Utsav Mahendra : Improving Service Quality and Productivity
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This document discusses improving service quality and productivity. It covers the importance of productivity and quality for service marketers in gaining competitive advantages and profits. Various perspectives on defining quality are presented. The key dimensions of service quality are outlined. Common service quality gaps and prescriptions for closing them are described. Both hard and soft measures of service quality are discussed. Tools for measuring and addressing quality problems like control charts, indexes, and cause-and-effect diagrams are summarized.
Utsav Mahendra : Improving Service Quality and Productivity
- 1. Chapter 14 Improving Service Quality and Productivity
- 2. Importance of Productivity and Quality for Service Marketers Productivity • Helps to keep costs down – lower prices to develop market, compete better – increase margins to permit larger marketing budgets – raise profits to invest in service innovation • May impact service experience (must avoid negatives) • May require customer involvement, cooperation Quality • Gain competitive advantage, maintain loyalty • Increase value (may permit higher margins) • Improve profits
- 3. Perspectives on Service Quality Transcendental: Quality = excellence. Recognized only through experience Product-Based: Quality is precise and measurable User-Based: Quality lies in the eyes of the beholder Manufacturing- Quality is conformance to the firm’s developed Based: specifications Value-Based: Quality is a trade-off between price and value
- 4. Dimensions of Service Quality Tangibles Reliability Responsiveness Assurance competence, courtesy credibility security Empathy access communication understanding of customer
- 5. Seven Service Quality Gaps (Fig. 14.1) Customer needs CUSTOMER and expectations 1. Knowledge Gap Management definition of these needs MANAGEMENT 2. Standards Gap Translation into design/delivery specs 3. Delivery Gap Execution of 4. I.C.Gap Advertising and design/delivery specs sales promises 5. Perceptions Gap 6. Interpretation Gap Customer perceptions Customer interpretation of product execution of communications 7. Service Gap Customer experience relative to expectations
- 6. Prescriptions for Closing Service Quality Gaps (Table 14.3) • Knowledge: Learn what customers expect--conduct research, dialogue, feedback • Standards: Specify SQ standards that reflect expectations • Delivery: Ensure service performance matches specs-- consider roles of employees, equipment, customers • Internal communications: Ensure performance levels match marketing promises • Perceptions: Educate customers to see reality of service delivery • Interpretation: Pretest communications to make sure message is clear and unambiguous.
- 7. Hard and Soft Measures of Service Quality • Hard measures refer to standards and measures that can be counted, timed or measured through audits – typically operational processes or outcomes – e.g. how many trains arrived late? • Soft measures refer to standards and measures that cannot easily be observed and must be collected by talking to customers, employees or others – e.g. SERVQUAL, surveys, and customer advisory panels. • Control charts are useful for displaying performance over time against specific quality standards.
- 8. Hard Measures of Service Quality • Control charts to monitor a single variable • Service quality indexes • Root cause analysis (fishbone charts) • Pareto analysis
- 9. Composition e of FedEx’s Service Quality Index (SQI) (Table 14.4) Weighting No of Daily Failure Type Factor X = Incidents Points Late Delivery – Right Day 1 Late Delivery – Wrong Day 5 Tracing request unanswered 1 Complaints reopened 5 Missing proofs of delivery 1 Invoice adjustments 1 Missed pickups 10 Lost packages 10 Damaged packages 10 Aircraft Delays (minutes) 5 Overcharged (packages missing label) 5 Abandoned calls 1 Total Failure Points (SQI) = XXX,XXX
- 10. Control Chart: Percent of Flights Leaving within 15 Minutes of Schedule (Fig. 14.2) 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% J F M A M J J A S O N D Month
- 11. Tools to Address Service Quality Problems • Fishbone diagrams: A cause-and-effect diagram to identify potential causes of problems. • Pareto charts: Separating the trivial from the important. Often, a majority of problems is caused by a minority of causes i.e. the 80/20 rule. • Blueprinting: A visualization of service delivery. It allows one to identify fail points in both the
- 12. Cause and Effect Chart for Airline Departure Delays (Fig. 14.3) Facilities, Frontstage Front-Stage Procedure Procedures Equipment Personnel Personnel Aircraft late to Gate agents Delayed check-in Arrive late gate cannot process fast procedure Oversized bags Mechanical enough Acceptance of late Customers Failures passengers Customers Late/unavailable Late pushback airline crew Delayed Departures Late food Late cabin service cleaners Other Causes Poor announcement of Weather departures Late baggage Air traffic Weight and balance Late fuel sheet late Materials, Materials, Supplies Backstage Information Supplies Personnel
- 13. Analysis of Causes of Flight Departure Delays (Fig. 14.4) 4.9 All stations, excluding 15.3% 23.1% % Chicago-Midway Hub 19% 33.3% 15.4% 11.7% 9.5% 23.1% 8.7% 23.1% 33.3% 11.3% 53.3% Newark 15% Washington Natl. Late passengers Late weight and balance sheet Waiting for pushback Late cabin cleaning / supplies Waiting for fueling Other
- 14. Return on Quality (ROQ) • ROQ approach is based on four assumptions: – Quality is an investment – Quality efforts must be financially accountable – It’s possible to spend too much on quality – Not all quality expenditures are equally valid • Implication: Quality improvement efforts may benefit from being related to productivity improvement programs
- 15. When Does Improving Service Reliability Become Uneconomical? (Fig. 14.5) Satisfy Target 100% Customers Through Service Recovery Service Reliability Optimal Point of Reliability: Cost of Failure = Service Recovery Satisfy Target Customers Through Service Delivery as A B C D Planned Investment Small Cost, Large Cost, Assumption: Customers are equally (or even Large Improvement Small Improvement more) satisfied with the service recovery provided than with a service that is delivered as planned.
- 16. Productivity in a Service Context • Productivity measures amount of output produced relative to the amount of inputs. • Improvement in productivity means an improvement in the ratio of outputs to inputs. • Intangible nature of many service elements makes it hard to measure the productivity of service firms, especially for information based services.
- 17. Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Productivity • Efficiency: comparison to a standard--usually time-based (e.g., how long employee takes to perform specific task) – Problem: focus on inputs rather than outcomes – May ignore variations in quality or value of service • Effectiveness: degree to which firm is meeting its goals – Cannot divorce productivity from quality/customer satisfaction
- 18. Measuring Service Productivity • Traditional measures of service output tend to ignore variations in quality or value of service – That is, they focus on outputs rather than outcomes, and stress efficiency but not effectiveness. • Firms that are more effective in consistently delivering outcomes desired by customers can command higher prices. Furthermore, loyal customers are more profitable. • Measures with customers as denominator include:
- 19. Questions to Ask When Developing Strategies to Improve Service Productivity • How to transform inputs into outputs efficiently? • Will improving productivity hurt quality? • Will improving quality hurt productivity? • Are employees or technology the key to productivity? • Can customers contribute to higher productivity?
- 20. Operations-driven vs. Customer- driven Actions to Improve Service Productivity Operations-driven strategies Customer-driven strategies Control costs, reduce waste Change timing of customer demand Set productive capacity to match average demand Involve customers more in production Automate labor tasks Ask customers to use third Upgrade equipment and parties systems Train employees Leverage less-skilled employees through expert systems
- 21. Backstage and Frontstage Productivity Changes: Implications for Customers • Backstage improvements can ripple to the front stage and affect customers – e.g., new printing peripherals may affect appearance of bank statements. • Front-stage productivity enhancements are especially visible in high contact services. – Some may just require passive acceptance by customers – Others require customers to change their scripts and behavior.
- 22. Overcoming Customers’ Reluctance to Accept Changes in Environment and trust • Develop customer Behavior • Understand customers’ habits and expectations • Pretest new procedures and equipment • Publicize the benefits • Teach customers to use innovations and promote trial • Monitor performance, continue to seek improvements
- 23. Six Sigma Methodology to Improve and Redesign Customer Service Processes Process Improvement Process Design/Redesign Define Identify the problem Identify specific or broad problems Define requirements Define goal/change vision Set goals Clarify scope & customer requirements Measure Validate problem/process Measure performance to requirements Refine problem/goal Gather process efficiency data Measure key steps/inputs Analyze Develop causal hypothesis Identify best practices Identify root causes Assess process design Validate hypothesis Refine requirements Improve Develop ideas to measure Design new process root causes Implement new process, structures and Test solutions systems Measure results Control Establish measures to Establish measures & reviews to maintain performance maintain performance Correct problems if needed Correct problems if needed