How to successfully manage people for service advantage
Why service employees are the mostimportant factor for both customers and service providers
Frontline employees are a key input for delivering serviceexcellence and competitive advantage. Customers’ encounter with service staff is probably the most important aspect of a service. While from the firm’s perspective, the service levels and the way service is delivered by the frontline personnel is a key for variation and competitive advantage. Frontline employees:
• Is a core part of the service. Often, the service employees is the most visible element of the service, delivers the service, and significantly determines service quality.
• Represents the service firm and brand. Frontline employees are the service firm with a brand. From a customer’s perspective, they are the firm.
• Affects sales and productivity. Service employees are of great importance for generating sales and determining frontline operations productivity.
Frontline work is difficult and stressful because they often have conflicting roles
• Organization/Client Conflict. Frontline employees need to both delight customers, which takes time, and maintain/improve productivity that requires to be efficient.
• Person/Role Conflict. Service employees could face conflicts between what their roles requires and their own personalities.
• Inter-client Conflict. There are always conflicts between customers and it, in most cases, is the service employees have to be the judge. And it is almost impossible to satisfy both sides.
How to get the right human resources management
• Hire the right people. The right people are your most important asset.
• Be the preferred Employer. A firm has to first gain the most talented people. Therefore a firm needs to provide competitive offers and packages in order to win the best candidates.
• Select the right people. Allocate personnel to positions that most suite them.
• Use tools to identify the best candidates.
 -Multiple structured interviews.
 -Observe behaviors.
 -Personality tests.
 -Realistic preview of the job.
• Train service personnel actively.
 -The organizational culture, purpose and strategy.
 -Interpersonal and Technical skills.
 -Product/Service Knowledge.
• Empower the front line. It allows seamless and efficient service recovery from a failure.
• Build high-performance service-delivery team.
Service leader ship and culture
Charismatic/transformational leadership could inspire employees’ creativity and boost their energy during work.
CUSTOMER COMPLAINING BEHAVIOR
When a customer is not satisfied about the service he/she received, he/she might complain about it in a few ways.
Customer Response Options to Service Failures
• Public action (including complaining to the firm or to a third party, such as a customer advocacy group, customer affairs or regulatory agency, or even civil or criminal courts).
• Private action (including abandoning the supplier).
• No action.
Why Do Customers Complain?
• Obtain restitution or compensation
• Vent their anger.
• Help to improve the service.
• For altruistic reasons.
CUSTOMER RESPONSES TO EFFECTIVE SERVICE RECOVERY
Service recovery means the efforts by a firm to fix a problem occurred with a service failure and regain a customer’s goodwill. It is of great importance of gaining/regaining customer satisfaction.
PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE SERVICE RECOVERY SYSTEMS
When complaints are solved satisfactorily, the customers tend to remain loyal. However, a firm should always try to avoid a service failure at the first place.
Make It Easy for Customers to Give Feedback
Many customers are reluctant to give feedback even when they don’t feel happy or satisfied with the service for a variety of reasons like the inconvenience of feedback system, doubtfulness about the system itself. So it is very important to create efficient feedback channels for customers.
Enable Effective Service Recovery
• Be Proactive. The ideal case would be recovering service even before a customer complains it.
• Be Planned. Plans for recovering service should be developed in advance, especially the ones that happen again and again. So frontline staff know how to deal with it when it happen.
• Skills must be taught. Effective training would prepare frontline employees to face unexpected cases and properly resolve the problems.
• Requires empowered employees. Empowered employees are able to recover a service failure efficiently and seamlessly since there is no need to ask for other authorities for permission.
Reference: SERVICES MARKETING People, Technology, Strategy by Christopher Lovelock and Jochen Wirtz