Customer Service Processes

What does customer want?

participation happiness

healthy
true caring

offered service

?
How to define a service?
Service is usually immaterial, process / series of functions and is
produced and consumed at the same time. Customer is involved in
service process when consuming it.

It is important to define
• benefits for the customer – customer orientation
• combination of core, support and supplementary services needed
• estimated market value
• description of the service process
• partnership possibilities (service packages)
Service and customer value
• Customers are not interested in just the product – they are interested
in the service process producing the product
• The customer defines the service quality and the value of the service
process
• Customer´s acceptance depends on the value of the service process
for the customer
How to define a process?

Process is a group of actions connected to each other

and resources needed to make inputs to outputs
 Syöte Input Process Output
Supplier Customer

Input
Continue..
In a process you are always doing something – intended to produce
customer added value – this transaction happens many times
 Service process
You have to know what is inside the service but you also have to
know how to produce service and how to you carry out that
service
(process flowchart)
Food service processes

Need and Consuming Pays the Gives

interest for the service, service feedback
CUSTOMER the service enjoys food for the
and service service

Purchasing and storage process Customer

CORE PROCESSES service
process
Food production process

Catering services process

Production Financial Premises Personnel Feedback,

SUPPORT PROCESSES planning administration administration administration control and
evaluation

Salminen, K. 2007
Improving the process
• Improving the coordination of the functions (needed to make things
done)
• The process improvement equipment is focuced on the interface
between different departments and functions
Lack of coordination
Lack of coordination
• Insufficient resources
– storage
– lines
– overlapping work
– hassle, problems in communication
 Improving the process

Improvement
challenges

Degree of
Number of actors dissimilation of actors

Complexity of correlation

- Differencies in vision
- Different kind of working
methods
- Different way to
communicate and to think
In service process you have to estimate

- What are the stages of this service?

- In what order you have to do those stages?
- Who are participating in different phases?
- What kind of resources are needed?
- Are there some stages which are shared with other services – how
does this process connect to other processes?
In service process you have to
estimate
- Serviceprocess from the customer´s point of view
- Critical control points of the process
- Will customers have added value if we are quicker and our
availability is better?
- Does the service production need live contact with customer, staff,
premises or equipment?
- Can we do something online?
- How do we differ from our competitors?
- Do we have something unique in some point of the service process?
Back office / support
• We also need some back office services / support
– Information saving
– Information checking
– Invoicing
• These functions are not necessarily visible to the customers but they
have a great influence on fluency, cost and quality of the service
Food service processes

Need and Consuming Pays the Gives

interest for the service, service feedback
CUSTOMER the service enjoys food for the
and service service

Purchasing and storage process Customer

CORE PROCESSES service
process
Food production process

Catering services process

Production Financial Premises Personnel Feedback,

SUPPORT PROCESSES planning administration administration administration control and
evaluation

Salminen, K. 2007
Service standardization
• Improving service / parts of service to be duplicated or repeated by
using e.g. technology or systematic method
• Standardized service
– is always the same to the customer
– is efficient, profitable and homogenous
• Standardization can be focuced on the contents of the whole supply
of services or on the production or consumption of some parts of the
process
What you are typically measuring in
service industry
• Economical success( profitability, cost-efficiency)
• Customer benefits (customer satisfaction, customer value)
• Operations´ quality (waiting time, correctness)
• Production volume and quality (how many customer we have served in
different customer segments)
• Personnel know-how( formal competence, experties)
• Reputation ( reputation as an employer, customer loyalty when the
number of competitors has ingreased)
• Work well-being/work satisfaction( staff inquiry, amount of sick leaves)
• New business innovations( sale of new srevice products, new
customerships)
• https://hbr.org/video/3633937148001/the-explainer-the-balanced-
scorecard
Intrafocus
https://www.intrafocus.com/2016/06/balanced-
scorecard-example/
https://www.clearpointstrategy.com/full-exhaustive-
balanced-scorecard-example/