Services Marketing

Customers’ Role in
Service Delivery
 Role of Customers

Customers also can affect Gap 3 –

the gap between
‘Customer Driven Service Design & Standards’
and Service Delivery.
They may reduce or widen this gap
by their words and actions.
 Expected service
Customer

Gap 5
Perceived service

External
Service delivery communications
Gap 1 Gap 4 to customers
Gap 3
Customer driven
service designs &
standards

Gap 2
Service
Company perceptions of provider
customer expectations
Importance of Customers in
Service Delivery
Unique role played by customers
 Participation perhaps inevitable
 Often present in ‘service factory’
 Interact with employees
 Interact with other customers
 Affect other employees / customers
 May also participate in service
“manufacture” and delivery
Customers may widen Gap 3
 Why?

Because
 Customers often lack understanding
of their roles
 They’re unwilling or unable to perform
their roles
 They’re not “rewarded” or compensated
 Other customers interfere
 Market segments are incompatible
Levels of Customer Participation
Levels of Customer Participation (1)

Low: customer presence required

 Standardized products
 Service independent of any individual buyer
 Payment may be only input
 B2C: Air travel; fast food
 B2B: Pest control; cleaning of office / uniforms
Levels of Customer Participation (2)

Moderate: customer inputs required

 Buyer customizes standard service
 Service requires purchase by buyer
 Consumer inputs needed for service
 B2C: Tailoring; hair cut; medical check up
 B2B: Freight transport; advertising agency
services; payroll processing
Levels of Customer Participation (3)

High: customers co-create the service

 Active customer participation guides service
“production” and delivery
 Service cannot be created without customer’s
purchase & participation
 Customer inputs essential to co-create
 B2C: Marriage counselling; weight reduction
 B2B: Management consulting; IT installation;
training programmes
Presence of Other Customers

Effects on service delivery & perception

 Enhance: music fests, sports, resorts
 Detract: by unacceptable behaviour,
overuse, incompatibility, delaying
Roles Played by Customers
Three Roles of Customers in Service Delivery

Service Delivery

Productive Contributors to
Competitors
Resources Quality, Value,
Satisfaction
Customers as Productive Resources

“Partial employees”
 Self service counters, airlines, web banking,
IVR enquiries
 One view: isolate from delivery system
to reduce quality fluctuations
 Another: maximize contribution to
service creation
Contributors to Quality,
Value, Satisfaction

 Motivated by the desire to maximize

own satisfaction
 Health care, fitness, education
 Adds to “satisfaction perception”
Customers as Competitors

Eliminate service provider

 Opposite of outsourcing
 Factors: expertise, resources, time,
economic rewards, psychic rewards,
trust, control
 Factors

 Expertise: specific skills & knowledge

 Resources: people, space, materials…
 Cost of time
 Economic rewards: monetary costs
 Psychic rewards: satisfaction, enjoyment etc
 Trust: in self versus external service providers
 Degree of control
Strategies for Enhancing
Customer Participation
Strategies for Enhancing Customer
Participation

Effective
Define Customer Recruit, Educate,
Customer jobs Participation Reward

Manage
Customer
Mix
Define Customer’s Jobs

 Helping self
 Helping others
 Promoting the company
 Not everyone wants to participate
Recruit, Educate, Reward

 Recruit the right customers

 Educate, train to perform
 Reward for contributions
 Avoid negative outcomes
Manage Customer Mix

Compatibility management
 Homogenize customer mix
 Manage physical environment
 Manage customer-to-customer service
encounters – enhance satisfying ones,
minimize dissatisfying encounters