Richard B. Chase

The Customer Contact Approach to Services: Theoretical Bases and Practical Extensions

This paper reviews the underlying theory of the customer contact approach to services and suggests specific ways in which this approach can be applied to a wide range of service systems. The approach holds that the potential efficiency of a service system is a function of the degree of customer contact entailed in the creation of the service product. Based upon this conceptualization, a number of propositions about high contact systems are identified and some simple heuristics for service system design and operation are proposed. Other approaches to operations management in services are reviewed and suggestions for further development of the contact approach are offered.

Antecedents of New Service Development Effectiveness: An Exploratory Examination of Strategic Operations Choices

This article examines the strategic process of new service development (NSD). The authors empirically explore the strategic influence of team-based organizational structure, NSD process design, and information technology (IT) choices on the speed and effectiveness of NSD efforts. Several literature-based relationships are tested with a recursive path model using a multi-industry sample of U.S. service organizations. Most results for the service sector are similar to those found in manufacturing: (a) NSD cross-functional team structures directly influence the effectiveness of the firm’s NSD efforts, (b) more formalized NSD processes indirectly influence the firm’s ability to develop new services by increasing the speed of NSD, and (c) IT choices directly affect both the speed of the NSD process and the general effectiveness of the firm’s NSD activities. Contrary to expectations, no direct relationship between the use of cross-functional team structures and the speed of NSD was found.

Human issues in service design

Abstract A heightened awareness of the fundamental behavioral science principles underlying human interactions can be translated directly into service design. Service encounter design can be approached with the same depth and rigor found in goods production. Service encounters can be designed to enhance the customer’s experience during the process and their recollection of the process after it is completed. This paper summarizes the key concepts from a panel discussion at the DSI National Meeting in Orlando in November 2000. The panel brought together a number of leading academic researchers to investigate current research questions relating to the human side of the design, development and deployment of new service technologies. Human issues from the customer and service provider vantage are illustrated and challenges to researchers for exploring this perspective are presented.

Restaurant Revenue Management Applying Yield Management to the Restaurant Industry

In principle, restaurant operators should be able to apply the time-based philosophy of revenue management to restaurant meals. To do so, however, requires a revision in the way most restaurateurs traditionally have viewed sales. Most restaurants track item contribution margin, sales per server, revenue per day part, or similar operating ratios. A different type of measure, revenue per available seat-hour, integrates the duration of the meal as a factor in the revenue calculation. Certain elements of current-day restaurant practice, such as differential pricing (e.g., early bird specials, AARP discounts), promoting special events (such as wine tastings on off nights), and managing table turnover carry the seeds of revenue management, but few restaurants have established the necessary strategic approach to assemble those tactics into a coherent revenue-management strategy. This article seeks only to establish a framework for such a strategy, and not to set a practical road map for its execution.

The Strategic Levers of Yield Management

Yield management, controlling customer demand through the use of variable pricing and capacity management to enhance profitability, has been examined extensively in the services literature. Most of this work has been tactical and mathematical rather than managerial. In this article, the authors suggest that a broader view of yield management is valuable to both traditional and nontraditional users of the approach. Central to this broader view is the recognition of how different combinations ofpricing and duration can be used as strategic levers to position service firms in their markets and the identification of tactics by which management can deploy these strategic levers. The authors also propose that further development of yield management requires that when the service is delivered be treated as a design variable that should be as carefully managed as the service process itself.

A classification and evaluation of research in operations management

Abstract It is important that the first issue of a new journal devoted to research in a given subject area examine the general nature of research in the field at present, and indicate what type of research might be beneficially undertaken in the field in the future. It is also desirable for a new journal to consider the ways in which it will judge the general quality of its articles in the aggregate, relative to established journals in similar disciplines. That is, what criteria can and should be used, say five years hence to determine if the journal is a strong one? It is the purpose of this paper to consider these distinct, but interrelated questions. This will be done by classifying some recent OM research, commenting on what appear to be broad areas where more work might be done, and then suggesting some measures we might want to think about for evaluating papers published by the JOM in the future.

Uncertainty Avoidance as a Moderator of the Relationship between Perceived Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction

The extent to which members of different cultures vary in their reactions to uncertainty can have a major impact on how perceived service quality affects customer satisfaction. This article addresses the issue of cultural differences in the context of business-to-business relationships. A study involving 303 Spanish, German, and Swedish business-to-business customers reveals that clients from cultures with a high degree of uncertainty avoidance were less satisfied than low-uncertainty avoidant clients when, as a result of a service defect, their service expectations were not met. In light of the tolerance zone concept, the finding suggests a narrower range of acceptable outcomes for high-uncertainty avoidance cultures. Important management implications of this study relate to service quality efforts, which should be explicitly designed to reflect intercultural differences in operations planning and training of service personnel.

A Sociotechnical Analysis of the Integrated Factory

This article presents a sociotechnical systems (STS) analysis of the integratedfactory. The authors discuss the new technology and new manufacturing methods, describe the organizational characteristics of thefully integrated factory, andpresent their visions of what the technical and social systems of such factories will be. The article presents strategies for managing the automation offactories and concludes with a time frame for organizational change.

Service Quality Deployment: Quality Service by Design

The service-dominated and product-dominated sectors are just awakening from a service slumber to find a new generation of quality activities that call for systematic approaches to design and improvement. This paper proposes a methodological framework called Service Quality Deployment, to enable the creation of quality services by cross-functional efforts geared to incorporating the customer’s views. The approach is a synthesis of the Japanese Quality Function Deployment design system and the SERVQUAL instrument for measuring service quality. It is customer-driven in that perceived quality is directly coupled to the factors that affect the corresponding service quality attributes. The approach lends itself to the redesign of existing services for continuousimprovement in quality, and to designing-in quality in new services.

A Robust Optimization Approach for Improving Service Quality

Delivering high quality service during the service encounter is central to competitive advantage in service organizations. However, achieving such high quality while controlling for costs is a major challenge for service managers. The purpose of this paper is to present an approach for addressing this challenge. The approach entails developing a model linking service process operational variables to service quality metrics to provide guidelines for service resource allocation. The approach enables the service operations manager to take specific actions toward service quality improvement, in light of the costs involved. A novel feature of the approach is the development of robust optimization models, which provide optimal operational guidelines while accounting for uncertainty in the models parameters. We demonstrate the applicability of the approach in a large health care facility.