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Showing posts with the label service management

Keeping Customers at the Center of Your Business

Customer satisfaction is the vital sign that acts like a pulse to the health of the rest of the organization. Companies that keep their customers in focus win over the long run. Ensuring that policies & procedures, training, recruitment, facilities and resources are focused on customer satisfaction is important for sustainability. All businesses are in the business of serving customers. How many cars would sell if they didn’t serve the needs of their customer? Would it be any different for a spa or vacation? Companies that make the mistake of not running their daily operations with the customer in focus eventually start seeing the errors of their ways through poor customer retention and sales.  Policies & Procedures: The internal mechanisms and operations should ensure every activity is focused on the customer.  Training: Training should seek to ensure quality completion of jobs and friendly customer interactions; it should set the standard for emplo

Service Industry Not the Cause of Wage Polarization

Wage polarization is a growing concern among both academics and government officials. Wage polarization is an occurrence where lower skilled workers and higher skilled workers are vastly different in their earning potential. Research by Author and Dorn (2013) discuss the reasons why such polarization is occurring and which industries are raising lower skilled employment opportunities. The advent of technology is here! Computerization of routine tasks is apparent and those who have not mastered new skills are finding their jobs displaced. The past 25 years have experienced a decline in lower skilled earnings and employment opportunities. The authors indicate that changes are likely to occur across four dimensions: 1.) Greater adoption of information technology; 2.) Reallocation of low-skilled workers from routine tasks to service occupations; 3.) Larger increases in both employment and wages at both the highly skilled and lower skilled labor markets; 4.) Larger inflow

Does Combining Customer Service with Sales Improve Company Performance?

Customer service and sales are both important functions for an organization. What happens when we put them together? A study by Jasmand, et. al. (2012) delves into the nature of creating a mbidextrous sales-service functions. Their findings determine a net positive result of helping customers with their problems and offering those products/services that better suit their needs. It creates some confusion among employees but seems to improve customer satisfaction and overall sales volume. There is a natural mental barrier between customer service representatives and sales. Customer service representatives do not view their job as including sales and therefore are less focused on this activity. A lack of perspective limits the abilities of firms to create higher sales through a level of mental merging of the two functions. Training, time and commitment will be needed to bridge the gap and improve upon the integration of both constructs. Ambidextrous goals and behavior in servi

Integrating Manufacturing and Service Revenue Development

Manufacturing is often seen as selling a product but the competitive market indicates they must be more. As global competition increases, product innovation cycles become faster, and imitators copy products companies should seek to create beyond the product. Research by Ivanka Kastalli, Bart Van Looy and Andy Neely from the University of California Berkeley discussed how the concepts of service adoption and service coverage add value and competitiveness.   They analyzed a large international company with growing sales and significant revenue from manufacturing and service functions. Manufacturing is not simply the building of products but also the raising of value and public interest. A service mentality helps executives understand where their value lays and what customers need in both current and future products to continue sales. The market must continue to drive the options, design, and utility of products.   To create greater service oriented manufacturing paradigms req

Rethinking Service Delivery

Reinventing service delivery requires a new way of thinking about service and challenging basic service assumptions. A paper by Ramdas, et. al. (2012) uses four years of information in healthcare and finance to find four conceptual areas where improvements can be found. Managers can look at the four areas defined below and seek to redefine them for greater service delivery. The Structure of Interaction : Think of the way in which information is transferred and combined for customers. Is there a way to raise the value to the customer by adjusting how and what type of information they receive? For example, do healthcare patients need more information, relevant information, or interconnected information? Too much information will create noise in their understanding; relevant information will help them understand their condition; while connected information will help them receive better services. The Service Boundary :   Question the boundaries of services and try and determine