Rationalizing the customer service process

Satisfying customers is the best method for organizations to gain competitive advantage. To deliver quality services to customers, we need to understand their expectations. Given accurate understanding of expectations, customer service, which can be regarded as a process that consists of several steps to satisfy customer requirements, should be redesigned to match them. This research intends to suggest a customer service rationalization method which consists of service process model, performance simulation, and contingent change guidelines. For the validation test, we compared the proposed method with other service models and applied it to several real cases. From the applications, we found that the proposed method could reduce the risk of service redesign projects by enabling the better understanding of the performance simulation data from the proposed change alternatives. Finally, we discussed the applications of the method and the implications of this research. Introduction Organization can be viewed as a set of processes (Galbraith, 1993; Mackenzie, 1989) which are structured to satisfy customers, internal or external. To deliver quality services to customers, however, we need to understand their expectations (Shostack, 1984). Given accurate understanding of expectations, customer service should be designed to match them. Here, customer service means those activities that occur at the interface between customers and server organization, other than proactive selling, aiming for customer satisfaction and operational efficiency (LaLonde and Zinszer, 1976; Lovelock, 1996; Rakowski, 1981-82). We can regard customer service as a process that consists of actual steps to satisfy customer requirements. For analyzing customer expectations and designing customer service, we need a customer service process model. A good service description with the process model is the first step for organizations to gain competitive advantage by satisfying customer needs (Innis and LaLonde, 1994). Accordingly, better service design provides the key to market success and to growth (Shostack, 1984). Unlike manufacturing, however, service industries typically do not apply rigorous process design standards prior to introducing new services (Fisk et al., 1993). The service description does not guarantee that the service will be The research register for this journal is available at http://www.mcbup.com/research_registers The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at http://www.emerald-library .com/ft Currently Hee-Woong Kim ([email protected]) works at the Consulting Division of LGEDS in Seoul, Korea.