DESIGNING AND MANAGING SERVICE PROCESSES

Processes are the architecture of services, describing the method and sequence in which service operating systems work and how they link together to create the service experiences and outcomes that customers will value. In high-contact services, customers themselves become an integral part of the operation. Badly designed processes, often result in slow, frustrating, and poor-quality service delivery and are likely to annoy customers. Similarly, poor processes make it difficult for frontline staff to do their jobs well, result in low productivity, and increase the risk of service failures.

One of the distinctive characteristics of many services is the way in which the customer is involved in their creation and delivery. But all too often, service design and « operational execution seem to ignore the customer perspective, with each step in the process being handled as a discrete event rather than being integrated into a seamless process.

Blueprinting Services To Create Valued Experiences And Productive OperationsIt's no easy task to design a service, especially one that must be delivered in real time with customers present in the service factory. To design services that are both satisfying for customers and operationally efficient, marketers and operations specialists need to work together. In high-contact services, in which employees interact directly with customers, it may also be appropriate to involve human resource experts in the design of service processes. A key tool in service design is blueprinting, a more sophisticated version of flowcharting.

The design for a new building or a ship is usually captured on architectural drawings called blueprints, so called because reproductions have traditionally been printed on special paper on which all the drawings and annotations appear in blue. These blueprints show what the product should look like and detail the specifications to which it should conform. In contrast to the physical architecture of a building, ship, or piece of equipment, service processes have a largely intangible structure. That makes them all the more difficult to visualize. The same is true of such processes as logistics, industrial engineering, decision theory, and computer systems analysis, each of which uses tech-niques similar to blueprinting to describe processes involving flows, sequences, rela-tionships, and dependencies.

Developing a BlueprintHow does one get started on developing a service blueprint? First, you need to identify all the key activities involved in creating and delivering the service in question; then you must specify the linkages between these activities. Initially, it is best to keep activities relatively aggregated in order to define the "big picture." Subsequently, “drilling down” to obtain a higher level of detail can refine any given activity. In an airline context, for instance, the passenger activity "boards aircraft" can be decomposed into steps: Wait for seat rows to be announced, give agent boarding pass for verification, walk down jetway, enter aircraft, let flight attendant verify boarding pass, find seat, stow carry-on bag, sit down.

A key characteristic of service blueprinting is that it distinguishes between what customers experience "front-stage" and the activities of employees and support processes "backstage," where customers can't see them. Between the two lies what is called the line of visibility. Operationally oriented businesses are sometimes so focused on managing backstage activities that they neglect to consider the customer's view of front-stage activities. Accounting firms, for instance, often have elaborately documented procedures and standards for how to conduct an audit properly but may lack clear standards for when and how to host a meeting with clients or how to answer the telephone when they call.

Service blueprints clarify the interactions between customers and employees and how these interactions are supported by additional activities and systems backstage. Because they show the interrelationships among employee roles, operational processes, information technology, and customer interactions, blueprints can facilitate the integra-tion of marketing, operations, and human resource management within a firm. There is no single, required way to prepare a service blueprint, but it's recommended that a consistent approach be used within any one organization. To illustrate blueprinting later in this chapter, we adapt and simplify an approach proposed by Jane Kingman-Brundage.

Blueprinting also gives managers the opportunity to identify potential process fail points, where there is a significant risk of things going wrong and diminishing service quality. Knowledge of such fail points enables managers to design procedures to avoid their occurrence or to prepare contingency plans (or both). Points where customers commonly have to wait can also be pinpointed. Standards can then be developed for execution of each activity, including times for completion of a task, maximum wait times between tasks, and scripts to guide interactions between staff members and customers.

Creating a Script for Employees and CustomersA well-planned script should provide a full description of the service encounter and can help identify potential or existing problems in a specific service process. By examining existing scripts, service managers may discover ways to modify the nature of customer and employee roles to improve service delivery, increase productivity, and enhance the nature of the customer's experience As service delivery procedures evolve in response to new technology or other factors, revised scripts may need to be developed

Blueprinting the Restaurant Experience: A Three-Act PerformanceTo illustrate blueprinting of a high-contact, people-processing service, we examine the experience of dinner for two at Chez Jean, an upscale restaurant that enhances its core food service with a variety of supplementary services (Figure below) A typical rule of thumb in full-service restaurants is that the cost of purchasing the food ingredients represents about 20-30 percent of the price of the meal The balance can be seen as the "fees" that the customer is willing to pay for renting a table and chairs in a pleasant setting, hiring the services of expert food preparers and their kitchen equipment, and providing serving staff to wait on them both inside and outside the dining room The key components of the blueprint, reading from top to bottom, are

1. Definition of standards for each front-stage activity (only a few examples specified in the figure)

2. Physical and other evidence for front-stage activities (specified for all steps)3. Principal customer actions (illustrated by pictures)4. Line of interaction5. Front-stage actions by customer-contact personnel6. Line of visibility7. Backstage actions by customer contact personnel8. Support processes involving other service personnel9. Support processes involving information technology

From left to right, the blueprint prescribes the sequence of actions over time Service performances can be likened to theater To emphasize the involvement of human actors in service delivery, we have followed the practice adopted by some service organizations of using pictures to illustrate each of the 14 principal steps involving our two customers (other steps are not shown), beginning with making a reservation and concluding with departure from the restaurant after the meal Like many high-contact services involving discrete transactions—as opposed to the continuous delivery found in, say, utility or insurance services—the "restaurant drama" can be divided into three 'acts," representing activities that take place before the core product is encountered, delivery of the core product (in this case, the meal), and subsequent activities while still involved with the service provider

The "stage," or servicescape, includes both the exterior and the interior of the restaurant Front-stage actions take place in a very visual environment, restaurants are often quite theatrical in their use of physical evidence (such as furnishings, decor, uniforms, lighting, and table settings) and may also use background music in their efforts to create a themed environment that matches their market positioning

Act I: Prologue and Introductory Scenes In this particular drama, Act I begins with making a reservation—an interaction conducted by telephone with an unseen employee, often hours or even days in advance of visiting the restaurant In theatrical terms, the telephone conversation might be likened to a radio drama, with impressions being created on the evidence of the respondent's voice, speed of response, and style of the conversation. On the customers' arrival at the restaurant, a valet parks their car, and they leave their coats in the coatroom, and they enjoy a drink in the bar area while waiting for their table. The act concludes with their being escorted to a table and seated.

These five steps constitute our customers' initial experience of the restaurant per-formance, with each involving an interaction with an employee—by phone or face to face. By the time the customers reach their table in the dining room they have been exposed to several supplementary services and have also encountered a sizable cast of characters, including five or more contact personnel, as well as many other customers.

Standards can be set for each service activity but should be based on a good understanding of guests' expectations. Below the line of visibility, the blueprint identifies

key actions that should take place to ensure that each front-stage step is performed in a manner that meets or exceeds those expectations. These actions include recording reservations, handling customers' coats, preparing and delivering food, maintaining facilities and equipment, training and assignment of staff for each task and using information technology to access, input, store, and transfer relevant data.

Act II: Delivery of the Core Product As the curtain rises on Act II, our customers are finally about to experience the core service they came for. For simplicity, we've con-densed the meal into just four scenes. In practice, reviewing the menu and placing the order are two separate activities: meantime, meal service proceeds on a course-by-course basis. If you were running a restaurant yourself, you would need to go into greater detail to identify all the steps involved in what is often a tightly scripted drama. Assuming that all goes well, the two guests will have an excellent meal, nicely served in a pleasant atmosphere, and perhaps a fine wine to enhance it. But if the restaurant fails to satisfy customer expectations during Act II, it's going to be in serious trouble. There are numerous potential fail points. Is the menu information complete? Is it intelligible? Is everything listed on the menu available this evening? Will explanations and advice be given in a friendly and non-condescending manner for guests who have questions about specific menu items or are unsure about which wine to order?

After our guests decide on their meals, they place their order with the server, who must then pass on the details to personnel in the kitchen, bar, and billing desk. Mistakes in transmitting information are a frequent cause of quality failures in many organizations. Bad handwriting or unclear verbal requests can lead to delivery of the wrong items altogether or of the right items incorrectly prepared.

In subsequent scenes of Act II, our customers may evaluate not only the quality of food and drink—the most important dimension of all—but also how promptly it is served (not too promptly, for that would suggest frozen foods cooked by microwave) and the style of service. A technically correct performance by the server can still be spoiled by such human failures as disinterested, cold ingratiating behavior or an overly casual manner.

Act III: The Drama Concludes The meal may be over, but much is still taking place both front-stage and backstage as the drama moves to its close. The core service has now been delivered, and we'll assume that our customers are happily digesting it. Act III should be short. The action in each of the remaining scenes should move smoothly, quickly, and pleasantly, with no shocking surprises at the end. We can hypothesize that in a North American environment; most customers' expectations would probably include the following. An accurate, intelligible bill is presented promptly as soon as the customer requests it. Payment is handled politely and expeditiously (with all major credit cards

acceptable): the guests are thanked for their patronage and invited to come again. Customers visiting the restrooms find them clean and properly supplied The right coats are promptly retrieved from the coatroom The customers car is brought to the door promptly, in the same condition as when it

was left the attendant thanks them again and bids them a good evening

Identifying Fail PointsRunning a good restaurant is a complex business, and much can go wrong A good blueprint should draw attention to points in service delivery where things are particularly at risk of going wrong From a customer perspective, the most serious fail points, marked in our blueprint by 0 are those that will result in failure to access or enjoy the core product They involve the reservation (Could the customer get through by phone? Was a table available at the desired time and date? Was the reservation recorded accurately?) and seating (Was a table available when promised?)

Because service delivery takes place over time, there is also the possibility of delays between specific actions, requiring the customers to wait Common locations for such waits are identified by Excessive waits will annoy customers In practice, every step in the process—both front stage and backstage—has some potential for failures and delays In fact, failures often lead directly to delays, reflecting orders that were never passed on or time spent correcting mistakes

David Maister coined the term OTSU (opportunity to screw up) to highlight the importance of thinking about all the things that might go wrong in delivering a particular type of service OTSUs are funny when you talk about them John Cleese made millions laugh with his portrayal of an inept hotel manager in the television series Fawltv Towers And Chevy Chase has entertained movie audiences for years by playing a customer tortured by inept, rude or downright cruel service employees However, customers don't always see the funny side when the joke is on them It's only by identifying all the possible OTSUs associated with a particular task that service managers can put together a delivery system explicitly designed to avoid such problems

Setting Service StandardsThrough both formal research and on-the-Job experience, service managers can learn the nature of customer expectations at each step in the process. Customers' expectations range across the zone of tolerance—from desired service (an ideal) to a threshold level of merely adequate service For each step, service providers should design standards sufficiently high to satisfy and even delight customers, if that's not possible, service providers will need to modify customer expectations These standards may include time parameters, the script for a technically correct performance, and prescriptions for appropriate style and demeanor Standards must be expressed in ways that permit objective measurement

The opening scenes of a service drama are particularly important, as customers' first impressions can affect their evaluations of quality during later stages of service delivery Perceptions of their service experiences tend to be cumulative '' If a couple of things go badly wrong at the outset, customers may simply walk out Even if they stay, they may now be looking for other things that aren't quite right On the other hand, if the first steps go really well customers' zones of tolerance may increase so that they are more willing to overlook minor mistakes later in the service performance Research by Marriott Hotels indicates that four of the five top factors contributing to customer loyalty come into play

during the first 10 minutes of service delivery. And research into the design of doctors' offices and procedures suggests that unfavorable initial impressions can lead patients to cancel surgery or even change doctors However performance standards should not be allowed to fall off toward the end of service delivery Other research findings point to the importance of a strong finish and suggest that a service encounter that is perceived to start poorly but then builds in quality will be better rated than one that starts well but declines to end poorly

But how often do failures intervene to ruin the customers experience and spoil their good humor Can you remember situations in which the experience of a nice meal in Act II was completely spoiled by one or more failures in Act III? Our own informal research among participants in dozens of executive programs has found that the most commonly cited source of dissatisfaction with restaurants is an inability to get the bill quickly when the customers have finished their meal and are ready to leave. This seemingly minor failing, unrelated to the core product can nevertheless leave in a customer's mouth a bad taste that taints the overall dining experience, even if everything else has gone well When customers are on a tight time budget, making them wait unnecessarily at any point in the process is akin to stealing their time

Our restaurant example was deliberately chosen to illustrate a high-contact, people processing service with which all readers are likely to be familiar But many possession-processing services, such as repair or maintenance and information processing services, such as insurance or accounting, involve far less contact with customers, as much of the action takes place backstage In these situations a front-stage failure is likely to represent a higher proportion of the customer's service encounters with a company and may therefore be viewed even more seriously because there are fewer subsequent opportunities to create a favorable impression

Improving Reliability of Service Processes by Failure ProofingCareful analysis of the reasons for failure in service processes often reveals opportunities for failure proofing certain activities in order to reduce or even eliminate the risk of errors Fail-safe methods need to be designed not only for employees but also for customers, especially in services where the latter participate actively in creation and delivery processes

Fail-Safe Methods for Service Personnel The goal of fail-safe procedures is to prevent errors, such as performing tasks incorrectly, in the wrong order, or too slowly, or doing work that wasn't requested in the first place Solutions vary by industry but in a fast food restaurant context may include installing strategically placed microphones to ensure that servers and customers' voices are audible and color coding cash register keys and change trays to increase the speed and accuracy of ringing up bills taking money from customers, and giving change In hospitals, trays for surgical instruments have indentations for each instrument, and all the instruments used during an operation are nested in the tray This not only ensures that a surgeon has all the tools needed for a specific operation but also highlights any missing instruments that might still be in the patient before the surgeon closes the incision

Treatment errors occur during the contact between the server and the customer, such as lack of courteous, professional behavior Such errors may include failure to acknowledge, listen to, or react appropriately to the customer (Figure above) Among novel approaches to counter this problem are a Korean theme park s policy of sewing closed the pockets of new employees trousers to prevent the new hires from putting their hands m their pockets and looking sloppy or disrespectful

Tangible errors relate to failures in the physical elements of the service, and preventive measures include standards for cleaning facilities and uniforms and appropriate control and adjustment of noise, odors, light, and temperature To simplify the task of proofreading of documents, most software programs have built-in checks for spelling and arithmetic errors

Mirrors placed in ways that allow a worker to automatically check his or her appearance before greeting a customer foster a neat appearance Hotels often wrap paper strips around towels to help the housekeeping staff distinguish quickly between those that are clean and those that should be replaced

Fail-Safe Methods for the Customer Customer errors can occur in the preparation stage before a service encounter takes place Marketing communications can help shape prior expectations and inform the customer on how to access the service correctly For example, marketers at the service division of one computer manufacturer provide customers with a simple flowchart that clarifies the correct way to place a service call By guiding them through three yes-or-no questions, the firm ensures that customers are ready to supply the necessary information (e g , their equipment model and registration number) and that they contact the appropriate provider for the type of service required

Customer errors during a service encounter can slow down service processes, waste employees time, and even inconvenience other customers Forgetting the steps in a service process, failing to follow steps in the correct sequence, ignoring instructions, or not specifying needs sufficiently clearly may reflect inattentiveness, misunderstanding, or simply a memory lapse Posted instructions in highly visible locations and recorded announcements are two ways to remind customers of what they need to do

Among the physical fail safe devices used to control customers' behavior are chains to configure waiting lines, locks that must be turned on the inside of aircraft lavatory doors in order to switch on the interior lights (and simultaneously activate the "occupied" sign on the outside), and height bars at amusement parks to ensure that riders do not fall outside maximum and minimum size limitations Frames and measurement scales at airports allow passengers to gauge the allowable size of their carry-on luggage Beepers remind bank customers to remove then cards and cash from an ATM

Customers may also make errors at the resolution stage of the service encounter Child care centers use toy outlines on walls and floors to show where toys should be placed

after use In fast-food restaurants and school cafeterias, strategically located tray-return stands and notices on walls remind customers to return their trays And at a growing number of hotels the key cards that open the doors to guest rooms must be placed m a wall socket inside the room in order to activate the lights As a result, when guests take their cards as they leave their rooms, they automatically turn out the lights

Service Process RedesignService process redesign revitalizes processes that have become outdated This does not necessarily mean that the processes were poorly designed in the first place Rather changes in technology, customer needs, added service features, and new offerings have made existing processes crack and creak Mitchell T Rabkin, M D, formerly president of Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital (now Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center) characterized the problem as “institutional rust” and declared “Institutions are like steel beams—they tend to rust What was once smooth and shiny and nice tends to become rusty'' He suggested that there are two main reasons for this situation The first involves external environmental changes that make existing practices obsolete and require redesign of the underlying processes — or even creation of new processes — in order for the organization to remain relevant and responsive Environmental factors in health care include changes in competitive activity, legislation, technology, health insurance policies, and customer needs

The second reason for institutional rusting occurs internally and often reflects a natural deterioration of internal processes, creeping bureaucracy, or the evolution of spurious, unofficial standards Such symptoms as extensive information exchange, data redundancy, a high ratio of checking or control activities to value-adding activities, increased exception processing, and growing numbers of customer complaints about inconvenient and unnecessary procedures often indicate that a process is not working well and requires redesign.

Examining blueprints of existing services may suggest opportunities for product improvement that might be achieved by reconfiguring delivery systems, adding or deleting specific elements, or repositioning the service to appeal to other segments. For example, Canadian Pacific Hotels (now part of Fairmont Hotels) decided to redesign its hotel services. It had already been successful with conventions, meetings, and group travel but wanted to build greater brand loyalty among business travelers. The company blueprinted the entire "guest experience" from pulling up at the hotel to getting the car keys from the valet. For each encounter, Canadian Pacific defined an expected service level based on customer feedback and created systems to monitor service performance. It also redesigned some aspects of its service processes to provide guests with more personalized service. The payoff for implementing these redesign efforts was a 16 percent increase in its share of business travelers in a single year.

Managers in charge of service process redesign projects often do not want to spend more money on better quality. Rather, they aim to achieve a quantum leap in both productivity and service quality at the same time. Restructuring or reengineering the ways in which tasks are performed has significant potential to increase output, especially in many

backstage jobs. Redesign efforts typically focus on achieving the following key performance measures(1) Reduced number of service failures(2) Reduced cycle time from customer initiation of a service process to its completion(3) Enhanced productivity(4) Increased customer satisfaction.

Ideally, redesign efforts should achieve all four measures simultaneously. Service process redesign encompasses reconstitution, rearrangement, or substitution of service processes. These efforts can be categorized into a number of types, includingEliminating non-value-adding steps. Often, activities at the front- and back-end processes of services can be streamlined with the goal of focusing on the benefit-producing part of the service encounter. For example, a customer wanting to rent a car is not interested in filling out forms or processing payment and check of the returned car. Service redesign streamlines these tasks by trying to eliminate non-value-adding steps. The outcomes are typically increased productivity and customer satisfaction.

Shifting to self-service. Significant productivity and sometimes even service quality gains can be achieved by increasing self-service when redesigning services. For example, FedEx succeeded in shifting more than 50 percent of its transactions from its call centers to its Web site, thus reducing the number of employees in its call centers by some 20,000 persons.

Delivering direct service. This type of redesign involves bringing the service to the customer instead of bringing the customer to the service firm. This is often done to improve convenience for the customer but can also result in productivity gains if companies can do away with high-rent locations.

Bundling services. Bundling services involves bundling, or grouping, multiple services into one offer, focusing on a well-defined customer group. Bundling can help increase productivity; the bundle is already tailored for a particular segment, making the transaction faster, and the marketing costs of each service are often' reduced, at the same time, bundling adds value to the customer through lower transaction costs and often has a better fit to the needs of the target segment.

Redesigning the physical aspects of service processes. Physical service redesign focuses on the tangible elements of a service process and includes changes to the service facilities and equipment to improve the service experience. This leads to convenience and productivity and often also enhances the satisfaction and productivity of frontline staff.

Table below summarizes the five redesign types, provides an overview of their potential benefits for the firm and its customers, and highlights potential challenges or limitations.

It is important to note that these redesign types are often used in combination. For example, central to Amazon.com's success is the combined appeal of self-service, direct service, and minimization of non-value-adding steps through the effective capture of customer preferences, along with shipping and payment data.

Five Types of Service RedesignApproach and Concept

Potential Company Benefits

Potential CustomerBenefits

Challenges/ Limitations

Elimination of non-value-added steps (streamlines all steps involved in a service transaction from purchase to payment)

Improves efficiency

Increases productivity

Increases ability to customize service

Differentiates company

Increases speed of service

Increases speed of service

Improves efficiency

Shifts tasks from customer to service firm

Separates service activation from delivery

Customizes service

Requires extra customer education and employee training to implement smoothly and effectively

Self-service (customer assumes role of producer)

Lowers cost Improves

productivity Enhances

technology reputation

Differentiates company

Increases speed of service

Improves access Saves money Increases

perception of control

Requires customer preparation for the role

Limits face-to-face interaction

Creates difficulty in obtaining customer feed-back

Direct service (service delivered to the customer's location)

Eliminates store location limitations

Expands customer base

Differentiates company

Increases convenience

Improves access

Imposes logistical burdens

May require costly investments

Requires credibility and trust

Bundled service (combines multiple services into a package)

Increases per capita service use

Aids customer retention

Differentiates company

Increases convenience

Customizes service

Requires extensive knowledge of targeted customers

May be perceived as wasteful

Physical service (manipulation of

Improves employee

Increases convenience

Easily imitated Requires expense

tangibles associated with the service)

satisfaction Increases

productivity Differentiates

company

Enhances function

Cultivates interest

to effect and maintain

Raises customer expectations for the industry

The Customer As CoproducerBlueprinting helps to specify the role of customers in service delivery and to identify the extent of contact between them and service providers. Blueprinting also clarifies whether the customer's role in a given service process is primarily that of passive recipient or entails active involvement in creating and producing the service.

Customer participation refers to the actions and resources supplied by customers during service production and / or delivery and includes mental, physical, and even emotional inputs. Some degree of customer participation in service delivery is inevitable in people-processing services and in any service involving real-time contact between customers and providers. In many instances, both the experience and the ultimate outcome reflect interactions between customers and facilities, employees, and systems. However, the level of this participation varies widely.

Table below groups customer participation levels into three broad categories

Levels of Customer Participation Across Various ServicesLow (Customer Presence Required During Service Delivery)

Moderate (Customer Inputs Required for Service Creation)

High (Customer Coproduces the Service Product)

Products are standardized Client inputs customize a standard service

Active client participation guides the customized service.

Service is provided regardless of any individual purchase.

Provision of service requires customer purchase.

. Service cannot be created apart from the customer's purchase and active participation.

Payment may be the only required customer input.

Customer inputs (information, materials) are necessary for an adequate outcome; but the service firm provides the service.

Customer inputs are mandatory and coproduce the outcome.

ExamplesConsumer Services Bus travel Motel stay Movie theater

Haircut Annual physical exam Full-service restaurant

Counseling

Personal training

Weight-reduction program

Business-to-Business Services Uniform cleaning

service Pest control Interior greenery

maintenance

Agency-created advertis-ing campaign

Payroll service Independent freight

transportation

Management consulting

Executive management seminar

Installation of wide area network (WAN)

Low Employees and systems do all the work. Products tend to be standardized, and service is provided regardless of any individual purchase. Payment may be the only required customer input. If customers come to the service factory, only their physical presence is required. Visiting a movie theater is an example. In possession-processing services, such as routine cleaning or maintenance, customers can remain entirely uninvolved with the process other than providing access to service providers and making payment.

Moderate Customer inputs are required to assist the organization in creating and delivering the service and in providing a degree of customization. These inputs may include provision of information, personal effort, or even physical possessions. When getting their hair washed and cut, customers must let the cutter know what they want and cooperate during the steps in the process. A client who wants an accountant to prepare a tax return must first pull together information and physical documentation that the accountant can use to prepare the return correctly and then be prepared to respond to any questions that the latter may have.

High In these instances, customers work actively with the provider to coproduce the service. Service cannot be created apart from the customer's purchase and active participation. In fact, customers who fail to assume this role effectively and don't perform certain mandatory production tasks will jeopardize the quality of the service outcome. Some health-related services fall into this category, especially those related to improvement of the patient's physical condition, such as rehabilitation or weight loss, where customers work under professional supervision. Successful delivery of many business-to-business services requires customers and providers to work closely together as members of a team.

Self-Service TechnologiesThe ultimate form of involvement in service production is for customers to undertake a specific activity themselves using facilities or systems provided by the service supplier. In effect, the customer's time and effort replace those of a service employee. In the case of telephone and Internet-based service, customers even provide their own terminals.

The concept of self-service is not new. Perhaps the most radical shift in the history of retailing occurred with the creation of supermarkets in the 1930s. For the first time, customers were required to select their own groceries from the shelves, put them in a cart and transport them to the checkout station. Both customers and retailers saw benefits in coproduction, and the concept flourished, later spreading to other types of retail operations.

Nevertheless, early attempts to introduce self-service scanning at supermarket checkouts were unsuccessful, being resisted by consumers. It was not until the early 2000s that significant numbers of supermarkets began to give customers the option of completing their visit to the store by using a self-service checkout station, where they could scan and pay for their purchases. This development reflected not only much improved technology and reasonably foolproof processes but also an economic tradeoff between the declining cost of these self-service systems and the rising cost of labor. Modern supermarket shoppers seem more willing to accept this new approach today, reflecting their greater comfort level with technology.

Today's consumers are faced with an array of self-service technologies (SSTs) that allow them to produce a service independent of direct service employee involvement. SSTs include automated banking terminals and self-service gasoline pumps (both introduced during the 1970s and progressively refined), automated telephone systems, (e.g., phone banking), automated hotel checkout, and numerous Internet-based services.

Information-based services lend themselves particularly well to use of SSTs and include not only such supplementary services as getting information, placing orders and reservations, and making payment but also delivery of core products in such fields as banking, research, entertainment, and self-paced education. One of the most significant innovations of the Internet era has been the development of online auctions, led by eBay. No human auctioneer is needed as an intermediary between buyers and sellers.

Many companies have developed strategies designed to encourage customers to undertake self-service through the World Wide Web. They hope to divert customers from using more expensive alternatives such as direct contact with employees, use of intermediaries such as brokers and travel agents, or voice-to-voice telephone. However, for these strategies to work well, customers need to be aware of the Web site and find the site easy to navigate.

Service Firms as TeachersAlthough service providers attempt to design the ideal level of customer participation into the service delivery system, it is customers' actions that in reality determine the amount of participation. Underparticipation causes customers to experience a decrease in service benefits (for instance, a student who fails to perform the work of the course will learn less, and a dieter who doesn't follow guidelines properly will probably lose less weight). Over participation by customers may take employees away from other tasks and cause the firm to spend more resources customizing a service than was originally intended. (Consider the impact on productivity at a fast-food restaurant if all customers insisted on

customization of their hamburger orders.) In order to optimize participation levels during service production and consumption, service businesses must teach their customers the roles they are expected to play.

The more work that customers are expected to do, the greater their need for information about how to perform their roles for best results. The necessary education can be provided in many ways: brochures and posted instructions, or detailed operating instruc-tions and diagrams on automated machines. Advertising for new services often contains significant educational content. Many Web sites include a FAQ (frequently asked ques-tions) section; eBay's Web site, for example, provides detailed instructions for getting started, including how to submit an item for auction and how to bid for items. Its Help Center features an A-Z index of topics, including advice on resolving trading concerns.

In many businesses, customers look to employees for advice and assistance and are frustrated if they can't obtain it. Service providers, ranging from sales assistants and customer service representatives to flight attendants and nurses, must be trained to help them improve their teaching skills. And people may also turn t<:> other customers for help. The eBay Help Center includes a section titled "Ask eBay Members," which notes that eBay community members are always happy to help one another. The Help Center includes an answer center ("get answers from community members-fast!") and a series of discussion boards ("share your interests, get help from community members, or assist others").

Researchers Benjamin Schneider and David Bowen suggest giving customers a realistic service preview in advance of service delivery to provide them with a clear picture of their roles in service coproduction. For example, a company might show a video presentation to help customers understand their role in a specific service encounter. This technique is used by some dentists to familiarize patients with the surgical processes they are about to experience and indicate how they should cooperate so as to help make things go as smoothly as possible.

Customers as Partial EmployeesSome researchers argue that firms should view customers as "partial employees" who can influence the productivity and quality of service processes and outputs. This perspective requires a change in management mindset, as Schneider and Bowen make clear “If you think of customers as partial employees, you begin to think very differently about what you hope customers will bring to the service encounter. Now they must bring not only expectations and needs but also relevant service production competencies that will enable them to fill the role of partial employees. The service management challenge deepens accordingly,”

They suggest that customers who are offered an opportunity to participate at an active level are more likely to be satisfied, regardless of whether they choose the more active role, because they like to be offered a choice.

Managing customers as partial employees requires using the same human resource strategy as managing a firm's paid employees and should follow these four steps. Conduct a "job analysis" of customers' present roles in the business, and compare it

against the roles that the firm would like them to play. Determine whether customers are aware of how they are expected to perform and

have the skills needed to perform as required Motivate customers by ensuring that they will be rewarded for performing well (e.g.,

satisfaction from better quality and more customized output, enjoyment of participating in the process, a belief that their own productivity speeds the process and keeps costs down).

Regularly appraise customers' performance. If it is unsatisfactory, seek to change their roles and the procedures in which they are involved. Alternatively, consider "terminating" these customers (nicely, of course!) and look for new ones.

Effective human resource management starts with recruitment and selection. The same approach should hold true for "partial employees." So if coproduction requires specific skills, firms should target their marketing efforts to recruit new customers who have the competency to perform the necessary tasks. After all, many colleges do just this in their student selection process!