4362ch4 sp10

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Ch. 4 - Differentiating theService Performance

The augmented product that an organization develops today can easily become tomorrow’s expected product from the customer’s point of view. Hence, organizations should keep a vigilant eye on ways to develop the potential product.

Organizations need to be sensitive to the costs of developing and implementing supplementary service elements versus the benefits provided.


Customizing theService Performance

• There are significant trade-offs between the service effectiveness of customizing each service to customer's individual desires and the service efficiency of producing a standard service for all customers.

• Customization requires a good understanding of each customer's needs or wants.


Customizing theService Performance (cont’d)

• Customization requires a greater level of worker skills and technological support.

• Customizing the service performance can greatly enhance a service experience and the perception of service quality.


Scripting the Service Performance

• A service script is a chronologically ordered representation of the steps that make up the service performance from the customer's point of view.


Service Blueprint

The service blueprint is a graphic representation of the essential components of the service performance.– It identifies the customers, the service personnel, the

points of interaction between customers and workers, the contact points between workers and other workers, and the frontstage evidence and backstage processes or activities.


Service Blueprint

• The greater the complexity of the service, the greater the number of steps in its service blueprint.

• The greater the divergence of the service, the greater the amount of flexibility or variability involved in any particular step in the service blueprint.


Service Blueprinting – A Visualization Tool (cont’d)

• The process can be described in terms of complexity and divergence.– Complexity refers to the number and

intricacy of the steps necessary to perform it.• (front/backstage steps in process?)

– Divergence refers to the degree of freedom allowed or inherent in a process step or sequence.• (built-in customization options)

4362ch4 sp10

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