japan vs. the West, HBR 70(1):157-58.

75. Supply Chain

Bowersox, Donald J.  1990.  The Strategic Benefits of Logistics Alliances.  HBR 90(4):4-11.

76.  Service Worker Productivity

Drucker, Peter F.  1991.  The New Productivity Challenge.  HBR 91, November/December, 70-79.

77. Service Analytics

Davenport, T., Mule, L. D., & Lucker, J. (2011), Know what your customers want before they do. Harvard Business Review, 89, 84-92.

78. Service Excellence

Frei, F. X. 2008. The four things a service business must get right. Harvard Business Review 86(4): 70–

80.

79.  Value-cocreation

Ramaswamy, V., Gouillart, F., 2010, Building the cocreative enterprise, Harvard Business Review, Volume 88 (10): 100-109.

80. Customer Experience

Meyer, Christopher and Andre Schwager (2007), “Understanding Customer Experience,” Harvard Business Review, February 117–26.

81. Customer-Employee Interactions

Fleming, J. H., Coffman, C., & Harter, J. K. (2005). Manage your human sigma. Harvard Business Review, 83(7/8), 106–114.

83. Self-Service

Moon, Y. and Frei, F.X. (2000), “Exploding the self-service myth’’, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 78 No. 3, pp. 26-7.

84. Customers

Dougherty D, Marty A (2008). What service customers really want? Harvard Business Review, September: p. 22.

85. Customer loyalty

O’Brien, Louise and Charles Jones, “Do Rewards Really Create Loyalty?”, Harvard Business Review (May – June, 1995), 75–82.

86. Strategy

Allmendinger, G.; Lombreglia, R.; Four Strategies for the Age of Smart Services. Harvard Business Review, Oct2005, Vol. 83 Issue 10, pp.131-145.

87. Customer Satisfaction

Taylor, A. (2002, July). Driving customer satisfaction. Harvard Business Review, 24-25.

88. Quality and Productivity Tradeoff

Frei, Frances X. (2006), “Breaking the trade-off between efficiency and service,” Harvard Business Review, 84 (11), 92-101.

89. Service Innovation

Thomke, Stefan (2003), “R&D Comes to Services,” Harvard Business Review, 81 (4), 70-79.

91. Employees and Customers

Chun, Rosa, and Gary Davies. “Employee Happiness Isn’t Enough to Satisfy Customers.” Harvard Business Review 87.4 (2009): 19.

92. Service Quality and Customer Trust

Bell, Simon J. and Andreas B. Eisingerich (2007), ―Work With Me,‖ Harvard Business Review, 85 (March), 32.

93. Productivity

Merrifield, R., Calhoun, J., & Stevens, D. (2008). The next revolution in productivity. Harvard Business Review, June, 72–80.

94. Global Networks

Bartlett, C., & Ghoshal, S. 1989. Managing across borders: The transnational solution. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

100. Not-for-profit service

Harvey, P. D., and Snyder, J. D. (1987) Charities need a bottom line too. Harvard Business Review (January-February). Harvard Business Publishing, Boston.

 https://service-science.info/archives/2210

Service Quality Management in Education

 

Service Quality in Higher Education: Expectations and Perceptions of Students

Asim, Ahmed; Kumar, Naresh

Asian Journal of Contemporary Education, v2 n2 p70-83 2018

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1265991

Application of the SERVQUAL Model for the Evaluation of the Service Quality in Moroccan Higher Education: Public Engineering School as a Case Study

Goumairi, Ouissal; Aoula, Es-Saâdia; Ben Souda, Souad

International Journal of Higher Education, v9 n5 p223-229 2020

The SERVQUAL model, applied to the educational system and more precisely higher education, allows to quantify the non-quality by measuring the gap between the perception of the students and their expectations for a good service. It has the advantage of helping decision-makers take corrective actions needed to improve the service quality provided by universities as a part of a process of continuous improvement to achieve higher degree of excellence.

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1270484

Case Study of Implementing TQM in Oregon State University in 1989

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ir.37019917105

Updated on 9 March 2023

Pub 18.8.2021

Hospital Administration - Management - Bibliography

 

HOSPITAL MANAGEMENT

Hospital Architecture, Planning/ Organization

Health Care Systems

Financial and Legal Aspects of Hospital Management

Human Resources in Hospital Administration

Health Care Services Marketing

Hospital Information Systems

Hospital Operations

Organizational and Management of Hospitals

http://www.ssm.saveetha.com/new-page-44

Hospital Capacity Management: Insights and Strategies

Robbin Dick, Robert Agness

CRC Press, 19-Mar-2021 - Business & Economics - 244 pages

Hospital Capacity Management: Insights and Strategies details many of the key processes, procedures, and administrative realities that make up the healthcare system we all encounter when we visit the ED or the hospital. It walks through, in detail, how these systems work, how they came to be this way, why they are set up as they are, and then, in many cases, why and how they should be improved right now. Many examples pulled from the lifelong experiences of the authors, published studies, and well-documented case studies are provided, both to illustrate and support arguments for change.

First and foremost, it is necessary to remember that the mission of our healthcare system is to take care of patients. This has been forgotten at times, causing many of the issues the authors discuss in the book including hospital capacity management. This facet of healthcare management is absolutely central to the success or failure of a hospital, both in terms of its delivery of care and its ability to survive as an institution. Poor hospital capacity management is a root cause of long wait times, overcrowding, higher error rates, poor communication, low satisfaction, and a host of other commonly experienced problems. It is important enough that when it is done well, it can completely transform an entire hospital system.

Hospital capacity management can be described as optimizing a hospital’s bed availability to provide enough capacity for efficient, error-free patient evaluation, treatment, and transfer to meet daily demand. A hospital that excels at capacity management is easy to spot: no lines of people waiting and no patients in hallways or sitting around in chairs. These hospitals don’t divert incoming ambulances to other hospitals; they have excellent patient safety records and efficiently move patients through their organization. They exist but are sadly in the minority of American hospitals. The vast majority are instead forced to constantly react to their own poor performance. This often results in the building of bigger and bigger institutions, which, instead of managing capacity, simply create more space in which to mismanage it. These institutions are failing to resolve the true stumbling blocks to excellent patient care, many of which you may have experienced firsthand in your own visit to your hospital. It is the hope of the authors that this book will provide a better understanding of the healthcare delivery system.

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=Z-IXEAAAQBAJ

Service Systems Engineering and Management

A. Ravi Ravindran, Paul M. Griffin, Vittaldas V. Prabhu

CRC Press, 18-Apr-2018 - Business & Economics - 618 pages

Recipient of the 2019 IISE Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers Joint Publishers Book-of-the-Year Award

This is a comprehensive textbook on service systems engineering and management. It emphasizes the use of engineering principles to the design and operation of service enterprises. Service systems engineering relies on mathematical models and methods to solve problems in the service industries. This textbook covers state-of-the-art concepts, models and solution methods important in the design, control, operations and management of service enterprises.

Service Systems Engineering and Management begins with a basic overview of service industries and their importance in today’s economy. Special challenges in managing services, namely, perishability, intangibility, proximity and simultaneity are discussed. Quality of service metrics and methods for measuring them are then discussed. Evaluating the design and operation of service systems frequently involves the conflicting criteria of cost and customer service. This textbook presents two approaches to evaluate the performance of service systems – Multiple Criteria Decision Making and Data Envelopment Analysis. The textbook then discusses several topics in service systems engineering and management – supply chain optimization, warehousing and distribution, modern portfolio theory, revenue management, retail engineering, health systems engineering and financial services.

Features:

Stresses quantitative models and methods in service systems engineering and management

Includes chapters on design and evaluation of service systems, supply chain engineering, warehousing and distribution, financial engineering, healthcare systems, retail engineering and revenue management

Bridges theory and practice

Contains end-of-chapter problems, case studies, illustrative examples, and real-world applications

Service Systems Engineering and Management is primarily addressed to those who are interested in learning how to apply operations research models and methods for managing service enterprises. This textbook is well suited for industrial engineering students interested in service systems applications and MBA students in elective courses in operations management, logistics and supply chain management that emphasize quantitative analysis.

Ch. 10 is on health care systems

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=8SJWDwAAQBAJ

The Oxford Handbook of Health Care Management

Ewan Ferlie, Kathleen Montgomery, Anne Reff Pedersen

Oxford University Press, 07-Apr-2016 - Business & Economics - 504 pages

This Handbook provides an authoritative overview of current issues and debates in the field of health care management. It contains over twenty chapters from well-known and eminent academic authors, who were carefully selected for their expertise and asked to provide a broad and critical overview of developments in their particular topic area. The development of an international perspective and body of knowledge is a key feature of the book. The Handbook secondly makes a case for bringing back a social science perspective into the study of the field of health care management. It therefore contains a number of contrasting and theoretically orientated chapters (e.g. on institutionalism; critical management studies). This social science based approach is a refreshing alternative to much existing work in this domain and offers a good way into current academic debates in this field. The Handbook thirdly explores a variety of important policy and organizational developments apparent within the current health care field (e.g. new organizational forms; growth of management consulting in health care organizations). It therefore explores and comments on major contemporary trends apparent in the practice field.

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=NNodDAAAQBAJ

Healthcare Management Engineering: What Does This Fancy Term Really Mean?: The Use of Operations Management Methodology for Quantitative Decision-Making in Healthcare Settings

Alexander Kolker

Springer Science & Business Media, 02-Dec-2011 - Medical - 121 pages

This Briefs Series book illustrates in depth a concept of healthcare management engineering and its domain for hospital and clinic operations. Predictive and analytic decision-making power of management engineering methodology is systematically compared to traditional management reasoning by applying both side by side to analyze 26 concrete operational management problems adapted from hospital and clinic practice. The problem types include: clinic, bed and operating rooms capacity; patient flow; staffing and scheduling; resource allocation and optimization; forecasting of patient volumes and seasonal variability; business intelligence and data mining; and game theory application for allocating cost savings between cooperating providers.

Detailed examples of applications are provided for quantitative methods such as discrete event simulation, queuing analytic theory, linear and probabilistic optimization, forecasting of a time series, principal component decomposition of a data set and cluster analysis, and the Shapley value for fair gain sharing between cooperating participants. A summary of some fundamental management engineering principles is provided.

The goal of the book is to help to bridge the gap in mutual understanding and communication between management engineering professionals and hospital and clinic administrators.

The book is intended primarily for hospital/clinic leadership who are in charge of making managerial decisions. This book can also serve as a compendium of introductory problems/projects for graduate students in Healthcare Management and Administration, as well as for MBA programs with an emphasis in Healthcare.

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=7dA-yDIR4gUC

Hospital Management

K. V. Ramani

Pearson Education India, 2011 - 322 pages

Hospital managers require problem solving skills besides developing a conceptual understanding of hospital management challenges, in order to be effective and efficient in service delivery. Hospital Management: Text and cases is expected to meet the theoretical and practical needs of current hospital managers as well as students who aspire to become hospital managers in future.

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=7TI8BAAAQBAJ

Introduction to Health Care Management

Sharon Bell Buchbinder, Nancy H. Shanks

Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2007 - Law - 470 pages

Introduction to Health Care Management is an introductory principles of health care management book developed speci'cally for undergraduate health administration programs. Covering a wide variety of healthcare settings, from hospitals to nursing homes, this essential text contains numerous case studies. This indispensable book covers key areas such as ethics, cost management, strategic planning and marketing, information technology, and human resources.

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=7x49pXY-S_EC

Articles

https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/500413#ref4

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-021-00424-5

https://slideplayer.com/slide/17351599/

https://scholar.google.com.pk/citations?user=oGg44I8AAAAJ&hl=zh-CN

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=735581   Health care delivery Harvard

https://www.hbs.edu/coursecatalog/2195.html

M&C Saatchi Social - Social Media Agency - Social Media Influencer Campaign Activation.

 

M&C Saatchi Social are a leading agency in social media influencer talent management and campaign activation.

https://mcsaatchisocial.com/about/

Services Management - Bibliography

 

I maintained a blog on management of securities investment firms. In developing the blog, I had the benefit of teaching the topic in the course of financial markets. I am happy to come across this series YouTube videos by a person who contributed a lot to the services management subject. I shall have a fresh look at the topic through these videos.

Hanken Professor Christian Grönroos - Principles of Service Management 1 - What is service?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBD8r5O6zh8

2014

Hanken Professor Christian Grönroos - Principles of Service Management 2 - The service profit logic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8LQuHnnuxA

Service Productivity - Important Issues to  Consider - Christian Gronroos

__________________

Hanken Professor Christian Grönroos - Principles of Service Management 3 - Service Productivity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBOzPg1U5VA

___________________

Hanken Professor Christian Grönroos - Principles of Service Management 4 - Profitable long-term

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrgqk5rPFlM

Hanken Professor Christian Grönroos - Principles of Service Management 5 - Value creation an..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiIYTX2tp6c

Books

2020

https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Service_Management/wqQLEAAAQBAJ

https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/The_Routledge_Handbook_of_Service_Resear/1OcJEAAAQBAJ

Service Firm's Operations

 

Beefing Up Operations in Service Firms

Richard B. Chase and Robert H. Hayes

October 15, 1991

MAGAZINE FALL 1991

https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/beefing-up-operations-in-service-firms/

The Operations Function of service firms

In service firms, two types of operations are carried out. One type  is  encounter between the customer and the organization (service person). The medium by which these encounters are carried out can be different like face-to-face, by phone, or by electromechanical device. They are the firm’s service delivery system. The other type are  activities that take place within the organization without the customer being present  and constitute the “back office” support system. These involve such tasks as processing paperwork, cooking a restaurant meal, or taking baggage off of a plane. This second type of  activities are analogous to the production processes in the factory— working on things rather than people.

Managing Service Operations: Design and Implementation

Bill Hollins, Sadie Shinkins

SAGE, 18-Sep-2006 - Business & Economics - 312 pages

`Bill Hollins continues his practical investigation of design in the service sector. In this new book with Sadie Shinkins, he provides a down to earth approach to an important topic in the field′ - Naomi Gornick, Honorary Professor, University of Dundee

Guiding readers through each stage in the design and implementation of service operations, this book combines lively examples that are easy to relate to with clearly explained theory.

Throughout, chapters contain pedagogical features that will help students to get the most from the ideas and examples being presented in the book.

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=9UHUoR8YOlwC

Managing Service Quality

Kotler and Keller in Marketing Management, 14th Edition

We all know customers prefer quality or need quality. The product or service rated as the highest quality one by the customers has maximum demand in the market provided it is made available within the affordability of the target market. In other words, the highest quality product has the top most demand curve when compared with demand curves of other brands of the same product. The customers pay a price premium and also demand a higher quantity.

How do you improve service Quality?

What is service quality?

Service quality is measured by the extent an offering satisfies customer needs related to offering.  It is more narrowly defined by using the term customer expectations. To improve the service quality, a service provider has to know customer expectations and design and deliver his service to match or exceed customer expectations.

Berry, Parasuraman, and Zeithaml recommended 10 activities for improving service quality.

1. Listening
2. Understand what is the basic service demanded and provide it.
3. Detailed service design - Take a holistic view, design it in detail and manage it.
4. Reliability - Make sure service is delivered as per promise every time.
5. Recovery - In case, there is slip, have a mechanism to discover it and correct it or to respond to a customer complaint instantly
6. Surprising customers - Always keep thinking of delivering more
7. Fair play
8. Team work
9. Employee research - Find out why service defects are occurring and help the employees by removing the causes of errors.
10. Servant leadership - Top management has to demonstrate the style of servant leader.

The above 10 points were in the paper: Improving service quality in America: Lessons learned.

Leonard L. Berry, A. Parasuraman, and Valarie A. Zeithaml

Academy of Management Executive, 1994 Vol. 8 No. 2

Summary of:

Five Imperatives for Improving Service Quality

MIT Sloan Management Review

Summer 1990 July 15, 1990 
Leonard L. Berry, Valarie A. Zeithaml and A. Parasuraman



Customers are the sole judge of service quality.  A company can achieve a strong reputation for quality service only when it consistently meets customer service expectations.

The principal dimensions customers use to judge a company’s service:

Tangibles. The appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication materials.
Reliability. The ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately.
Responsiveness. The willingness to help customers and to provide prompt service.
Assurance. The knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence.
Empathy. The provision of caring, individualized attention to customers.

What must every company interested in improving service do to actually improve it? 

In this paper, the answer is given  in terms of five service imperatives: define the service role, compete for talent (and use it), emphasize service teams, go for reliability, and be great at problem resolution. The paper focuses on the steps to be taken to increase service quality. It is based on the SERVQUAL model.

Define the Service Role

Start with Research

Defining the service role effectively starts with formal research to identify customers’ principal service expectations. Customers judge a company’s service on the basis of a very few important service factors. Marketing research  helps managers to find out customer requirements and develop the list of pivotal standards that will make a difference for customers. Based on the list so developed, managers should establish a limited set of service standards for individual employees that in turn contribute to the limited set of service goals for the organization.

Communicate and Reinforce Service Standards: The defined  service goals of the organization  have to be communicated and reinforced—in meetings and training sessions; in internal media such as wallet cards, desk signs, and wall posters; and in performance measurement, appraisal, and reward systems.

Defining employees’ service roles clearly, consistently, and credibly is important to any organization’s efforts to improve service. The behavior-guiding and motivational benefits of service standards are well worth the investment necessary to develop and reinforce them. Service employees need to know what excellent service means—and why they should care about delivering it.

Compete for Talent—and Use It

In other words, recruit and select best personnel and train them and use them effectively.

Any company needs personnel with the attitude, ability, and flexibility to fulfill the role designed by it. Contact employees who believe their units are not meeting service standards disagree with the following statements:

My company hires people who are qualified to do their jobs.
I have the freedom in my job to truly satisfy my customers’ needs.

Services are performances, and most of the time it is people who render these performances. From the customer’s perspective, the people performing the service are the company. Managers need to  a well-defined profile of people to hire. The profile has to be developed based on service standards specified by the company. The problem of hiring the wrong people is getting worse due to labor-force shortfalls.

Service managers frequently add to their problems by not fully using the capabilities of those they do employ. The authors in this paper argue for giving flexibility to employees to service the customer based on the need of the situation rather than by a strict rule book   People who are qualified will perform better and stay with the company longer if given room to maneuver, achieve, and grow.

The authors recommend: Market careers rather than jobs (present duties), market them in multiple ways, link hiring standards to service standards, and leverage the freedom factor. Companies that do these things will do just fine in the talent market.

To leverage the freedom factor, managers have to select their people well, provide them with a strong foundational culture in which to work, offer them strategic direction, and give them the company-specific training and education they need to perform their roles. And then managers need to get out of their way!

We agree with Robert Waterman, who writes in The Renewal Factor: “When managers guide instead of control, the sky’s the limit on what people can accomplish.” Managers must learn the dangers of overmanagement; they must learn to widen the solution boundaries for their people.

Emphasize Service Teams

Emphasize team work. Let each encourage and support other to relieve the stresses of direct interaction with customers.

Service work is frequently frustrating and demoralizing. Customers can be rude and insensitive. The sheer number of customers to be served can be psychologically and physically overwhelming. Control over service can be dispersed among multiple organizational units that function without cohesion or a unified spirit, limiting contact employees’ ability to come through for their customers.

One dynamic that is particularly important in kindling and sustaining service-mindedness is the presence of service “teammates.” An interactive community of coworkers who collaborate, overcome, and achieve together is a powerful antidote to service burnout. Membership on a team can be rejuvenating and inspirational. It can also raise the ante for individual performance.  Employees feel, "To let down the boss is bad, but to let down the team is often worse." Team participation can unleash one of the most potent of motivators—the respect of peers.

Service teamwork is also important because people in service organizations typically depend on one another. The end service the customer receives is commonly the result of many behind-the-scenes, internal services.

Our research shows convincingly that teamwork is a principal factor in delivering excellent service. Employees who indicate that their organizational units are not meeting service standards disagree with the following statements:

I feel that I am part of a team in my unit.
Everyone in my unit contributes to a team effort in serving customers.
I feel a sense of responsibility to help my fellow employees do their jobs well.
My fellow employees and I cooperate more than we compete.
I feel that I am an important member of this company.

Organizational teamwork is important. Service team building cannot be left to chance. Some degree of structuring, assigning, and facilitating is needed to overcome organizational inertia. Managers should strive to nurture teamwork within organizational units (intraunit teams) and between organizational units (interunit teams).  Creating the richest form of service teamwork requires long-lasting team membership; frequent team contact and communication; team leadership, direction, and goals; and team measurements and rewards (in addition to individual employee measurements and rewards).

Go for Reliability

As reliability is a factor in SERVQUAL model, take steps to increase reliability of work by each staff member.

Breaking the service promise is the single most important way service companies fail their customers. When a firm is careless in performing the service, when it makes mistakes, when it doesn’t do what it said it would do, customers lose confidence in the firm’s reliability; they lose confidence in the firm’s wherewithal to do what it promises to do dependably and accurately.

Service reliability is the service “core” to most customers. Little else matters to customers when a company is not dependable.

“Zero defects” attitude is as important in services as in manufacturing. And if more executives were to investigate the primary causes of service unreliability in their companies, they would find most of them rooted in poor service design, inattention to service details, and basic carelessness.

Reliability is the heart of excellent service.

Building a “Do-It-Right-First” Attitude

Managers should use every opportunity to build a “do-it-right-first” attitude. This means specifically addressing the reliability issue in company communications, including mission statements; setting reliability standards; teaching the why and how of reliability in training programs; appointing reliability teams to study specific services and recommend ways to improve reliability; measuring error rates; and rewarding error-free service.

Outstanding service reliability is the foundation on which to build a reputation for outstanding service quality. Companies that consider the service promise inviolate are most likely to earn the confidence of their customers. And the confidence of customers is the greatest asset a company can have.

Be Great at Problem Resolution

Problems may occur in any service instance. When people complain, listen with empathy and resolve the problem expeditiously. Be happy to recognize the service gap, between expectation and the service delivered. Make efforts to do service as per expectations now.

What happens after the service problem occurs—the firm’s response—becomes crucial. The firm can make things better with the customer—at least to some extent—or much, much worse.

All too often, service companies make things worse.

Three possibilities arise when a customer experiences a service problem:

The customer complains and is satisfied with the company’s response.
The customer complains and is not satisfied with the company’s response.
The customer does not complain to the company and remains dissatisfied.


Of these possible outcomes, the first one is good and the last two are very bad.

In effect, companies that do not respond effectively to customer complaints compound the failure; they fail to come through for the customer again.

Many dissatisfied customers do not complain and simply take their business elsewhere.  Managers need to come to grips with the seriousness of the lost business and negative word-of-mouth that occurs when customers cannot resolve problems with the firm, or do not even try. How a company handles service problems tells customers (and employees) a great deal about the firm’s service values and priorities.

Three Prescriptions

Being excellent in recovery is easier said than done. We offer these specific prescriptions.

Encourage customers to complain and make it easy for them to do so.

Make timely, personal communications with customers a key part of the strategy.

Encourage employees to respond effectively to customer problems and give them the means to do so.

Service employees need specific training about how to deal with angry customers and how to help customers solve service problems. In some cases, they need access to information systems that will tell them more about the customer, the situation causing the problem, and possible solutions.

Specifics aside, problem-resolution excellence requires that managers view services marketing as a way of cementing customer loyalty through service and trust that gives profits through repeat business, rather than focusing on acquiring new customers. Effective services marketing—and its cornerstone, service quality—requires that managers take the long view.

Excellent service is within reach if managers are willing to stretch for it.

http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/five-imperatives-for-improving-service-quality/

Design of Scale for Measuring Service Quality - SERVQUAL - 1988 Paper

The 10 determinants of service quality got reduced to five dimensions during scale design in the purification process.

The principal dimensions customers use to judge a company’s service:

Tangibles. The appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication materials.
Reliability. The ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately.
Responsiveness. The willingness to help customers and to provide prompt service.
Assurance. The knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence.
Empathy. The provision of caring, individualized attention to customers.

A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and its Implication for Future Research (SERVQUAL)

January 1985, Journal of Marketing 49:41-50

DOI:10.2307/1251430

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225083670_A_Conceptual_Model_of_Service_Quality_and_its_Implication_for_Future_Research_SERVQUAL

10 Determinants of Service Quality Identified through Focus Groups

1. Reliability

2. Responsiveness

3. Competence

4. Access

5. Courtesy

6. Credibility

7. Security

8. Communication

9. Understanding

10. Tangibles

Interesting reference

https://www2.nau.edu/~rgm/ha400/class/productservice/productservice/textqual.html

L.L. Berry, D.L. Bennett, and C.W Brown, Service Quality— A Profit Strategy for Financial Institutions (Homewood, Illinois: Dow Jones-Irwin, 1989), p. 51.

Managing Service Operations: Design and Implementation

Bill Hollins, Sadie Shinkins

SAGE, 18-Sep-2006 - Business & Economics - 312 pages

`Bill Hollins continues his practical investigation of design in the service sector. In this new book with Sadie Shinkins, he provides a down to earth approach to an important topic in the field′ - Naomi Gornick, Honorary Professor, University of Dundee

Guiding readers through each stage in the design and implementation of service operations, this book combines lively examples that are easy to relate to with clearly explained theory.

Throughout, chapters contain pedagogical features that will help students to get the most from the ideas and examples being presented in the book.

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=9UHUoR8YOlwC

Ud 19.8.2021

Pub:6.3.2015

Global Logistics Business Market in 2022 - $12.25 trillion

A new report published by Allied Market Research, titled, Logistics Market by Mode of Transport, and End-user Industry: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2014 - 2022, projects that the global logistics market is anticipated to reach $12,256 billion by 2022 with a CAGR of 3.48% from 2016 to 2022.

Among end-user, manufacturing segment dominated the global market in 2014, accounting for about 26% share in the total revenue of logistics market. Transport of raw material to manufacturers for the production is a growth factor for world logistics market by manufacturing industry.

Retail, Trade and Transport, Utilities, Health care etc are other segments.

http://www.openpr.com/news/566300/Logistics-Market-to-Reach-12-256-Billion-Globally-by-2022.html


https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/logistics-market

Service Marketing and Management - Christian Gronroos - Video Lectures and Articles

First Lecture

What is Service? Why Service Business?

_______________________________

________________________________

Second Lecture - Service Profit Logic: Implications for Management

_________________________________

_________________________________

Total 5 videos were posted by Hanken External Relations



Services Marketing Theory Revisited
2012 article
http://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jbm/papers/Vol4-issue4/F0443645.pdf


Service Management and Marketing: Customer Management in Service Competition, 3 ed
Christian Gronroos
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=2cbteRrlf3IC