Services Marketing

Everything on the class test, and where it is answered

Zeithaml chapter 8, Service Innovation and Design, in three parts. Open a part to see what sits under it; every line is a link to the section that covers it.

Zeithaml, Chapter 8 · part 1 of 3

What service innovation is

The slides give two definitions. Learn the first one as the formal one.

The four examples from class, each one a service that used to need a visit:

The book's opening case book only is PetSmart. It began as a warehouse-style pet store squeezed on margins by Walmart, then moved into grooming, training, day care and PetsHotels under a vision of "total lifetime care" for pets. Services became its growth and profit engine, but only after new store layouts and its own 400-hour groomer training programme.

Challenges of service innovation

Why is innovating a service harder than innovating a product? Services are intangibleCannot be touched, seen or tried out before buying.Why a service is hard to describe, and why words fail. and process based, so they are hard to describe. They are often cocreatedMade together by the provider and the customer as the service happens.A haircut needs you in the chair, telling the stylist what you want. with the customer, so no two deliveries are quite the same. Because a service cannot be touched or tried out in advance, people fall back on describing it in words, and words alone carry four risks.

Important considerations for service innovation

Because services are intangible, process based and built on interaction between customers and employees, service innovation is not the same as product innovation. Two things need attention.

Involve customers and employees

Customers know their needs and frustrations. Employees know the practical difficulty of delivering the service. Both should be involved when a service is designed or improved, because both take part in it.

The book adds book only that contact employees are physically and psychologically close to customers, so they are good at spotting unmet needs. Customers can go further than giving input: they can help design the concept and the process, especially where they carry out part of the service themselves. Bank of America tested new branch services as live experiments with real customers in its Atlanta branches before rolling them out.

Employ service design thinking and techniques

The book book only sets out five principles that sit at the centre of service design thinking.

Service designers talk about the customer journey, touchpointsThe points where the customer comes into contact with the firm: a desk, an app screen, a phone call.A blueprint marks each one., personasMade-up but realistic profiles of typical customers, used to design for real needs.One of the service designer's terms., cocreation and service prototypes. Their methods include customer journey mapping, storytelling, service safaris, shadowing, storyboards and service role-play. The main technique is service blueprinting, which is part 3 of this guide.

Types of service innovation

New services are not all new to the same degree. The slides list five types of service offering innovation, running from the most new to the least.

Other kinds of service innovation book only

Innovation does not only mean changing the offering. The book names three more routes.

Zeithaml, Chapter 8 · part 2 of 3

The nine stages

The steps follow new product development for goods, adapted for services. They split into two phases. Front-end planning decides which service concept to develop; implementation brings it to life. Between stages sit checkpoints, drawn as stop signs: the idea must meet that stage's test or it is dropped.

Managers say the weakest part is the fuzzy front endThe early planning stages of innovation, before the concept is fixed.Fuzzy because it is still abstract and unclear., called fuzzy because it is abstract, and even more so for an intangible, variable service. In practice the process is not always linear book only: steps can overlap, run at the same time, or be skipped for a simple service. This is flexible product developmentRunning development stages in parallel or skipping some, instead of strictly one after another.Common in fast-moving technology industries., common in technology industries. Even then, the checkpoints should still be passed.

Front-end planning

Implementation

Prototype testing at the Mayo Clinic book only

Mayo's Center for Innovation is a working clinic where new service ideas are tried on real patients and doctors, with their consent. Long check-in queues were the problem: the first self check-in kiosk prototype was a sheet of paper standing in for a screen, then a dead screen, then a working touch screen, with feedback from patients and staff at every version.

Finding growth opportunities book only

To shape a new service strategy, the book uses Ansoff's matrix. Grow with current or new customers, using existing or new services. The matrix sparks ideas, and later works as an idea screen if the firm picks one or two cells to focus on.

Zeithaml, Chapter 8 · part 3 of 3

What a service blueprint is

The book's wording: a picture or map of the customer experience and the service system, drawn so everyone involved can understand it objectively, whatever their role. It shows four things at once: the process of delivery, the points of customer contact, the roles of customers and employees, and the visible evidence of the service. Words alone fail for the reasons in part 1; a blueprint replaces the words with a picture. It is most useful at the design stage.

Blueprint components

Four action areas, with the physical evidence above them and three lines between them. The labels and symbols are not rigid; the flexibility is one of the technique's strengths.

Blueprint examples from class

Read each one left to right along the customer row, then follow the arrows down to see who and what makes each step happen.

A restaurant

The guest sees all eight of their own steps, but the kitchen, the cleaning and the payment system do work no guest sees. Notice the arrow that goes up: the server confirming satisfaction feeds back into the guest's dining.

A hospital visit

Here the support row is busy: every desk the patient visits sets off paperwork, database entry, insurance processing or billing behind the line of visibility.

The book's own examples book only are an express mail delivery, where the customer sees only three steps (calling, handing over the package, receiving it) while a long chain of dispatch, sorting and flights stays hidden, and an overnight hotel stay, where the guest is far more involved and meets many different frontline staff.

Blueprints for self-service technology book only

For a website or kiosk with no employees, the contact-person rows are dropped and the area above the line of visibility becomes onstage technology actions: what the screen shows and does. If a service mixes people and technology, like airline check-in at a kiosk with staff handling bags, the blueprint keeps a technology row and both employee rows. The book's DVD rental kiosk example shows a customer calling customer service about a scratched disc, a backstage contact person action.

Why a service blueprint is important

Reading a blueprint book only

How you read it depends on what you want to learn.

Building a service blueprint

Drawing a blueprint is a team job, never one person's: it needs people from several functions and information from customers.

Blueprinting in action: ARAMARK book only

Repeat visits to ARAMARK's Lake Powell houseboat resort were falling. A photo and video blueprint showed managers that guests had to work hard on holiday: shopping, carrying food down a steep bank, anchoring and cooking. New services followed, from carrying bags to the boat up to onboard chefs and hired captains. Complaints fell by 50 percent and repeat business rose 12 percent.

The lists you must be able to write out from memory

Cover the answer, say the list out loud, then open it to check. Everything expands when printed.