Foundations and Implications of a Proposed Unified Services Theory

Diverse businesses, such as garbage collection, retail banking, and management consulting are often tied together under the heading of “services”, based on little more than a perception that they are intangible and do not manufacture anything. Such definitions inadequately identify managerial and operational implications common among, and unique to, services. We present a “Unified Services Theory” (UST) to clearly delineate service processes from non‐service processes and to identify key commonalities across seemingly disparate service businesses. The UST defines a service production process as one that relies on customer inputs; customers act as suppliers for all service processes. Non‐services (such as make‐to‐stock manufacturing) rely on customer selection of outputs, payment for outputs, and occasional feedback, but production is not dependent upon inputs from individual customers. The UST reveals principles that are common to the wide range of services and provides a unifying foundation for various theories and models of service operations, such as the traditional “characteristics of services” and Customer Contact Theory. The UST has significant operational corollaries pertaining to capacity and demand management, service quality, services strategy, and so forth. The UST provides a common reference point to which services management researchers can anchor future theory‐building and theory‐testing research.     

Focusing on Customer Time in Field Service: A Normative Approach

Although customer convenience should be rightfully considered a central element in field services, the customer experience suggests that service enterprises rarely take the customer's preferred time into account in making operational and scheduling decisions. In this paper we present the results of our exploratory research into two interrelated topics: the explicit inclusion of customer time in nonemergency field service delivery decisions and the analysis of trade‐off between the customer's convenience and field service provider's cost. Based on prior research in service quality we identify and illustrate two time‐based performance metrics that are particularly appropriate for assessing service quality in nonemergency field services: performance and conformance quality. To determine vehicle routes, we develop a hybrid heuristic derived from the existing and proven heuristic methods. A numerical example closely patterned after real‐life data is generated and used within a computational experiment to investigate alternate policies for promise time windows. Our experiment shows that over a reasonable range of customer cost parameters the policy of shorter promise time windows reduces the combined total cost incurred by the provider and the customers and should be considered a preferred policy by the field service provider. Managerial implications of this result are discussed.     

考虑自取服务和门到门服务的电动汽车物流网络优化策略研究

在环境意识增长与政府政策支持的有利条件下,电动汽车在物流领域得以快速发展。为提高物流服务的效率,降低企业运营成本,文中研究了考虑顾客服务策略的电动物流汽车服务设施选址与配送路径问题。采取顾客自行取货与配送人员送货上门相结合的多样化服务策略,使得服务站点的建设成本、顾客点配送路径成本以及服务站点补货路径成本之和最小。建立了整数规划数学模型,允许配送车辆在服务过程中前往服务站点接受充电服务。其次,提出了基于改进节约算法和禁忌算法的混合启发式算法MCWSA-TS。随后,在小规模算例将CPLEX运算结果与MCWSA-TS进行对比,证明了算法的有效性。最后,采用多组算例探讨了顾客取货半径对运营成本的影响,并对分离配送策略与联合配送策略进行对比分析。实验结果表明,多样化服务策略有助于企业满足顾客取货时间和取货方式的个性化需求。同时,兼顾运营成本与顾客满意度,促进电动汽车参与的物流服务快速发展。     

An Exploratory Study of the Impact of e‐Service Process on Online Customer Satisfaction

Although extensive academic research has examined the dynamics of interpersonal interactions between service providers and customers, much less research has investigated customer service encounters through technological interfaces such as the Web in electronic commerce transactions. Corporate websites have become an important point of contact with customers for many companies. Service has been described as one of the most important attributes for online business to influence traffic and sales. However, more research is needed to understand how Web‐based technological capabilities of services affect customer satisfaction. In this paper, we propose viewing the interface between online buyers and sellers through the lens of service management to identify possible determinants of online customer satisfaction. A company's website is considered its electronic service delivery system. We look at this electronic service delivery system from its process point of view. Our findings indicate that as the electronic service delivery system process improves, a customer's perception of the website's ease of use increases, leading to increased service value and perceived control over the process, which increases customer satisfaction. The research provides evidence that the technological capabilities embedded in the website processes are an important factor in determining service quality and ultimately online customer satisfaction.     

Anticipatory shipment for pickup point supply

Many retailers allow customers to shop online and collect their orders at a pickup point nearby. In this paper, we study the anticipatory shipment of items to such pickup points in order to improve service and operational efficiency. We formulate a stochastic programming model to support the selection of products and associated quantities to ship to the pickup points in anticipation of customers’ demand. The results of our numerical experiments suggest that anticipatory shipments can have substantial benefits both in terms of cost and lead-time. The benefits increase with the storage space at the pickup point. The anticipatory shipment strategy is especially beneficial in a setting which requires short delivery lead-times and when the e-fulfilment warehouse is further away.     

Flexible time window management for attended home deliveries

In the competitive world of online retail, customers can choose from a selection of delivery time windows on a retailer’s website. Creating a set of suitable and cost-efficient delivery time windows is challenging, since customers want short time windows, but short time windows can increase delivery costs significantly. Furthermore, the acceptance of a request in a short time window can greatly restrict the ability to accommodate future requests. In this paper, we present customer acceptance mechanisms that enable flexible time window management in the booking of time-window based attended home deliveries. We build tentative delivery routes and check which time windows are feasible for each new customer request. We offer the feasible long delivery time windows and let our approaches decide when to offer short time windows. Our approaches differ in the information they consider with regard to customer characteristics as well as detailed characteristics of the evolving route plan. We perform a computational study to investigate the approaches’ ability to offer short time windows and still allow for a large number of customers to be served. We consider various demand scenarios, partially derived from real order data provided by a German online supermarket.     

Pricing and Operational Performance in Discretionary Services

In many services, for example, website or landscape design, the value or quality derived by a customer depends upon the service time, and this valuation differs across customers. Customers procure the service based on the expected value to be delivered, prices charged, and the timeliness of service. We investigate the performance of the optimal pricing scheme as well as two commonly used pricing schemes (fixed fee and time‐based pricing) for such services on important dimensions such as revenue, demand served, and utilization. We propose a novel model that captures the above features and wherein both service rate and demand are endogenous and functions of the pricing scheme. In particular, service time is an outcome of the pricing scheme adopted and the heterogeneous valuations of customers, unlike in the queueing‐based pricing literature. We find that the service system may benefit from a greater variance in consumer valuations, and the performance of pricing schemes is impacted by the shape of the distribution of customers' valuation of service time and the responsiveness desired by customers. Both the fixed fee and time‐based schemes do well relative to the optimal pricing scheme in terms of revenue in many plausible scenarios, but there are substantial differences between the pricing schemes in some important operational metrics. For instance, the fixed fee scheme serves more customers and has higher utilization than the time‐based scheme. We also explore variants of the fixed and time‐based schemes that have better revenue performance and show that the two‐part tariff which is a combination of fixed and time‐based pricing can do as well as the optimal scheme in terms of revenue.     

Customer Behavior in an Online Ordering Application: A Decision Scoring Model*

This research presents the development of behavioral scoring models to predict future customer purchases in an online ordering application. Internet retailing lowers many barriers for customers switching between retailers for repeat purchases; thus, retaining existing customers is a key challenge for achieving profitability. Survey data were collected from 1,089 online customers of two companies. The subjective survey data were then used to predict purchases over the ensuing 12 months based on data from the company databases. The analysis illustrates the general applicability of predictive models of future customer purchases while also demonstrating the need to develop specific models tailored for an individual company's operating and marketing environment. The models provide insight on how companies can target marketing dollars more effectively and allocate investment across multiple operational areas for maximum return. The research answers a call for rigorous research in the area of predictive marketing, an area in which many companies are excelling but where there is a scarcity of detailed knowledge regarding application of such models.     

Managing Quality in the E‐Service System: Development and Application of a Process Model

In this paper, we develop a process model for assessing and managing e‐service quality based on the underlying components of the e‐service system and, in turn, address the growing need to look in more detail at the system component level for sources of poor quality. The proposed process model is comprised of a set of entities representing the e‐service system, a network defining the linking between all pairs of entities via transactions and product flows, and a set of outcomes of the processes in terms of quality dimensions. The process model is developed using Unified Modeling Language (UML), a pictorial language for specifying service designs that has achieved widespread acceptance among e‐service designers. Examples of applications of the process model are presented to illustrate how the model can be use to identify operational levers for managing and improving e‐service quality.     

Usability of Online Services: The Role of Technology Readiness and Context*

An important prerequisite for the success of any online service is ensuring that customers' experience—via the interface—satisfies both sensory and functional needs. Developing interfaces that are responsive to customers' needs requires a perspective on interface design as well as a deep understanding of the customers themselves. Drawing upon research in consumer behavior concerning consumer beliefs about technology, we deploy an alternative way to describe customers based on psychographic characteristics. Technology readiness (TR), a multidimensional psychographic construct, offers a way to segment online customers based upon underlying positive and negative technology beliefs. The core premise of this study is that the beliefs form the foundation for expectations of how things should work and how specific online service interfaces are evaluated by customers. At the same time, usability evaluations of specific online services might be contingent on contextual factors, specifically the type of site (hedonic vs. utilitarian) and access method (Web vs. wireless Web). The aspects of usability examined here are those incorporated into the usability metric and instrument based on the Microsoft Usability Guidelines (MUG). The results of an empirical study with 160 participants indicate that (i) TR customer segments vary in usability requirements and (ii) usability evaluations of specific online service interfaces are influenced by complex interactions among site type, access method, and TR segment membership. As organizations continue to expand their online service offerings, managers must recognize that the interface exists to serve the customers, so their design must be matched to market needs and TR.     

The Influence of Service Orientation on B2B e‐Service Capabilities: An Empirical Investigation

E‐Services, or the company's portfolio of service offerings available to its customers through the Internet, are an emerging area of interest to operations management. Yet little is known about the operations and capabilities needed for provision of business‐to‐business (B2B) e‐services. This paper aims to make a contribution toward closing this gap. First, we develop a new construct of B2B e‐service capability, a term that captures a generic set of five interrelated and complementary dimensions: (1) e‐service recovery, (2) e‐customization, (3) ease of navigation, (4) service portfolio comprehensiveness, and (5) information richness. These combined operational abilities are associated with B2B service delivery, including its portal design, technology architecture, and mix of product and service offerings. They are posited to be necessary for delivering effective B2B e‐services. We also argue that, both service orientation (SO) and customer receptivity to technology, influence B2B e‐service capability. We empirically test a path model using structural equation modeling on a sample of 181 businesses that have deployed B2B e‐services. We find that the influence of SO on performance is not direct but rather mediated by the e‐service capability, a finding that holds for both goods producers and service providers. We suggest that a firm's SO may mitigate industrial customers' resistance toward conducting business online.     

Impact of customer loyalty and service operations on customer behaviour and firm performance: empirical evidence from UK retail sector

Abstract

Retail networks are striving to achieve competitive advantage by increasing value through loyalty and efficiency with a focus on service operations. As sales promotions have become an integral part of the retail supply chain planning, customer behavioural aspects based on loyalty and service operations have been challenged greatly. Subsequently, management capabilities, such as planning and timely replenishment, have become complicated tasks for many retail store managers. This study develops a model integrating retail network value and efficiencies with customer behaviour and performance. We validate the model using survey data from prominent U.K. retail store customers. Our data analysis shows that both loyalty and service operation attributes have positive significant impact on customer behaviour, while the service operation mediates the relationship between loyalty and customer behaviour. This result gives a new outlook to build managerial capability based on customer loyalty and service operations. Our results specifically show that the service operation attributes will indirectly influence the customers’ buying behaviour even in the presence of loyalty attribute such as promotion schemes. This result sends a strong signal to retail supply chain managers to offer customised promotions considering local community rather than having uniform sales promotion nationwide.     

Exploring the Impact of Delivery Performance on Customer Transaction Volume and Unit Price: Evidence from an Assembly Manufacturing Supply Chain

This study examines the effect of delivery performance on customer transactions. We propose that different delivery performance dimensions (on‐time delivery rate, early delivery inaccuracy, late delivery inaccuracy, and delivery speed) have varying impacts on future customer transaction quantities and unit prices. We further explore the effect of customer types on the proposed relationships. Trade customers (resellers) and Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) customers generally have different operational needs for deliveries and therefore may value these metrics differently. Using instrumental variable regression, we analyze a proprietary transaction‐level dataset. The information was compiled by a Fortune 500 manufacturer from its Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) control product supply chain, consisting of the manufacturer and its customers. The results indicate that measures of delivery performance affect customer transaction quantity and unit price differently. Furthermore, these impacts can differ significantly between trade customers and OEM customers. These findings provide fine‐grained insights about tuning delivery capabilities to increase sales volume or boost price.     

顾客满意度不确定性对服务质量评价的影响

在以顾客为中心的时代,企业服务质量的评价直接依赖于顾客满意度的高低,而顾客满意度的评价结果往往是基于某种评价等级的一个分布.论文研究顾客满意度评价的不确定性对服务质量总体评价的影响,结果表明在服务质量的评价中存在着一种“反射现象”,即当服务质量总体水平处于满意的状态下,管理者追求的是保持和稳定,展现出对不确定性的厌恶;而当服务质量总体水平处于不满意的状态时,管理者力图改变和进步,展现出对不确定性的偏爱,而且,顾客满意度评价的负面结果要比同等程度的正面结果对服务质量总体评价的影响要大.这些现象在两项实证研究中获得了中高层管理人员的确认.作者进一步建立了一个在顾客满意度有不确定性情况下服务质量评价的模型.     

平台服务和物流服务对网络商家信心的影响——商家信誉的调节作用

在电子商务平台中,商家日常经营所需的服务与传统零售业有所不同,主要包括平台服务和物流服务两种。商家信心决定着平台的生存发展,但尚未有文献从信心视角对平台服务和物流服务展开研究。本文使用3995位淘宝店铺经营者的调查数据,建立次序回归模型分析发现:平台服务和物流服务都对商家信心有正向影响;商家信誉具有调节作用,随着信誉等级的提高,平台服务对商家信心的影响逐渐增强;而信誉等级较低的商家信心更容易受物流服务影响。     

Quality management and performance: a comparison between the UK and Turkey

Purpose: The aim of this article is to detail the correlation between quality management, specifically its tools and critical success factors, and performance in terms of primary operational and secondary organisational performances.

Design/methodology/approach: Survey data from the UK and Turkey were analysed using exploratory factor analyses, structural equation modelling and regression analysis.

Findings: The results show that quality management has a significant and positive impact on both primary and secondary performances; that Turkish and UK attitudes to quality management are similar; and that quality management is widely practised in manufacturing and service industries but has more statistical emphasis in the manufacturing sector. The main challenge for making quality management practice more effective lies in an appropriate balanced use of the different sorts of the tools and critical success factors.

Originality/value: This study takes a novel approach by: (i) exploring the relationship between primary operational and secondary organisational performances, (ii) using service and manufacturing data and (iii) making a cross-country comparison between the UK (a developed economy) and Turkey (a developing economy).

Limitations: Detailed contrast provided between only two countries.     

Operations in Financial Services—An Overview

We provide an overview of the state of the art in research on operations in financial services. We start by highlighting a number of specific operational features that differentiate financial services from other service industries, and discuss how these features affect the modeling of financial services. We then consider in more detail the various different research areas in financial services, namely systems design, performance analysis and productivity, forecasting, inventory and cash management, waiting line analysis for capacity planning, personnel scheduling, operational risk management, and pricing and revenue management. In the last section, we describe the most promising research directions for the near future.     

考虑差异化服务时间的多车型电动汽车路径优化与充电策略研究

在政府政策大力支持以及社会环境意识不断增长的背景下,电动汽车在物流配送行业快速普及。电动汽车参与的物流配送服务需要物流专员、电动汽车和顾客三方协作完成。因此,在传统车辆配送路径优化的基础上,车辆的多样性、充电策略、人车的匹配以及服务时间差异化等因素都会影响物流运营成本。本文提出了考虑差异化服务成本的多车型电动汽车路径优化与充电策略问题并建立了该问题的整数规划数学模型。其次,提出了混合启发式算法MCWGATS,并通过多组算例验证了算法的有效性。最后,采用多组算例分析了多车型和差异化服务时间对运营成本的影响。实验结果表明,该模型有助于物流企业提高人员、物流车辆、服务时间等资源的利用效率,降低运营成本。     

Are Self‐Service Customers Satisfied or Stuck?

This paper investigates the impact of self‐service technology (SST) usage on customer satisfaction and retention. Specifically, we disentangle the distinct effects of satisfaction and switching costs as drivers of retention among self‐service customers. Our empirical analysis examines 26,924 multi‐channel customers of a nationwide retail bank. We track each customer's channel usage, overall satisfaction, and retention over a 1‐year period. We find that, relative to face‐to‐face service, customers who use self‐service channels for a greater proportion of their transactions are either no more satisfied, or less satisfied with the service they receive, depending on the channel. However, we also find that these same customers are predictably less likely to defect to a competitor if they are heavily reliant on self‐service channels characterized by high switching costs. Through a mediation model, we demonstrate that, when self‐service usage promotes retention, it does so in a way that is consistent with switching costs. As a robustness check, we examine the behavior of channel enthusiasts, who concentrate transactions among specific channels. Relative to more diversified customers, we find that self‐service enthusiasts in low switching cost channels defect with greater frequency, while self‐service enthusiasts in high switching cost channels are retained with greater frequency.