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.     

基于顾客感知价值的服务企业竞争力探析

随着服务业在社会经济发展中的地位日益突出,服务企业竞争力问题开始引起学术界关注。本文将顾客感知价值嵌入传统的企业战略研究范式之中,阐述了顾客感知价值与企业竞争力的关系;在剖析了顾客感知价值概念及其决定因素的基础上,结合服务的基本特性提出了通过改善顾客感知价值提升服务企业竞争力的策略。     

关系类型对服务失败后顾客反应的影响

本文探讨了真正服务关系、虚假服务关系和偶遇服务关系三种关系类型对服务失败后顾客反应的影响。研究显示,在遭遇服务失败后三种关系类型的反应差异明显,具有真正服务关系的顾客在服务失败后比其它两类关系类型的顾客具有更高的顾客满意度、更少的负面口碑以及更高的重购倾向,而虚假关系的顾客比偶遇关系的顾客又表现出较高的满意度、较少的负面口碑以及较高的重购倾向。所以关系能够提供防御性服务补救作用,而且相对于其它补救策略更显得未雨绸缪。     

顾客关系、信任与顾客对服务失败的反应

优异的服务质量是建立长期顾客关系的重要手段。本文通过实际调查,分析了服务质量的两个维度--结果质量和过程质量对顾客满意度和重购意愿的影响,并探讨了顾客关系和信任感在服务评价和顾客反应方面的作用。研究发现,服务过程和服务结果间存在交互作用,顾客关系对服务质量的影响发挥着调节功能,信任感经由服务结果而影响顾客的反应。     

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。     

Adaptive versus Proactive Behavior in Service Recovery: The Role of Self‐Managing Teams

In this article, we develop a conceptual model of adaptive versus proactive recovery behavior by self‐managing teams (SMTs) in service recovery operations. To empirically test the conceptual model a combination of bank employee, customer, and archival data is collected. The results demonstrate support for independent group‐level effects of intrateam support on adaptive and proactive recovery behavior, indicating that perceptual consensus within service teams has incremental value in explaining service recovery performance. In addition, we provide evidence that adaptive and proactive recovery behavior have differential effects on external performance measures. More specifically, higher levels of adaptive performance positively influence customer‐based parameters (i.e., service recovery satisfaction and loyalty intentions), while employee proactive recovery behavior contributes to higher share of customer rates.     

Ramifications of Monitoring Service Quality Through Passively Solicited Customer Feedback*

It is common for service providers to collect data from customers as part of efforts to monitor quality. Often, this data is passively collected, meaning (a) any solicitation of feedback is done without direct customer interaction, and (b) the customer initiates any response given. Examples include customer comment cards, toll-free telephone numbers, and comment links on World Wide Web pages. This article compares passive data collection with active methods (e.g., interviews and mail surveys). Passive methods generally have lower response rates and are inherently biased, but have cost and sample frame advantages when used to monitor quality on a continuous basis. Despite the biased nature of passive methods, this article describes the successful validation of a common customer-response model with passively collected empirical data. The model is expanded to consider the impact of complaint and compliment solicitation on customers' evaluation of the service provider. Results show that this impact is negative, and that customers who spontaneously register complaints generally record higher ratings of the service provider than customers who complain in response to a complaint solicitation. Discussion and conclusions are given.     

How Long Should a Customer Wait for Service?

A major concern for service managers is the determination of how long a customer should wait to be served. Services, due to the customer's direct interaction with the process, must face a trade-off between minimizing the cost of having a customer wait and the cost of providing good service. A total cost model is presented for determining how long a customer should wait when these two conflicting cost components are considered. An integral part of this model includes a measure of customer satisfaction with waiting time which is used to develop a waiting cost function. The model is then applied to a major fast food chain, using data collected at several locations. Analysis of the data reveals that the “ideal” waiting time for this firm is significantly less than the current corporate waiting time policy. Thus, as indicated by the model, a corporate policy change is recommended to provide much faster service. The adoption of such a policy would result in increased labor costs, and would simultaneously increase the firm's overall profits. Although appearing contradictory, increases in current labor costs and long-term profits are both possible when management takes the long-range perspective suggested in this paper.     

Dynamic Customer Acquisition and Retention Management

In consulting, finance, and other service industries, customers represent a revenue stream, and must be acquired and retained over time. In this paper, we study the resource allocation problem of a profit maximizing service firm that dynamically allocates its resources toward acquiring new clients and retaining unsatisfied existing ones. The interaction between acquisition and retention in our model is reflected in the cash constraint on total expected spending on acquisition and retention in each period. We formulate this problem as a dynamic program in which the firm makes decisions in both acquisition and retention after observing the current size of its customer base and receiving information about customers in danger of attrition, and we characterize the structure of the optimal acquisition and retention strategy. We show that when the firm's customer base size is relatively low, the firm should spend heavily on acquisition and try to retain every unhappy customer. However, as its customer base grows, the firm should gradually shift its emphasis from acquisition to retention, and it should also aim to strike a balance between acquisition and retention while spending its available resources. Finally, when the customer base is large enough, it may be optimal for the firm to begin spending less in both acquisition and retention. We also extend our analysis to situations where acquisition or retention success rate, as a function of resources allocation, is uncertain and show that the optimal acquisition and retention policy can be surprisingly complex. However, we develop an effective heuristic for that case. This paper aims to provide service managers some analytical principles and effective guidelines on resource allocation between these two significant activities based on their firm's customer base size.     

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.     

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。     

A Queueing Theoretic Approach to Set Staffing Levels in Time‐Dependent Dual‐Class Service Systems*

This article addresses the optimal staffing problem for a nonpreemptive priority queue with two customer classes and a time‐dependent arrival rate. The problem is related to several important service settings such as call centers and emergency departments where the customers are grouped into two classes of “high priority” and “low priority,” and the services are typically evaluated according to the proportion of customers who are responded to within targeted response times. To date, only approximation methods have been explored to generate staffing requirements for time‐dependent dual‐class services, but we propose a tractable numerical approach to evaluate system behavior and generate safe minimum staffing levels using mixed discrete‐continuous time Markov chains (MDCTMCs). Our approach is delicate in that it accounts for the behavior of the system under a number of different rules that may be imposed on staff if they are busy when due to leave and involves explicitly calculating delay distributions for two customer classes. Ultimately, we embed our methodology in a proposed extension of the Euler method, coined Euler Pri, that can cope with two customer classes, and use it to recommend staffing levels for the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust (WAST).     

效率参数不可观测下的SaaS云外包合约研究

客户企业在实施SaaS（软件即服务,Software as a Service）云外包时,面临因效率参数不可观测所引发的云服务提供商（Cloud Service Provider,CSP）道德风险问题。针对该问题,以激励机制设计方法为基础,以客户企业期望收益最大化为目标,在服务产出为公共信息,而效率参数信息为CSP私人信息下研究如何通过外包合约的设计诱使CSP显示出真实的信息,并付出最优的努力水平。研究表明,最优努力水平、服务报酬支付是效率参数的减函数;客户企业向CSP提供的最优合约可以用线性合约表示;在由固定服务报酬及收益共享构成的线性合约中,效率参数与固定服务报酬支付正相关,与收益共享系数负相关。     

面向顾客投诉：服务补救和组织学习

本文结合国内外先进企业在售后服务上的经验,提出了面向顾客投诉的有效补救措施,并且指出,企业可以通过顾客投诉的数据资料,结合其它信息,促进企业内各个层面的不断改进,从而实现有效的组织学习。     

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.     

Managing Internet Product Returns: A Focus on Effective Service Operations

Product returns present one of the biggest operational challenges in the world of Internet retailing due to the sheer volume and cost of processing returns. But returns also represent an often‐missed opportunity to manage customer relationships and build customer loyalty to the retailer. Based upon data from a survey of 464 customers of five different Internet retailers, this article explores how firms' returns management systems affect loyalty intentions. We draw upon extant literature in the fields of Internet retailing, service quality, supply chain management, and customer satisfaction/loyalty to develop a model and a set of hypotheses relating ten latent variables in the service returns offering area. Our resulting structural equation model provides evidence of the impact of the returns management system upon customer loyalty intentions. The model also identifies effects on loyalty intentions arising from customers' satisfaction with, and perceptions of, the value of the returns service offered. These findings will help inform managers' choices regarding investment in the returns management system as an element of service quality improvement and a potential means of improved profitability. In addition, this study's empirical exploration and testing of a returns management model in the Internet retailing environment is a contribution to the currently underrepresented body of academic literature linking marketing and supply chain management in the context of end consumers.     

OPTIMAL RENEGING DECISIONS IN A G/M/1 QUEUE

This paper is an analysis of the optimal reneging decision of a customer who joins a G/M/1 queue, having imperfect information about the queue. It is assumed that a customer receives a constant, known reward upon completion of service and incurs a cost proportional to the time spent in the queueing system. It is also assumed that a customer revises his estimated remaining waiting time in the system based on his initial estimate and observations of service time. Thus, a customer will renege when his estimated cost of remaining in the system exceeds his reward. The probability of a customer reneging during any given service is determined. Finally, it is shown how this probability varies with the parameters of the customer.     

Service Personnel,Technology, and Their Interaction in Influencing Customer Satisfaction*

Managing both the technologies and the personnel needed for providing high‐quality, multichannel customer support creates a complex and persistent operational challenge. Adding to this difficulty, it is still unclear how service personnel and these new communication technologies interact to influence the customer's perceptions of the service being provided. Motivated by both practical importance and inconsistent findings in the academic literature, this exploratory research examines the interaction of media richness, represented by three different technology contexts (telephone, e‐mail, and online chat), with six customer service representative (CSR) characteristics and their influences on customer satisfaction. Using a large‐sample customer survey data set, the article develops a multigroup structural equation model to analyze these interactions. Results suggest that CSR characteristics influence customer service satisfaction similarly across all three technology‐mediated contexts. Of the characteristics studied, service representatives contribute to customer satisfaction more when they exhibit the characteristics of thoroughness, knowledgeableness, and preparedness, regardless of the richness of the medium used. Surprisingly, while three other CSR characteristics studied (courtesy, professionalism, and attentiveness) are traditionally believed to be important in face‐to‐face encounters, they had no significant impact on customer satisfaction in the technology‐mediated contexts studied. Implications for both practitioners and researchers are drawn from the results and future research opportunities are discussed.     

A Service Provider's Elicitation of Its Customers’ Demand Distributions by a Price Mechanism

In a service environment a service provider needs to determine the amount and kinds of capacity to meet customers’ needs over many periods. To make good decisions, she needs to know the probability distribution of her customers’ demand in each period. We study a situation in which customers’ demand for a given service is random in each period, but inelastic, or modeled well by this assumption, and cannot be delayed to the next period. This article presents a mechanism that allows a service provider to learn the distribution of a customer's demand by offering him a set of contracts through which he can partially prepay for future service for a reduced cost for units of service based on anticipated needs. We describe the form of a set of contracts that will cause the customer to reveal his demand distribution as he minimizes his expected costs. To justify the effort of organizing and offering contracts, we present an application that demonstrates the cost savings to the service provider with better capacity planning using the truthfully elicited distribution.