Ethical Implication

ASSESSMENT 2: REFLECTIVE JOURNAL & SERVICE BLUEPRINT (35%)

The reflective journal and service blueprint is to be completed in groups of 2-3 students. Students will be required to prepare a reflective essay on specific contemporary services and retail experiences/trends involving robotics and the ethical implications involved for employees and consumers. In Part B, students have to create and include a service blueprint for the organisation with the introduction of robotics.

Note: It is important that each group explains how the relevant services marketing theory and/or practice can be applied to the selected local service organisation. The group will receive a Fail grade for the particular Report if it does not explain the relevance, and practical application of the services marketing theory, to the selected service organisation.

Due Date: Workshop 10

Service Blueprint (5%)

This part of the assignment requires you to form groups of up to 2-3 people in your workshop/tutorial class and develop a service blueprint for a service company of your choice (The lecturer makes the final decision on groupings and organisation choice). Each group has to submit a service organisation profile of the chosen service organisation to their tutor in Session 2 workshop ( See Appendix A for Service Organisation Profile).

For the chosen service organisation, students have to create and include a service blueprint for the retail organisation and reflect on their customer journey with the introduction (current or potential) of robotics. The blueprint will be developed through an in-class activity discussion of their customer journey. The service blueprint is a flowchart that provides a service organisation with the means of managing and controlling individual parts of the service delivery system; identifying weak points and opportunities for improving or enhancing the efficiency and productivity of the system; and preventing service failures. Students have to include a key summary of key implications and recommendations developed based on the blueprint to be included in a section in the reflective essay.

The key components of a service blueprint are:

• Customer actions – line of external interaction – Line of interaction

• Frontstage/ Visible customer contact employee action – Line of visibility

• Backstage/ Invisible contact employee action – Line of internal interaction

• Support processes

• Physical evidence

Reflective Essay (30%)

• This part of the assignment requires members of the group to reflect on particular retail experiences and trends. Choose a retailer has to have a major service component. A reflective journal is a personalised account of how their learning in this unit can be applied to any service and retail interactions they may encounter in the future, and outside the classroom.

• The questions to reflect upon are:

1. Referencing what you’ve learned in this course and supporting academic literature, please outline the importance and trends in the implementation of robotics and intelligent service systems in retail services.

2. Reflect on the role of robotics and intelligent systems in retail services on how it impacts the customer journey and ethical implications for various stakeholders. You can use your service blueprint and supporting material to analyse the customer journey.

3. Based on the service blueprint, provide some key insights you derived and recommendations for the retail service company.

The combined word limit for the Service Blueprint and Reflective Journal is 2500 words, excluding references.

The reflective journal & service blueprint is a group assignment so students should plan and work together to ensure an equitable workload. Students should utilise the strengths of individual group member and actively resolve potential group conflict prior to the submission of the assignment.