LESSON6
Service Process- is a series of activities performed to deliver a
service to customers. The term is often used in manufacturing
and logistics to describe how raw materials are transformed
into finished products, but it is mostly used in customer-facing
activities, such as providing professional services, delivering
food orders, etc.
-The service process begins with identifying customer needs
and ends with the customer’s satisfaction. It includes all the
steps in between, such as planning, designing, producing,
shipping, and delivering the finished product or service, and
then after-sales support and feedback.
-BACKBONE OF THE BUSINESS
FIVE (5) MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF SERVICE PROCESS:
1. Divergence: When service providers deviate from
standard service to meet different customer needs, it is
called divergence. With divergence, customers can get the
specific service they need, rather than generic.
2. Complexity: Service processes with many steps or
interactions can be complex. The process should be simple
in order to provide the right expectations to customers.
3. Service Location: Services can be provided in-person,
online, or by phone. Consider the service location for easy
access.
4. Customer Participation and Interaction: Customers need
to be involved in the process to receive the service. This
interaction can happen in person, online, or over the
phone.
5. The Service: The service itself is an essential part of the
process. Customers are paying for it, and it needs to be on
par with their expectations.
SEVEN (7) STEP PROCESS FOR MANAGING SERVICE
PROCESSES:
1. STEP 1 FLOWCHARTING:
refers to creating a diagram that shows the steps in a
process and their relation. The flowchart outlines all steps
involved in the process.
-Businesses can gain valuable insights by looking at the
process from a high-level perspective and seeing how all
steps fit together. It shows where improvements can be
made and help train new employees.
2. STEP 2 SERVICE BLUEPRINTING
The service blueprint shows how the customer interacts
with the service process. It includes steps in the process
and shows what happens at each step.
-The service blueprint can help identify potential problems
and areas where improvements can be made. It will also
help organizations understand how the customer interacts
with the process and their experience.
3. STEP 3 IDENTIFYING FAILURE POINTS
A failure point is a place where issues can occur. Failure can
be caused by human error, equipment failure, etc.
-Identifying failure points is key to improving the service
process. It also helps in creating contingency plans for
when things go wrong.
Examples of failure can be a lack of:
-Staff to handle customer demands
-The right tools to finish the job
-A clear understanding of the process
4. STEP 4 FAILURE PROOFING
Failure proofing making changes to the process to stop
failures from happening.
There are different ways to failure proof a service process.
Some common methods include:
-Adding additional staff to handle customer demands.
-Providing more training to employees.
-Installing better equipment or tools.
-Creating clearer instructions for the process.
5. SET 5 SETTING SERVICE TARGETS
Service targets are goals that businesses want to achieve.
They can be customer satisfaction, quality, speed of
service, etc.
-Setting service targets is important because it helps track
progress and ensure that goals are being met. It also helps
to identify areas where modifications are required.
6. SET 6 SERVICEE PROCESS REDESIGN
next step is to redesign the process to meet those targets.
Here, processes are redesigned to improve quality, speed
of service, customer satisfaction, etc.
-This step can change:
-The way tasks are performed
-The order of tasks
-The tools and equipment used
-The training provided to employees
-The customer interfaces.
7. STEP 7 MANAGING CUSTOMERS EFFECTIVELY
When it comes to providing service, managing customers
is the key. Customers can be valuable assets or liabilities.
It is important to know how to manage them effectively,
so they become an asset.
Below are steps to follow to manage customers effectively.
Recruitment and Selection: Recruit people with the right skills
and attitude for the job.
Job Analysis: Understand the job and customers’
requirements.
On-boarding: Train customers on how to use the service.
Coaching and Feedback: Provide coaching and feedback to
help customers improve their performance. Give them
opportunities to develop their skills further.
Motivate the Best Performer: Recognize and reward good
performance. Help them see how their efforts contribute to
the company’s success.
Appraisal: Review customer performance regularly. Take
action to improve their performance if necessary.
ELEMENTS OF THE SERVICE PROCESS:
People: The people in a service process play an essential role
in creating a positive customer experience. They need to be
friendly and helpful, knowledgeable, and skilled to provide the
service.
Processes: The processes must be efficient, effective, and
designed with the customer in mind.
Physical Evidence: Physical evidence is anything that the
customer can see, touch or hear that provides them with
information about the service. It can include staff appearance,
display notes, service environment, etc.
DECISIONS REQUIRED FOR PLANNING A SERVICE PROCESS:
The Layout Design: The layout of the service facility plays an
important role in the efficiency and effectiveness of the service
process. The layout should be designed to meet the needs of
customers and employees.
Equipment: The service should use the right equipment to
serve the consumers.
The Organizational Structure: The service provider’s
organizational structure should be designed to meet the needs
of the service process.
Technology: The service process should use the right
technology to serve the consumers.
Training and Development Needs: Employees’ training and
development needs should be assessed and addressed in the
service process.
The Customer Service Policies: The customer service policies
should be designed to meet the needs of the customers and
the employees
CHALLENGES IN DESIGNING THE SERVICE PROCESS
There are four major challenges in designing the service
process in any organization that provides a service.
Oversimplification: Making the process too simple can lead to
inconsistency and errors.
Subjectivity: Service processes are often highly
subjective, and what works for one customer may not work for
another.
Incompleteness: The process accounts for all
possible customer interactions, not just the most
common ones.
Biased Interpretation: The people who design the service
process may have a biased interpretation of what the customer
wants or needs.
AN OPERATIONAL CLASSIFICATION OF SERVICE
>Tangible Actions
a. service for people-healthcare, restaurants, salons
b. service for goods-Transportation, repair and maintenance,
dry cleaning.
>Intangible Actions
a. service directed at people’s mind- education, theatres,
information services
b. services directed at intangible assets- banking, legal services,
insurance
The Service-System Design Matrix is a useful tool for
understanding the different elements of a service system. The
matrix establishes the relationship between three key factors
of service and how these factors relate to service production
and delivery.
The first factor is the degree of contact between the consumer
and the service provider;
the second factor is the opportunity for sales (the greater the
amount of contact; the greater the sales opportunity);
the third factor of the system is production efficiency (services
that require a large amount of customization and customer
input have lower efficiency).
customer once served will leave the line thus reducing overall
population of customers.
However finite population model also considers a scenario
where the customer after getting served will re-visit the service
counter for reservice, leading to increase in finite population.
An infinite population theory looks at a scenario where
subtractions and addition of customer do not impact overall
workability of the model.
Queuing System
To solve problems related to queue management it is
important to understand characteristics of the queue. Some
common queue situations are waiting in line for service in
super-market or banks, waiting for results from computer and
waiting in line for bus or commuter rail.
General premise of queue theory is that there are limited
resources for a given population of customers and addition of
a new service line will increase the cost aspect to the business.
A typical queue system has the following:
Arrival Process: As the name suggests an arrival process look
at different components of customer arrival. Customer arrival
could in single, batch or bulk, arrival as distribution of time,
arrival in finite population or infinite
population.
Service Mechanism: this looks at available resources for
customer service, queue structure to avail the service and
preemption of service. Underlining assumption here is that
service time of customers is independent of arrival
to the queue.
Queue Characteristics: this looks at selection of customers
from the queue for service. Generally, customer selection is
through first come first served method, random or last in first
out. As a result, customers leave if
the queue is long, customer leave if they have waited too long
or switch to
faster serving queue

The service system design matrix defines the relationship

between sales opportunity (factor two) and production
efficiency (factor three) measured against the amount of
human interactivity (factor one).

>The waiting line or queue management is a critical part of

service industry. It deals with issue of treatment of
customers in sense reduce wait time and improvement of
service.
>Queue management deals with cases where the customer
arrival is random; therefore, service rendered to them is also
random.
>A service organization can reduce cost and thus improve
profitability by efficient queue management. A cost is
associated with customer waiting in line and there is cost
associated with adding new counters to reduce service time.
>Queue management looks to address this trade off and offer
solutions to management.

Waiting Line Problems

Waiting in line is common phenomena in daily life, for example,
banks have customers in line to get service of teller, cars queue
up for re-filling, workers line up to access machine to complete
their job.
Therefore, management needs to work on formulae, which will
reduce wait time and create delighted customers without
incurring an additional cost. Generally, queue management
problems are trade off’s
situation between cost of time spent in waiting v/s cost of
additional capacity or machinery.
Finite and Infinite Population
In a waiting line scenario, there are cases of finite population
of customers and infinite population of customers.
A finite population scenario considers a fixed or limited size of
customers visiting the service counter. It also assumes that