Employees' role in service delivery

The Services Marketing Triangle

Internal Marketing

Interactive Marketing

External Marketing

Company(Management)

CustomersEmployees

“Enabling the promise”

“Delivering the promise”

“Making the promise”

Three interlinked groups work together to develop, promote and deliver services

Frontline Service Personnel: Source of Customer Loyalty and Competitive Advantage

Frontline is an important source of differentiation and competitive advantage. a core part of the product the service firm the brand

Frontline also drives customer loyalty, with employees playing key role in anticipating customer needs, customizing service delivery and building personalized relationships

Boundary Spanning Roles Boundary spanners link the inside of the

organization to the outside world

Multiplicity of roles often results in service staff having to pursue both operational and marketing goals

Consider management expectations of restaurant servers: deliver a highly satisfying dining experience to their

customers be fast and efficient at executing operational task of serving

customers do selling and cross selling, e.g. “We have some nice

desserts to follow your main course”

Role Stress in the Frontline

Person vs. Role: Conflicts between what jobs require and employee’s own personality and beliefs

Organization vs. Customer: Dilemma whether to follow company rules or to satisfy customer demands

Customer vs. Customer: Conflicts between customers that demand service staff intervention

3 main causes of role stress:

Emotional Labor The labor that goes

beyond the physical and mental skills needed to deliver quality service.

“The act of expressing socially desired emotions during service transactions”

Service Culture Corporate Culture

The pattern of shared values and beliefs that give the members of an organization meaning, and provide them with the rules for behavior in the organization.

Cannot be developed overnight.

No magic or easy way to sustain a service culture.

Hire the Right People

“The old saying ‘People are your most

important asset’ is wrong.

The RIGHT people are your most

most important asset.”

“The old saying ‘People are your most

important asset’ is wrong.

The RIGHT people are your most

most important asset.”

Jim Collins

Recruitment The right people are a firm’s most important asset:

take a focused, marketing-like approach to recruitment

Clarify what must be hired versus what can be taught

Clarify nature of the working environment, corporate values and style, in addition to job specs

Ensure candidates have/can obtain needed qualifications

Evaluate candidate’s fit with firm’s culture and values

Fit personalities, styles, energies to the appropriate jobs

The Organizational Culture, Purpose and Strategy Promote core values, get emotional commitment to strategy Get managers to teach “why”, “what” and “how” of job.

Interpersonal and Technical Skills Both are necessary but neither is sufficient for optimal job

performance

Product/Service Knowledge Staff’s product knowledge is a key aspect of service quality Staff need to be able to explain product features and to

position products correctly

Train Service Employees

Factors Favoring Employee Empowerment Firm’s strategy is based on competitive differentiation

and on personalized, customized service

Emphasis on long-term relationships vs. one-time transactions

Use of complex and non-routine technologies

Environment is unpredictable, contains surprises

Managers are comfortable letting employees work independently for benefit of firm and customers

Employees seek to deepen skills, like working with others, and are good at group processes

The Inverted Organizational Pyramid

Frontline Staff

Top Mgmt

Middle Mgmt

Legend: = Service encounters, or ‘Moments of Truth.’

Traditional Organizational Pyramid

Inverted Pyramid with a Customer & Frontline Focus

Customer Base

Frontline Staff

Middle Mgmt & Top Mgmt

Support Frontline