The Value to the Customer of RFID in Service Applications*

This article examines how customer value may be affected by deploying radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies within service environments. Business articles promote operational cost savings and improved inventory management as key benefits of deploying RFID. In response, service firms are using RFID to reengineer service transactions and customer touchpoints. Customers may view these RFID applications to offer both benefits and drawbacks. This article demonstrates that individuals will recognize far more value from RFID service applications than just cost savings and inventory availability. The article analyzes qualitative survey responses on the value gained from RFID to identify a broad list of value objectives—benefits and drawbacks—associated with RFID service applications. The article contributes to academic literature by providing salient value dimensions for return on investment models of service RFID applications and for future empirical analyses of means‐ends and value‐profit chain models. Managers can use the list of dimensions to develop rich business cases for evaluating the benefits and costs from enhancing service operations with RFID. The identified drawbacks also provide managers with a resource for understanding potential risks of RFID applications.     

基于顾客自我调整导向的差异化服务补救策略研究

已有的服务补救研究认为服务补救应该和服务失败匹配,没有深入探讨顾客心理差异对补救效果的影响。本文提出服务补救应和顾客特征相匹配,从"自我调整导向"角度区分顾客的心理特征,研究顾客的个体差异对服务补救效果的影响。服务补救方式被区分为"多获利"型和"少损失"型两类;顾客的自我调整导向有"趋利"和"避害"之分。本文选取餐馆行业,采用实验方法考察顾客的自我调整导向与补救努力的交互作用对顾客感知的补救绩效和补救满意的影响。通过多因素协方差分析研究发现,当补救努力与顾客的自我调整导向一致时,顾客的感知补救绩效更高,对补救更加满意;对于"趋利"导向的顾客,"多获利"型补救方式效果更好;对于"避害"导向的顾客,"少损失"型补救方式更加有效。     

Encounter Satisfaction in E‐tailing: Are the Relationships of Order Fulfillment Service Quality with its Antecedents and Consequences Moderated by Historical Satisfaction?

This study focuses on whether historical satisfaction with an e‐tailer (HSat) moderates baseline relationships in order fulfillment service quality models. HSat is defined as satisfaction with the e‐tailer spanning all transactions except the current encounter. Encounter satisfaction (ESat) is defined as the consumer's satisfaction with the current transaction. In the baseline model, four order fulfillment service quality (OFSQ) dimensions managerially relevant to consumer e‐tailing are examined: timeliness, availability, condition, and billing accuracy. The baseline structural model results support that OFSQ dimensions impact ESat, which in turn predicts two key consequences—repurchase intention and word‐of‐mouth. Adaptation theory is used to model the role of HSat, while controlling for transaction recency, vendor familiarity, and competitive pricing. HSat is shown to have pervasive main and interaction effects upon all baseline model relationships. These moderation effects have great managerial relevance. For example, the results illustrate a phenomenon similar to the service recovery paradox, wherein when a negative service encounter is followed by a highly positive service recovery event, previously dissatisfied consumers, as compared to previously satisfied consumers, respond with higher levels of current satisfaction. For managers, this finding is encouraging because policies that create highly positive events for consumers can thus supersede past negative experiences. Our results show however that HSat cannot be completely superseded by current OFSQ or current ESat.     

Pre-recovery emotions and satisfaction: A moderated mediation model of service recovery and reputation in the banking sector

This study examines the mediating role of service recovery judgments between pre-recovery emotions and post-recovery satisfaction, and investigates the role of firm reputation in this mediation context. Using a moderated mediation framework, the authors test the model with data from 366 customers who experienced a banking service failure and complained to a third party. The results show that distributive, procedural, and interactional justice dimensions mediate the relationship between pre-recovery emotions and satisfaction. Firm reputation moderates the relationship between emotions and satisfaction via distributive and interactional justice, but not via procedural justice. This study provides evidence for the notion that pre-recovery emotion is an antecedent of service recovery process and firm reputation plays an essential role in this process.     

基于TAM的移动内容服务采纳分析

3G时代,提供能被消费者接受的移动内容服务是移动运营商和内容提供商实现利润的重要前提,其关键是明晰影响用户采纳移动内容服务的主要因素和影响途径。本文以技术接受模型为理论基础,在移动商务的环境下对其进行扩展,建立了整合用户创新性、外部影响和感知财务费用的移动内容服务采纳模型,并在此基础上提出了相应的假设,并通过结构方程模型的方法对假设模型进行了验证。实证研究发现,技术接受模型在移动商务环境下依然有效,而且用户自身的创新性、外部的影响和使用成本也影响消费者的采纳意图。     

A Staged Service Innovation Model*

Drawing from the new product development (NPD) literature, service quality literature (SERVQUAL), and empirically grounded research with 53 service innovation decision makers, we develop a staged service innovation model (SIM) for decision makers. We tested the model using empirical data from 329 firms across five industries. The empirical results show that integrating prelaunch service quality training into new service development process leads to successful service innovation. The model developed in this article can be used as a decision support tool and diagnostic model for assessing service innovation ideas, evaluating performance of ongoing service innovations, allocating resources, and improving success rate of service innovations. Decision makers can use the measures developed in this study as a checklist to identify their strengths in delivering service quality to their own customers as well as areas of improvement. This article extends service innovation research by combining NPD and service quality development into a single study and opens the door to further work that could help improve the success rate of service innovations. The model can serve as a base model for future research extensions in service innovation research. A major takeaway for the academic reader is that the SIM demonstrates the value of using the SERVQUAL literature to understand how best to provide excellent quality that results in more fully satisfied customers and, ultimately, improved service performance.     

旅游服务补救质量的综合模糊评价方法探讨

旅游服务补救是目前旅游服务的一个重要组成部分,对旅游服务补救质量进行合理、客观的评价具有很大的应用价值。本文综合运用层次分析和模糊数学的评价模型构建了服务补救评价指标体系,对服务补救质量进行量化分析,并实证检验了该评价方法,研究结果可以有效地指导旅游企业改进服务质量管理。     

通过顾客关系服务化来强化顾客价值过程--顾客关系时代的营销新命题

本文建立在这样一个全新的观念基础之上,即营销资源和活动必须与企业所面临的目标顾客相互一致,同时,顾客价值不是由制造商或服务提供者创造的,而是由顾客在其价值创造过程中创造的.企业的资源、流程和能力并不是企业的生产(如产品)、管理(如网站)、财务(如结算)、法律(如顾客申述的处理)及其它活动过程的结果,而应当被视为顾客价值创造过程的投入要素.因此,供应商的作用是通过向顾客提供恰当的资源要素,如产品、服务、信息、服务补救、个性化关怀等来支持顾客价值创造过程,并与顾客资源形成互动,惟此,顾客才会感知到价值被创造出来.要以此方式运营,企业必须将自己看作是服务企业,而且真正地为顾客服务.为强化顾客价值的生成,企业必须将其客户关系中的所有要素"服务化"(Servicizing),无论是与制造或服务相关的,还是管理、财务或者法律等常规活动.这些常规活动通常属于"隐性服务"(HiddenService),它们在价值创造中的潜力没有得到应有重视.相反,这些要素对顾客价值的生成过程常常起到破坏而不是支撑作用."服务化"意味着要将所有与顾客关系相关的要素,不管它们的类型和特性如何,转化为顾客价值创造过程中的投入要素.最后,本文还探讨了在顾客关系管理时代,如何配置企业营销资源及营销规划等问题.     

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.     

An Information‐Processing Approach for Evaluating In‐Store Retail Operational Design Strategies

We develop a model to evaluate retail store operational design strategies using an information‐processing perspective of organizational design. We propose that three model constructs pertaining to in‐store shopper task uncertainty—the product mix complexity, the service production complexity, and the product mix changeover—create shopper encounter information requirements (IR). These requirements can be met using specific retail service operational design choices for managing shopper encounters, namely, designing layouts for self‐service (SS) and providing employees with task empowerment (TE). The model is then operationalized using a two‐stage approach to develop new multi‐item, measurement scales. The psychometric properties and predictive validity of the scales and model are then confirmed by using structural equation modeling with survey data from 175 merchandise retail store managers. We find that our model can be generically applied across the retail industry to understand how shopper encounter IR motivate retailer store design choices and can be used to determine whether to design stores for SS or to provide store employees with TE. We then evaluate the efficacy of the studied store design choices on customer delivery satisfaction, and offer some suggestions for future research.     

The ambivalent effect of complexity on firm performance: A study of the global service provider industry

Prior literature is ambivalent about whether organizational complexity has positive or negative effects on firm performance. Using rich data on global service providers, we explore this ambivalence by disentangling performance consequences of different types of organizational complexity. We show that complexity arising from the coordination of different services and operations negatively influences profit margins through increased coordination costs, whereas complexity coming from the sophistication of particular services may positively influence margins through informational advantages. We also investigate the moderating effects of process commoditization and client-specific investments. Our findings point to critical performance dilemmas facing global service providers in a highly competitive industry, and they help better differentiate performance effects of complexity at different organizational levels.     

A Mathematical Model of Service Failure and Recovery Strategies*

Understanding the nature of service failures and their impact on customer responses and designing cost‐effective recovery strategies have been recognized as important issues by both service researchers and practitioners. We first propose a conceptual framework of service failure and recovery strategies. We then transform it into a mathematical model to assist managers in deciding on appropriate resource allocations for outcome and process recovery strategies based on customer risk profiles and the firm's cost structures. Based on this mathematical model we derive optimal recovery strategies, conduct sensitivity analyses of the optimal solutions for different model parameters, and illustrate them through numerical examples. We conclude with a discussion of managerial implications and directions for future research.     

The Economic Payout Model for Service Guarantees

Service guarantees consist of a promise to a customer (marketing), the delivery of a service to the customer (operations), and actions to appease the customer when service failures happen (recovery). A part of recovery involves offering the customer an economic and/or noneconomic payout when things go wrong. When the economic payout is too high or low, the impact on the organization and the customer is usually negative. Therefore, determining the size of the economic payout is of critical strategic and tactical importance in businesses. Yet, no systematic quantitative methods are found in the literature to help managers determine the economic payout for service failures. The current ways an economic payout is determined are management judgment, the consensus of customer focus groups, competitive benchmarking, and the use of simple expected value methods. In this article, we define the Economic Payout Model for Service Guarantees (EPMSG) that provides an optimal service guarantee economic payout under certain conditions. The EPMSG and its objective function considers customer revenue over the short‐ and long‐term, the cost of creating and providing the service, the cost of recovery, the probability of a service failure, and the probability of customer retention as a function of economic payout. A numerical example is provided of how EPMSG works. Customer retention probability distributions are examined assuming normal and gamma distributions. We end the article by describing the theoretical contributions, model limitations, managerial implications, and opportunities for future research.     

基于公平理论探讨服务补救质量影响的实证研究——来自中国电信服务行业的证据

企业与客户交易时并不会一帆风顺,当客户面对交易过程中出现的故障时,不同服务补救措施会如何对客户感知、满意度和信任度产生影响?本文区别于以往实验或准实验法为主的定性或定量研究,引入组织行为学的公平理论,采取真实客户服务数据,基于不同客户类型深入探讨服务补救质量对客户满意、客户信任和客户忠诚的影响.实证研究发现,服务补救质量对感知价值、满意和信任均会产生正向作用;大客户对服务补救过程中的"互动公平"最为重视,公众客户更为强调"结果公平"的影响.这就告诉服务型企业应如何采取补救措施,大客户看重过程,一般客户更看重结果.本文从理论和实践两方面为服务补救领域的研究提供了有力证据.     

Risks in offshore IT outsourcing: A service provider perspective

Offshore outsourcing of Information Technology (IT) services is the prevalent practice in global businesses today. Despite the strategic advantages and cost benefits that offshore outsourcing offers, outsourcing relationships also involve risks, for both the client, as well as the service provider – a fact that is evidenced by the reported failures of such engagements. Some of the prior researches in this area have focused on identifying various types of client risks and their sources. However, the study of risks from a service provider’s perspective has not received due treatment in literature. This study analyses offshore IT outsourcing risks from the perspective of service providers. A case based approach using the principles of grounded theory was used for studying the risks. Theoretical sampling was used to collect data from 5 mid-tier offshore third party service providers based in Bangalore, India. From our coding and analysis three broad categories of service provider risks emerged, namely, macroeconomic, relationship specific and project specific. Relationship maturity, nature of contract, nature of service or project and nature of client were identified as contextual factors which influence the degree of risk.     

The FAIRSERV Model: Consumer Reactions to Services Based on a Multidimensional Evaluation of Service Fairness

The current dominant conceptualization of consumer reactions to services is the SERVQUAL model. This article proposes the FAIRSERV model as an alternative or additional conceptualization of consumer reactions to services. FAIRSERV involves seeing service evaluation through the lens of organizational fairness (justice) theory applied to the relationship between the service consumer and the service provider. FAIRSERV is premised on the claim that, especially in relational service contexts, consumers are interested in service fairness as well as service quality (service favorableness) as represented by SERVQUAL. Service fairness or justice is a multidimensional construct based on equity theory. In this article, the FAIRSERV model is tested with the SERVQUAL model in the context of information system services. The two models are used to predict service satisfaction and repatronage intention. The FAIRSERV model appears to add a significant new set of predictors of service satisfaction and repatronage intention that should be considered in the future by service providers.     

Dynamic Capability Building in Service Value Networks for Achieving Service Innovation

Service organizations increasingly create new service offerings that are the result of collaborative arrangements operating on a value network level. This leads to the notion of “elevated service offerings,” our definition of service innovation, implying new or enhanced service offerings that can only be eventuated as a result of partnering, and one that could not be delivered on individual organizational merits. Using empirical data from a large telecommunications company, we demonstrate through structural equation modeling (SEM) that higher‐order dynamic capabilities in services are generated as a result of collaboration between stakeholders. Furthermore, it is through collaboration and education of the stakeholders that additional higher‐order capabilities emerge (customer engagement [CuE], collaborative agility [CA], entrepreneurial alertness [EA], and collaborative innovative capacity), all of which influence the service innovation outcome. Our study also reveals empirical evidence for an ongoing process of continuous dynamic capability building in accordance with the changing dynamics of business. Managers of service organizations should recognize the potential embedded in these higher‐order skill sets, starting from collaboration, learning, and management of creative ideas for both strategic and operational benefits. Moreover, the capabilities of CA, EA, and CuE are even more important in managing the flexibility, timely delivery, and reliability of service offerings. Managers should take measures to inculcate, promote, and manage these dynamic capability skill sets to foster innovation in services.     

SSQSC: a tool to measure supplier service quality in supply chain

The objective of this research is to derive supplier service quality dimensions in the context of supply chain. Initial service quality dimensions were derived from an extensive literature review on the subject followed by refining through a series of procedures needed for scale development. Data was collected from 117 working executives of manufacturing organisations in India. The respondents were asked to assess supplier service quality in supply chain based on the perception and expectation scales. Further, data was summarised for respondents stating a high level of external service quality. Factor analysis resulted in a seven-factor structure as representative of supplier service quality in supply chain. The SSQSC tool will be beneficial to practising managers in identification of opportunities for improvements in supplier service quality.     

关系品质对服务补救效果的调节作用

在关于服务补救的文献中,许多研究过于强调服务补救属性本身对补救后顾客态度和行为意向的影响。其实,它们不仅仅取决于类似于特定服务补救属性的感觉要素,还取决于类似于关系品质这样的知觉要素。为了揭示知觉要素对服务补救效果的重要性,本文以关系品质作为调节变量来考察它对服务补救过程中顾客的态度标识参数和行为意向的影响,发现关系品质对于服务补救效果确实存在着积极的调节作用,并根据这一发现提出了相应的营销建议。最后,文章给出了本研究的局限和未来的研究方向。