• Developing appropriate signage
• introducing automated systems
• creating written communications
• hiring and training a multilingual staff

Seven Key questions of a language audit

Is a unilingual approach alienating new prospects for your service?

What signage, written communication, and electronic displays of information are currently available in other languages (and which languages)?

How good is the quality of each item of info in a foreign lang?

Are your English-Languages materials easy for nonnative English speakers to understand?

If you use symbols in signageor written materials, are they widely recognized and understood around the world?

In what langs are personnel who answer incoming phone calls to your organization able to respond?

Do you know what lang skills each employee in your organization possesses?

Def-an approach to balancing service capacity and demand by influencing the nature of customer demand itself (demarketing)

• means shifting patronage to times when services productive capacity is underused and deflecting or discouraging patronage when it is overused
• reconciles conditions of excess or insufficient capacity
• helps achieve more effective and efficient capacity utilization
• tactics (price, promo, product, place/distrobution)

Chasing demand (with capacity)

def-an approach to balancing service capacity by stretching or shrinking the organizations productive capacity to meet fluctuating demand

• ie. during peak demand, a restaurant may schedule more wait staff and kitchen help to process orders more quickly (increase capacity)
• Hiring part-timers, lease additional facilities or equipment (increases capacity)
• schedule employee vacations, training for employees, close of wings/maintenance upkeep, equipment repairs (decreases capacity)
• to do this, must acquire an accurate picture of its demand cycle

**Must attack problem from both sides (chasing and smoothing)

**Other option is to do nothing, expecting the customers to understand the demand cycles

**Most services are capacity constrained (can only use what they have available)

def-the process of carefully monitoring external environments for changes that pose threats or opportunities to the service organization

• External environment or uncontrollable factors may affect the service organization
• internal environment or controllable factors that create the service experience require careful monitoring
• controllable factors are adjusted to minimize threats and maximize opportunities
• Difference between an opportunity and a threat is a matter of perspective

-slow response to environmental changes and sometimes occurs only when an organization is forced to act

• Alert service organizations seek to avoid this by carefully monitoring their environments and quickly responding to changes as they are scanned, but w.o veering into a hyperactive strategy (to hasty of a response)

-rapid response to environmental changes

• 2 forms:
  • Defensive- rapid responses used to protect the organization from environmental threats (prevents damage to the organization)
  • Offensive-rapid responses employed to capture opportunities

1. planning the strategy

2. Designing the strategy

3. Implementing the strategy

4. Controlling the strategy

• determining the services objectives and the manner in which they will be accomplished
• begins with identifying opportunities and threats by environmental scanning
• also gain info through a wide variety of sources (customer surveys, etc)

• carefully specify the marketing problem or opportuinty in faces and what it wants to accomplish
• should be in terms of action, identify the services mkting tools needed, and focus on customers
• critical to recognize the dif btwn symptoms and problems or fads and trends
• requires creativity and imagination and it is helpful to benchmark
• Determine alternatives and then state explicity how the recommended course of action is expected to solve the central marketing problem or realize an opportunity

• hardest step in developing a marketing strategy
• scheme must be formulated that specifies a logical sequence of implementation steps and provides a detailed timetable for carrying them out
• Itemized budget is necessary that includes the short/long term costs of implementation
• Key part is checking expenditures for variations from the budget
• Little rm for error bc most services are produced and consumed in real time

• Strategies success must be carefully assessed
• If problems threaten success, corrective tactics may be needed to overcome them (hiring more emplyees, using newer equipment)
• Must also assess whether the overall strategy succeeded
• Requires evaluation of service profitability and quality

• distinct (stand out and easy to identify)
• memorable (easy to recall and understand)
• Relevant (reflect nature of the service)
• Flexible (for growth so name can stillbe used)

*Brand for the service-->identifies it

• Empty minutes are long minutes (mins when nothing is going on)
• In-process minutes are shorter
  • cust feels like they are being procesed, wait is more tolerable
  • put ppl in a serpentine line instead of a straight line
• Unknown waits are longer
• Waits for valued outcomes seem shorter/more tolerable (not alwys true)
• Fair waits are shorter
  • ie-first come first serve
  • pay more, served first (airplane)
• Over-promising stretches reasonable waits
  • tell cust 15 min...take 30min
  • should UNDERpromise and OVERdeliver
• Observable timesaveing actions make waits seem shorter
  • when there are 3 ppl behind the counter but only one register open the wait seems longer

***We can affect ppls perception of the wait which will cause better interactions among customers and w/ employees

• Max capacity is when there is demand exceeding capacity and is dictated by the size of the organizations facilities, the number and skill level of its personnel, and the nature of the equipment
• optimum is the pnt at which each additional unit deteriorates quality
• too much max capacity causes overwork of emplyees, etc
  • experience for customers is compromised
  • exceptions may occur in spectator sports and some forms of entertainment
    • in these situations, max and optimum capacity are about equal
    • other situations, they are not equal
• When caused to wait, customers mood is bad and this mood is tough to change and unlikely to change when getting into service
• make wait tolerable for customers

• Formal queuing system - type of waiting system
• reservation systems
  • Helps for scheduling resourses so you dont ahve too many customers at once
  • gives customers a guarentee
  • allows the organization to identify and organize its customer demand before it actually occurs to efficiently utilize its capacity

Service capacity

(3 forms)

• 1. physical facility--where the service is performed or rendered
• 2. Personnel--their labor and skill level create the service
• 3. Equipment--enables the service to occur

-implies that aspects of the service offered in all mkts are provided in the same matter

• The interactive and real-time nature of the service performance in the frontstage makes its standardization an arduous and undesirable task
• when backstage operations are standardized, service quality is improved
• when standardized equipment and systematic procedures are used backstage, they generate predictability and control
• should take care not to sacrifice the needs of its local customers simply for the sake of efficiency

-Global service organization may need to adjust their frontstage interactions w customers to reflect local market circumstances

• Adaption of a service requires attention to various aspects, large and small, pertaining to any local environment
  • large issues- adjustment to obvious diffs (lang, customer prefs, bus practices)
  • Small issues- adapting to subtle and seemingly minor cultural variations (different math notation symbols, diff business hours)

• 10 experts provide insights
  • must be there to begin with and continue to be there
• 39 suppositions dealing w the nature of services, their scope, and the value creations
• more evolvement of global service issues
• more fading of boundaries btwn services and manufacturing
• increased impact of info technology and e-commerce
• serious rethinking of outdated concepts and terminolgy

• Succesful companies are different (southwest, marriot, ect.)
• There are 3 key characteristics of these companies
  • base decisions on customer wants, ie: the customers POV is important...look for drivers of cust satisfaction
  • Their managers lead from the front, not from the top, ie; they are visible...accesible to workers
  • they avoid failing their customers twice, ie: they have service recovery systems, know the cost of a lost customer, constantly listen via research
• These keys are applicable whether the firm is involved in services or manufacturing

1. setting

2. customers

3. workers

4. process

1. Participants

2. Physical evidence

3. Process of service assembly

Characteristics that distinguish a service from a physical good (4)

1. Intangibility

2. Inseparability

3. Variability

4. Perishability

cannot be seen, touched, or held bc they lack a physical existence or form.

Cannot examine services b4 their actual enactment

The customer feels a greater degree of risk

production and consumption of the service performance occur simultaneously

THe customer and service provider must interact for the service to happen

-enhances/facilitates the core product. They are important for conducting business

• do or decline--tasks that if not done well will cause a steady decline in the organization (order taking, billing, problem solving)
• Match Ems--offering the industry standard of performances
• Beat Ems--going beyond the standard level of performance

1. apology (must be authentic)
2. Urgent Reinstatement
3. Empathy (also must be genuine/authentic)
4. Symbolic Atonement (compensation for failure)
5. Follow up (were problems resolved effectively)
   • only first 2 steps if customer is just "annoyed"
   • All steps required if customer is victimized

• from the providers perspective, means the degree which the service features conform to the organizations specifications and requirements
• From customers perspective, means how well the service meets or exceeds expectations

• unconditional - no strings
• easy to understand and communicate
• meaningful
  • focus - something the customer thinks is important (Time)
  • payout - what the compensation is if they fail
• simple to invoke
• Easy and quick to collect on

• forces the company to focus on customers
• sets standards for emplyees and customers
• generates feedback (forces organizations to understand why it failed and how to correct it)
• Builds loyalty and discourages switching behavior (builds marketing muscle)

shows connectivity btwn fron and backstage.

it is a geographic representation of the essential components of the service performance

competing organizations offer the same core product but it is the ppl in the organization that differentiate one from the other.

From the customers pnt of view, they are the service

• giving responsibility and authority to the worker
• quicker responses to cust needs during the service delivery
• quicker response to dissatisfied customers during service recovery
• employees are more satisfied with their jobs and with themselves
• Employees will act more warmly and enthusiastically with customers
• empowered employees are a great source of ideas
• greater word of mouth communication and retention