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CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
(Prelude: story of Quebec Bridge, which collapsed into St. Lawrence River in 1907 with loss of 84 lives).
To remind the essence of service encounter:
1. Service is a process.
2. Customers are involved in the service production process.
Customer contact is an essential manageable element of a servicing company, however, the tendency is about its minimization. (How?).
From previous lecture, there are 4 core types of service processes: - people processing (tangible actions); - possession processing (tangible actions); - mental stimulus processing (intangible actions); - information processing (intangible actions).
Some services are actually packages of all 4 above (comprising a core and supplementary service), e.g.,: - travelers request a reservation on an airline (info processing); - transported by an airplane (people processing); - watch a movie during the flight (mental stimulus processing); - have their bags transported (possession processing).
Note, the core product (transport by air) drives the need for other three.
Figure. Level of consumer contact.
Level of customer contact: - high-contact services (visit in person, actively involved with the organization and its personnel); all people-processing services fall into this category (or obsolete companies where people still traditionally go to and spend time until service completion); - medium-contact services (lower degree of involvement; visit the provider, but do not stay on-site (or are visited by service personnel); the purpose of visit is establishing the relationships, defining the problem face to face, dropping off and picking up physical possession, or just paying the bill; simple self-service operations in which customers must physically operate provider’s machines also fall into this category (possession processing to some degree)); - low-contact services (the fast-growing trend – no personal contact; everything is either
(Prelude: story of Quebec Bridge, which collapsed into St. Lawrence River in 1907 with loss of 84 lives).
To remind the essence of service encounter:
1. Service is a process.
2. Customers are involved in the service production process.
Customer contact is an essential manageable element of a servicing company, however, the tendency is about its minimization. (How?).
From previous lecture, there are 4 core types of service processes: - people processing (tangible actions); - possession processing (tangible actions); - mental stimulus processing (intangible actions); - information processing (intangible actions).
Some services are actually packages of all 4 above (comprising a core and supplementary service), e.g.,: - travelers request a reservation on an airline (info processing); - transported by an airplane (people processing); - watch a movie during the flight (mental stimulus processing); - have their bags transported (possession processing).
Note, the core product (transport by air) drives the need for other three.
Figure. Level of consumer contact.
Level of customer contact: - high-contact services (visit in person, actively involved with the organization and its personnel); all people-processing services fall into this category (or obsolete companies where people still traditionally go to and spend time until service completion); - medium-contact services (lower degree of involvement; visit the provider, but do not stay on-site (or are visited by service personnel); the purpose of visit is establishing the relationships, defining the problem face to face, dropping off and picking up physical possession, or just paying the bill; simple self-service operations in which customers must physically operate provider’s machines also fall into this category (possession processing to some degree)); - low-contact services (the fast-growing trend – no personal contact; everything is either