MANAGING SERVICE
MANAGING SERVICE
This is assignment is divided into two sections. A workbook and a journal review.
1. The Workbook: Around 1500 words each question has certain number of words.
It critically discusses major service management concepts and theories. You must follow the marking schedule because the marker will use it when marking this workbook.
THE MARKING SCHEDULE:
Criteria Tick when checked Excellent ? Poor Criteria
Workbook has been engaged with fully – 600 words (not including references)
Little engagement evident – 600 words (not including references)
Theoretical concepts linked to ideas of analysis in each question
Little links between theory and ideas of analysis
Specific examples provided to support assertions in each question
Little evidence provided or generalizations
Answers are comprehensive and relevant in each question
Answers are superficial or disconnected
Answers are logical and well- structured in each question
Answers are disorganized or unclear
Correct spelling, grammar and paragraph structure in each question Numerous typos or unclear writing
Workbook answers should be referenced to textbook and other readings as appropriate
Incorrect referencing
Journal review is well written, follows examples given and includes at least 6 including 4 journal references and the textbook Incorrect referencing
Conforms to the guidelines discussed in lectures
Little evidence of compliance
General Comments
Grade
This workbook covers Chapters 1-5 of this textbook:
Johnston, R., Clark, G. and Shulver, M. (2012) Service operations management: Improving service delivery (4th Edition). Prentice Hall: Sydney
You need to use this textbook as a guide, but don’t copy or/and use examples from it.
Chapters 1 and 2 – Introduction and Understanding the Challenges for Operations Managers
1. Think of a time when you received poor service. What do you think were the causes of the poor service?
(90 words)
2. Consider Massey University, or another school or educational institution you are familiar with. What do you think are the challenges their service delivery operations face in providing you with good service?
(65 words)
3. What are the key strategic and tactical challenges of a medical center?
(80 words)
4. What are the challenges for different types of services? Use your own examples – not ones from Chapter 2 of the textbook.
A. Business to business:
(30 words)
B. Business to customer:
(30 words)
C. Internal:
(30 ords)
D. Public:
(30 ords)
E. Not-for-profit
(30 words)
5. Imagine you are opening a boutique cinema with a nice café in Browns Bay. Use Johnston, Clark and Shulver’s inside-out versus outside-in thinking to explain how the consumer’s experience differs from going to the movies in a large multiplex cinema (see Figure 2.1).
(80 words)
6. Service types differ because the volume of transactions. What sort of management challenges arise from increased volume? Use fast food, a large merchandiser like The Warehouse, or a cinema multiplex as an example.
(40 words)
7. What is meant by capability versus commodity processes? Use an example to explain.
(90 words)
Chapter 3 – Developing and using the service concept
1. Write a service concept for a boutique cinema with a nice cafe. (e.g. Focal Point Cinema in Feilding – http://feilding.focalpointcinema.co.nz/page-about-us.php)
(65 words)
2. Using the service concept you have written above, explain why is it important for a service organisation to have a service concept?
(65 words)
3. Draw a capability map below for changing a more traditional museum (e.g. Auckland Museum) to a more ‘contemporary’ museum (e.g. Te Papa in Wellington). Use Figure 3.4 as a basis for your capability map.
Chapter 4 – Understanding customers and relationships
1. Why should service organisations be focused on relationships with customers? Using Case 4.5(National Grid Transco Group) explain why it is important to develop relationships.
(90words)
2. Roughly calculate your lifetime value to the university as a student (assuming you complete your degree and go on and do a Master’s degree at a later date).
8. What are the three forms of customer relationship according to Johnston et al?
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
3. What is Customer Relationships Management (CRM)? Banks use CRM systems. How do banks use CRM to connect to customers?
(55 words)
4. Why have key account managers? (KAM) Do you think sales and service are the same thing, different, or inter-dependent?
(55 words)
Chapter 5 – Managing customer expectations and perceptions
1. using the example of buying an iPad (or phone) through the internet explain what is meant by perception and expectation in service quality?
(40 words)
2. What is customer confidence and why should you know what it means? Use the example of internet shopping to explain.
(30 words)
3. Define ‘fuzzy expectation’ and ‘zone of tolerance’? Give examples from your own experience of your first day attending university.
(55 words)
4. Service management is often called promise management. Why?
(55 words)
5. Should you over-promise and under-deliver, under-promise and over -deliver, or simply deliver what you promise?
(55 words)
6. Explain Gap 1 and Gap 2 in the simplified gap model given in Figure 5.3. Use an example from your own experience to explain the gaps.
(65 words)
7. Using Figure 5.7 show how you come to an impression of a typical transaction at a bank.
(55 words)
8. Using staying at a budget hotel as an example, what are the hygiene, enhancing, neutral and critical quality factors?
9. Using Singapore Airlines as an example (Case Example 5.2) summarise how they collect information about customer satisfaction and explain why this is important.
(55 words)
10. Using the eighteen service quality factors cloud below, explain what they mean for a domestic airline flight within New Zealand or any other country.
11. How can a service be specified? Use an example of staying at an elite hotel to illustrate your answer following Table 5.2.
Service Elements Quality Factors Standard Procedures for Conformance
Part Two
2. Journal review:
Write about 700 words journal review of this journal:
Grönroos, C. (1994). From scientific management to service management. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 5(1), 5-20. doi: 10.1108/09564239410051885
Use 9 references in this journal review, include 6 other journal articles, 2 textbooks (use the same book you used in the workbook), other textbook, and one website.
Johnston, R., Clark, G. and Shulver, M. (2012) Service operations management: Improving service delivery (4th Edition). Prentice Hall: Sydney
In the review use the following paragraph structure.
Introduction
1. Provide a brief introduction saying what you are going to say.
Summarise Article
2. Provide a brief summary of the article such as why it was written, what it aims to do, and what its key point/s are.
Analysis
3, 4, 5. (3 paragraphs as this is the most important bit of the review). Assess the significance of the article by telling the reader how much it has been cited in later work, and whether not you think the article is useful by using evidence such as other articles which have criticised this article. You can also use your own experience in this section.
Conclusion
6. Conclusion – briefly summarise your review
References
Journal Review Example
Journal Review Example – Emotions at Work
Journal Review of Tolich, M. (1993). ‘Alienating and liberating emotions at work: Supermarket clerks’ performance of customer service’. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 22(3), 361—381.
(Example of – 603 words)
In 1993, Martin B. Tolich, who was a lecturer in the Sociology Department at Massey University for a few years, and is also a graduate of the University of California, published a qualitative study in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography titled ‘Alienating and liberating emotions at work: Supermarket clerks’ performance of customer service’. The article is cited over 270 times in other journal articles, indicating it has had a significant impact.
The article is based on Hochschild’s seminal book, ‘The managed heart’, first published in 1983. In her book, Hochschild interviewed and studied flight attendants and other employees including debt collectors, and found them to be estranged from their own emotions due to performing certain acts for wages (for example, being required to smile, and be friendly); and thereby estranged from themselves. Hochschild coined the term emotional labour to explain this process of exchanging emotional acts for wages. Tolich (1993) agrees with Hochschild that emotions at work (emotional labour) are being commodified and the experience can be alienating, but he also argues that emotional acts can be liberating and non-alienating as well.
Tolich used snowball sampling techniques and conducted unstructured interviews and direct observation of 65 supermarkets clerks in California between 1987 and 1991. He found that customer service is a complex phenomena that cannot be explained only by alienation and estrangement. He found there are two intertwined contradictory patterns of clerks’ emotions at work. The customer service work was described by supermarket checkout operators as both stressful and satisfactory, and the work was both regulated and autonomous.
To Tolich, emotional labour as Hochschild discusses it does not account for the contradictory emotions checkout operators felt. Tolich instead argued that the concept of emotional labour should be replaced by regulated emotion management and autonomous emotion management. He emphasized control of feelings as opposed to ownership of feeling in emotional labour (Tolich, 1993).
Several researchers have argued that Tolich’s analysis misrepresents Hochschild. She did not argue that emotional labour has only negative consequences. Mastracci, Newman, and Guy (2006, p. 126) say Hochschild did suggest customer service work can provide “satisfaction, security and self-esteem”. Kruml and Deanna (2000) also argue that Hochschild work has been misrepresented by some critics, including Tolich. Hochschild did clearly speak of autonomy resulting from emotional labour. She wrote in her book that the skills workers offer are not deducted from their autonomous control as they still decide when and how to apply them and that it is up to them to decide how to handle certain problems (Hochschild, 1983, see p. 120).
Another issue which could be criticized is the methodology Tolich used – snowball sampling. Snowball sampling is often used in qualitative research but it doesn’t usually produce a representative sample of the population (Bryman & Bell, 2003). Tolich’s results are not representative of the general population of all service workers, and possibly not even all supermarket checkout operators. In fairness, the research did not claim to be representative of either general population.
One of the most notable contributions of Tolich’s work is his observation that being required to be friendly may be enjoyed by employees (see Morris & Feldman, 1996; Grandey, 2000; Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002). Tolich concluded in his work that “we do not need to assume that service workers who routinely display emotions at work are alienated or estranged from their emotions and have no control over their emotion labor process” (Tolich, 1993, p. 380). This observation is important because it challenged the widely understood idea that emotional labour is imposed and felt negatively, whether or not Hochschild intended her work to be interpreted that way.
References
Brotheridge, C., & Grandey, A. (2002). ‘Emotional labor and burnout: Comparing two perspectives of people work’. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 60(1), 17-39.
Bryman, A., & Bell, E. (2003). Business research methods (3rd ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Grandey, A. A. (2000). ‘Emotional regulation in the workplace: A new way to conceptualize emotional labor’. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5(1), 95-110.
Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling (2nd ed.). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Kruml, S. M., & Geddes, D. (2000). ‘Exploring the dimensions of emotional labor: The heart of Hochschild’s work’. Management Communication Quarterly, 14(1), 8-49.
Mastracci, S., Newman, M. A., & Guy, M. E. (2006). ‘Appraising emotion work: Determining whether emotional labor is valued in government jobs’. American Review of Public Administration, 36(2), 123-138.
Morris, J. A., & Feldman, D. C. (1996). ‘The dimensions, antecedents, and consequences of emotional labor’. Academy of Management Review, 21(4), 986-1010.
Tolich, M. B. (1993). ‘Alienating and liberating emotions at work: Supermarket clerks’ performance of customer service’. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 22(3), 361-381.