SERVICEs ENCOUNTER

Lecture 7, Prof Pradeep Pai

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A few questions,
 Compare and Contrast your experience
in purchasing groceries in a mom & pop
outlet and a modern retail shop.
 Compare and Contrast your experience
at DHL courier & Speed-post.
 Compare and Contrast your experience
at a jewelry shop, like TBZ and
nationalized bank.
 SAS escalator VIDEO 2
Features of Service Encounter.
 Most services are characterized by an encounter between a service
provider and a customer called “Moments of Truth”, a phrase
coined by by Richard Normann.
 Evaluation of service and service quality perception happens during
the “Moment of Truth”. Each “Moment of Truth” is a vital
opportunity to impress and retain customers.
 Airline travel experience with INDIGO or SPICEJET versus Air India.
 Jan Carlzon, the CEO of Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS)
focused on these encounters during the reorganization of SAS. As
per him the organisation exists to serve the frontline workers who
have direct customer contact. This reset the organization chart,
and signaled a move to refocus on the customers and manage the
moments of truth.
 Each participant in the service encounter can direct the transaction
and hence the need for empowerment and flexibility for contact
personnel.
 E.g. Credit card customer care executive, Vodafone customer care
executive, faculty in NMIMS, etc. 3
Service Encounter Triad. The figure below
captures relationship between three parties necessary for a
pleasant service encounter and the possible conflicts.

Service
Organisation
Conflict 2:
Conflict 1: Efficiency V/s
Efficiency V/s satisfaction
autonomy

Contact
Personnel Customer
Conflict 3:
Perceived
Control
In case of perceived control the contact personnel may
want to control the customer behaviour to make their job
less stressful, wherase a customer may want to dominate
& gain control over the contact personnel 4
 Conflicts when either dominates the
control of encounter.
 Encounter dominated by Service Organisation –
 Strict operating procedures limiting service personnel discretion.
 Standard services, personalized services are not an option at all
 E.g McDonalds, KFC franchisees, (Teach what NOT to expect)
 Employees also dissatisfied as they can empathize with a customer
but can do very little.
 Customers complain of ‘bureaucratic’ organization.
 Encounter dominated by the contact personnel –
 Service personnel attempt to limit scope of service encounter to
reduce their stress in meeting demanding customers.
 Service personnel may also consider themselves to have control
over the customers.
 Customer places considerable trust in the contact personnel’s
expertise and judgment. E.g physician & patient
 Customer dominated Encounter –
 Self service in case of standardized services or customised service
in case of legal defense.
 Self service for standardized services is satisfying.
 Web-enabled services 5
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 Needs of the Service Organisation
 Culture – e.g. Walt Disney’s cast members
instead of employees, FedEx “Absolutely
positively Overnight”, deaf & dumb restaurant
 It is a pattern of beliefs & expectations shared by
the organisation members and produces norms that
powerfully shape the behaviour of groups in
organisations.
 It is tradition that distinguishes the organisation
from others.
 It holds the unit together & gives a distinct identity.
 Empowerment –
 Control Systems to encourage creative
employee empowerement–
 Belief – Contribute,
 Boundary – Compliance,
 Diagnostic – Achieve,
 Interactive – Create. 7
 Needs of the Contact Personnel
 Essential – flexibility, tolerance for ambiguity, patience,
ability to monitor & change behaviour on cues & empathy
for customers.
 Selection – Use Abstract questioning, situational vignette,
Role Playing.
 Training –
 Unrealistic customer expectation.
 Unreasonable demand
 Demands against policies
 Unacceptable treatment of employees.
 Drunkenness
 Breaking societal norms
 Special needs customer.
 Unexpected service failure
 Unavailable service
 Slow performance
 Unacceptable service
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 Needs of the Customer
 It should be noted that every purchase is an
‘event’ for the customer but a routine for the
service provider. The service provider is unable to
maintain the corresponding level of emotional
commitment.
 Expectations & Attitudes –
 The economizing customer (loss of such customers
are warning signals)
 Ethical customer – moral obligation to patronize
socially responsible firms.
 Personalizing customer – expects recognition and
conversation.
 Convenience customer – willing to pay extra to avoid
hassles, customers of local baniya.com
 The customer as a co-producer.
 Video: Customer Interaction
 Case: The complaint letter (page 146) 9
 Environmental Dimensions in
Services
 Ambient Conditions,
 temperature,
 noise,
 lighting,
 music &
 scent.
 Spatial Layout & Functionality,
 Signs, Symbols & Artifacts,

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 Process Improvements
 Plan – Do – Check – Act (PDCA cycle)
 Problem Solving using,
 Check Sheet, historical record of problems & frequency of

occurrences tally
 Run Chart – detects trends, shifts or cycles in performance.

 Histogram – Unusual features become obvious.

 Pareto Chart – Descending bar graph to identify main problems

using the 80/20 principal.

 Cause & Effect Diagram or Fishbone diagram

 Scatter Diagram.

 Control Charts.

 Benchmarking & DEA analysis

 Quality Assurance Programs
 Six Sigma driven process improvements 11