5questions about Strategic Services Marketing

profileJasonB
StrategicServicesPeople_2020_Lecture_6.ppt

Autumn 2020

Associate Professor Francois Carrillat

Marketing Discipline Group

UTS Business School

24706 Strategic Services Marketing

A Customer Experience Perspective

Lecture 7: Employees (Ch. 11)

*



Putting People First: Southwest Airlines

  • GO through history of southwest airlines
  • Watching these videos think about the main strategic priority of Song and Southwest in how their people sustain their business or how they stage experience.
  • For chap 11 we focus on the stargeic management of human resources for services
  • Boundary spanners
  • They are: the service, the organization, the brand, marketers
  • Video: Herb Kelleher, former CEO Southwest Airlines
  • Business strategy coming from top management – instilling a service culture takes time; cannot decide overnight: counter example Song building a airlines by branding its people
  • uthwest Airlines Co. (NYSELUV) is a major U.S. airline, the world's largest low-cost carrier, headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The airline was established in 1967 by Herb Kelleher [6] and adopted its current name (Southwest Airlines) in 1971.[7] The airline has nearly 46,000 employees as of December 2014 and operates more than 3,800 flights per day.[8] [9] As of 2014, it carried the most domestic passengers of any U.S. airline.[10] As of May 2016, Southwest Airlines has scheduled service to 97 destinations in 40 states, Puerto Rico, and abroad.

*



Strategic Human Resources for Services

  • Hire the right people
  • Develop people

  • Provide support systems
  • Retain the best people

How do you make sure that the people who come in the company and then stay there are hired, retain, well??

You start by hiring a great HR; the People department at Southwest not the HR department,

*

Hire the Right People: be the preferred employer



The best companies to work for are all service organisations:

  • UK: Capital One (financial services)
  • USA: Google topped the list in 2012, 2013, and 2014.

Paradox of services: best company to work for but worst companies to be clients of.

*

Hire the Right People: be the preferred employer

Nike: banking on activities outside work: the sport facilities are disconnected from the work spaces; promotional vide only shows the former.

Google: everything integrated work, play, service, embodies the work structure expected; always on potentially; transportable work.

*

Hire the Right People: Service Competencies and Service Inclination

  • Different jobs are best filled by people with different skills, styles or personalities

  • Hire candidates that fit firm’s core values and culture

“’You hire for attitude, you do not hire for skills”

Herb Kelleher, former Southwest Airlines’ CEO

Core values: Ritz Carlton ; ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen

Southwest: people do no use I otherwise fired or not hired.

Use pee hiring for key positions; interviews people on the job to figure out the key trait for high performance (eg. Interviewed the top 35 pilots).

What is the advantage of having people who are team players?

*

How to Identify Customer Oriented Employees?

Select based on empathy: eg, Southwest Airlines:

-Team interview employees who have to tell of one their lost embarrassing moments. Looking for:

- a warrior spirit

- a servant’s heart

- a fun-luving attitude

*



Emotional Labour

What is emotional labour?

  • “The act of expressing socially desired emotions during service transactions” (Hochschild, 1983)
  • Occurs when there is gap between what employees feel inside, and emotions that management requires them to display to customers

Implications

  • Performing emotional labour in response to society’s or management’s
    display rules can be stressful
  • Good HR practice emphasises selective recruitment, training,
    and counselling strategies to alleviate stress

*



Front-Line Work is Difficult and Stressful: Emotional Labour

Strategies to manage emotional

labour

  • Screen for emotional labour abilities
    e.g., emotional intelligence scores
  • Teach emotional management skills and appropriate behaviours
    e.g., role-playing
  • Construct the physical environment (p. 282)
    e.g., structure environmental dimensions to produce desired employee responses
  • Allow employees to air their views
  • Put management on the front-line to allow them to experience emotional labour requirements first-hand
  • Give employees a break, especially after dealing with difficult customers
  • Hand over demanding customers to managers

Go page 282 Matrix in textbook

As a manager you may have to pick a side.

Often boundary spanners get scolded for the entire organization’s mistakes; they are the face they are there. Need to be ready for that.

*

How to Identify Customer Oriented Employees?

Donavan, D. Todd, Tom J. Brown, and John C. Mowen. "Internal benefits of service-worker customer orientation: Job satisfaction, commitment, and organizational citizenship behaviors." Journal of Marketing 68.1 (2004): 128-146.

*



Develop people: Training

Organisational culture, purpose and strategy

  • Facilitate knowledge transfer

Interpersonal and technical skills

  • Both are necessary but neither alone is enough for performing a job well

Product and service knowledge

  • Product knowledge is a key aspect of service quality
  • Staff must explain product features and help consumers make the right choice.

When most people think of Nike, they think of superstar athletes like Michael Jordan, Mia Hamm, and Tiger Woods. When Nike's own employees think of their company, they think of a retired university track coach, an Olympic runner whose career ended tragically in a 1975 car crash, and a so-so athlete whose achievements as an entrepreneur far outpaced his accomplishments as a runner.

Most people have heard of Nike CEO Phil Knight, a middle-distance runner who turned selling shoes out of his car into a footwear-and-apparel colossus. But few know of Nike cofounder Bill Bowerman, Knight's coach, or of Steve Prefontaine, the now-deceased runner who was also coached by Bowerman and whose crusade for better equipment inspired Bowerman and Knight to build the Nike empire. Yet, inside Nike, those three figures are more relevant to the company's sense of identity than any of its superstar spokespeople.

Why? Because Nike has made understanding its heritage an intrinsic part of its corporate culture. Think of this approach as internal branding: The stories that you tell about your past shape your future. Which is why, these days, Nike has a number of senior executives who spend much of their time serving as "corporate storytellers" — explaining the company's heritage to everyone from vice presidents and sales reps to the hourly workers who run the cash registers at Nike's stores. "Our stories are not about extraordinary business plans or financial manipulations," explains Nelson Farris, 57, Nike's director of corporate education and the company's chief storyteller. "They're about people getting things done."

And like all great stories, the ones about Nike offer archetypes that people can learn from. When Nike's leaders tell the story of how Coach Bowerman, after deciding that his team needed better running shoes, went out to his workshop and poured rubber into the family waffle iron, they're not just talking about how Nike's famous "waffle sole" was born. They're talking about the spirit of innovation. Likewise, when new hires hear tales of Prefontaine's battles to make running a professional sport and to attain better-performing equipment, they hear stories of Nike's commitment to helping athletes.

Over the past couple of years, Nike has experienced the roller coaster that lots of companies ride: euphoric periods of growth followed by setbacks and public backlash. But through all of these ups and downs, winning companies hold on to their values. "To survive those downtimes," explains Farris, "you have to understand what real teamwork is — keeping promises, keeping commitments. Not everyone understood this, but both Knight and Prefontaine did, because that's what Bowerman taught his athletes. As one of our first employees said, 'Not everyone grew up on the track with Bowerman. They didn't understand what it took to be great.' "

To foster that kind of understanding, the company launched its corporate-storytelling program. When the program started, in the late 1970s, it was an hour-long lesson given to new employees when they arrived to sign their W-2s. Today, orientation lasts two days, and the story of Nike's heritage is the first item on the agenda. With the company back on the growth track, Farris envisions a day when the orientation process will last a week and take place at "Nike University."

Storytelling isn't just for new hires. Each "Ekin" ("Nike" spelled backwards) — Ekins are tech reps known for their Swoosh ankle tattoos — undergoes a nine-day Rookie Camp at Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. A full day is spent in Eugene, where Ekins run at the Hayward field track (where Bowerman coached) and visit the site of Prefontaine's fatal car crash. "We're connecting what we're doing today back to Nike's heritage," says Dennis Reeder, 45, Ekins training manager.

As Nike gets even bigger, its storytellers feel that their mission becomes even more critical. "Every company has a history," says Dave Pearson, 43, a training manager and storyteller. "But we have a little bit more than a history. We have a heritage, something that's still relevant today. If we connect people to that, chances are that they won't view Nike as just another place to work."

Contact Nelson Farris by email ([email protected]), or visit Nike on the Web (www.nike.com).

Sidebar: Shoe Stories

Nike spares no expense when it comes to telling the stories of Phil Knight, Bill Bowerman, Steve Prefontaine, and the founding of the company. Here's what goes on these days around the Nike campfire.

Bring Your Heritage to Life

The Nike store in Eugene, Oregon opened last May. Think of it as Nike's Smithsonian Institution. A Heritage Wall includes everything from the shoe molds that Bowerman made with his family's waffle iron to the first pair of Nike running shoes to ever cross a finish line.

Tell Your History by Design

Whether it's Bowerman Drive (which leads into the Nike campus), the Joe Paterno Child Development Center (named after the Penn State football coach), or the Bo Jackson fitness Center, every aspect of Nike's headquarters reinforces its heritage.

Tell Your Story to Your Customers

Nike's corporate storytelling does not end with its employees. "Ekins," for example, are responsible for telling the Nike story to salespeople at the Athlete's Foot, Foot Locker, and other large retailers that carry the Nike product line.

Why? "Because when people understand why we exist, what our foundation is, and who we are today, then they understand that all of our products are still rooted in improving an athlete's performance," says Ekins training manager Dennis Reeder. "It's no different from how it was when Bill Bowerman was in his workshop, tinkering and crafting shoes for his athletes at the University of Oregon — only now we're doing it on a much larger scale."

*



Develop People: Training

There are informal and formal training.

McDonald’s Hamburger University is called the Harvard of the fast food industry. In fact in China the school’s one per cent acceptance rate leaves Harvard in the dust.Today Hamburger University has campuses in Oak Brook, Ill., Tokyo, London, Sydney, Munich, São Paulo and Shanghai.

More than 275,000 franchise owners and managers have completed the intense week-long training program and now have Hamburgerology degrees.

Its first class of 15 graduated in 1961. Now the school brings in 5,000 students every year

Every McDonald's manager is required to go through the training — including CEO Jim Skinner

HU exists solely to teach business and social skills for managers. McDonald's was the first restaurant company to do this. Check out the professors in the background evaluating students:

Hamburger University's professors have the ability to teach in 28 languages

If you complete the program, you'll get this diploma. HU is accredited by the American Council on Education and credit can be applied towards college

The management courses are like B-school classes focusing on sales growth and how to run a business.

*



Develop People: Empowerment (1)

Why Empower Your Staff?

  • The are able to respond quickly to customer needs during service delivery
  • They are able to respond to dissatisfied customers during service recovery
  • Employees will feel better about their jobs and themselves
  • Employees tend to interact with warmth/enthusiasm
  • Empowered employees are a great source of ideas
  • Great word-of-mouth advertising from customers

What Google Australia’s employees have to say:

“Tremendous trust is given to employees - confidential strategic and financial info disclosed to all employees.”

“It is an exciting place to be and I feel proud to be part of our mission and goals. Google’s culture promotes openness and visibility even for the most junior staff members and everyone is part of the decision making process.”

  • Remember the Ritz Carlton example.
  • Firm’s business strategy is based on personalised, customised service and competitive differentiation
  • Emphasis on extended relationships rather than short-term transactions
  • Use of complex and non-routine technologies
  • Service failures are non-routine and cannot be designed out of the system
  • Business environment is unpredictable, consisting of surprises
  • Managers are comfortable letting employees work independently for benefit of firm and customers
  • Employees seek to deepen skills, like working with others, and have good interpersonal and group process skills

*



Develop People: Empowerment (2)

Empowerment Challenges

  • Potentially greater investment in selection and training
  • Higher labour costs
  • Potentially slower or inconsistent service delivery
  • May violate customers’ perceptions of fair play
  • Employees may “give away the store” or make bad decisions

“When you say up to $2,000, suddenly somebody says, wow, this isn’t just about rebating a movie because your room was late, this is a really meaningful amount. It doesn’t get used much, but it displays a deep trust in our staff’s judgment.”

Simon Cooper, former CEO of Ritz-Carlton

$2000 more a sign of trust to employees than a service failure recovery devices

*

Develop People: Teamwork

Singapore Airlines Teams

  • 6600+ crew members
  • 1 team: 12-14 crew members
  • Fly, charity work, internal events
  • ‘Check trainers’ oversee 12-13 teams

Southwest: do not select if uing I too much or being rude to assisnats, etc.

Also peer hiring is often used.

*

Develop People: Southwest Airlines

“University for People”:

  • New hire celebration
  • 4-week training flight attendants
  • 3.5 days for managers attended by a senior manager
  • Outbound team building
  • Special training for employees with long tenure discussing the company and its evolution

Southwest Airlines only do internal training: use it as a instrument to instill a culture

*

Retain the best people

Include employees in the company’s vision

- (stories, and history, from top management and CEO).

Measure and Reward Strong Service Performers

4) Feed your tribe-lore. Many know the famous Innovation Kitchen and the Winnebago that was bought on Craig’s List for $750 as their conference room. It’s a nod to Phil Knight (Nike’s founder) who sold shoes in the back of his RV. The clock inside the Winnebago reads 2:59 all day. It is said “That’s to signify a sub-3 hour marathon.” These stories circle as legends around the company, grounded in the 11 Maxims, which employees quote regularly and unprompted:

#1 “It is our nature to innovate.”

#4 “Simplify and go.”

#6 “Be a sponge”

#7 “Evolve immediately.”

But behind this impressive brand is an even more impressive company culture. I had the luck to spend some time with Nike employees during several Nike projects I did for my previous agency Boondoggle. Nike is a company of memes, stories and remarkable traditions. Take their chief storyteller, Nelson Farris, who collects all stories and memes. Take the inventor of the Nike Air, Frank Rudy. And of course, their numerous athletes, like Steve Prefontaine.

But even more, their Ekins. Ekins are official company storytellers employed to evangelise about the Nike brand and its sports technology. Before being unleashed on the world, each “Ekin” (“Nike” spelled backwards) is required to undergo an almost military-like training regime comprising a nine-day rookie camp at Nike’s headquarters in Oregon and a full day’s running at the Hayward field track where Nike-founder Bill Bowerman worked as a track coach. Almost unbelievably, as a further sign of their devotion to the brand, each Ekin is then invited to have the Nike ‘swoosh’ tattooed on their ankle ahead of their ‘graduation’. Talking about employer brand dedication.

I got to meet several Ekins. Amongst them, Bruno Garcia (right on the picture), a New York-based Ekin, might be the most remarkable one. He got the Nike Ekin tattoo (which is the Nike logo backwards, like “Ekin” is “Nike” spelled backwards) as well as Greek goddess Nike’s victory wings on his calves. Futhermore, he is very active within the Hash House Harriers, “a drinking club with a running problem”. Sounds like a foolish fraternity, but the HHH represent more than 1700 chapters throughout the world and have a yearly conference in Asia that assambles more than 17.000 HHH runners. With such ambassadors, you hardly need an advertising campaign.

So, the next time you use Nike as a best practice, please let’s not use it for Nike+, great campaigns or being an awesome brand. Give Nike some credit for being the company with a most remarkable company culture.

*

Autumn 2020

Associate Professor Francois Carrillat

Marketing Discipline Group

UTS Business School

24706 Strategic Services Marketing

A Customer Experience Perspective

Lecture 7: Customers (Ch. 12)

*

The Customer as a Co-Producer

High customer works actively with provider to co-produce the service

  • Service cannot be created without customer’s active participation
  • Customer can jeopardise quality of service outcome

Low employees and systems do all the work

  • Often involves standardised service

Medium customer helps firm create and deliver service

  • Provide needed information and instructions
  • Make some personal effort; share physical possessions

Customer Participation

  • Actions and resources supplied by customers during service production and/or delivery
  • Includes mental, physical, and even emotional inputs
  • Three levels: low, medium, and high (do not confuse

Customers can negatively affect service delivery

  • Lack of understanding of their roles
  • Not being willing or able to perform their roles
  • No rewards for “good performance”
  • Interfering with other customers
  • Incompatible market segments
  • with levels of contact)

Other customers can detract from satisfaction:

  • disruptive behaviors
  • overly demanding behaviors
  • excessive crowding
  • incompatible needs

Other customers can enhance satisfaction:

  • mere presence
  • socialisation / friendships
  • roles: assistants, teachers, supporters, mentors

*

The Role of Customers in Service Delivery: Three Key Roles

  • Customers as productive resources

  • Customers can be thought of as “partial employees”
  • Customers contribute effort, time, or other resources to the production process
  • Customer inputs can affect organisation’s productivity
  • Should customers’ roles be expanded or reduced?
  • Customers as contributors to service quality and satisfaction

Customers can contribute to:

  • their own satisfaction with the service
  • the quality of the service they receive
  • Customers as Competitors

Internal exchange or external exchange?

e.g., should I clean my own flat or hire a cleaner to do it for me?

  • by performing their role effectively
  • by working with the service provider
  • by asking questions
  • by taking responsibility for their own satisfaction
  • by complaining when there is a service failure

*

The Customer as a Co-Producer versus Standardization of Processes

  • Melbournse McDonal`s

*

Strategies for Effective Customer Participation (1)

  • Define Customer’s Jobs
  • Clarify level of participation
  • Identify specific roles
  • Understand implications for productivity and quality

Higher level of particpaiton advisable when service production and delivery are inseprarable; markeing benefits (cross selling, loyalty building) plus customers can substitude for inforamiotn and labor provided by employees.

Increased participation desirable when customers want that as well; imprve their satisfaction,

Golden rule: customer better served if they partiucipate more if service is transformational: education, health care, some legal services, fitness. Take onership for their service.

Up to service provider, boundary spanner to aduste depending on perceptions.

B ot bo serviuce; could be contractually agrred on.,

Faceboook great example: multiple segments co exit; possibility to fulfill social need, self esteem need or self actualization need.

*

Strategies for Effective Customer Participation (2)

  • Recruit, Educate, and Reward Customers
  • Identify and recruit appropriate segments
  • Educate customers for their roles
  • Provides reasons to participate
  • Reward customer performance

GOFUndme : customer role needs to be explained; veyr new service; unusual business model; etc, reward:donoars are customers tooÉ Social and financial ewaward 9if investing in products);

Communautor honor system for distance drivemn until 2013; before GPS tracker for cars. Still has one key for every car! Anybody can potentially drive off witgh any car at any point.Importance of the honor ssytem code undisction booklet, etc.

https://www.gofundme.com/crowdfunding

*

Strategies for Effective Customer Participation (3)

  • Manage the Customer Mix
  • Assess compatibility of segments
  • Isolate incompatible segments
  • Enhance segment compatibility

To use capacity tot he fullest; swimming pools must manage a varied and heterogeenous customer mix.

Coogee Pavillion

*

Self-Service Technologies (SSTs)

Ultimate form of customer involvement

  • Customers undertake specific activities using facilities or systems provided by service supplier
  • Customer’s time and effort replace those of employees
  • Challenge: getting customers to try this technology


e.g., ‘My Student Admin’ here at UTS

e.g., eBay – no human auctioneer needed between sellers and buyers (and customers can even be replaced with technology!)

SSTs Advantages

  • Time savings
  • Cost savings
  • Flexibility
  • Convenience of location
  • Greater control over service delivery
  • High perceived level of customisation

SSTs Disadvantages

  • Anxiety and stress experienced by customers who are uncomfortable with using them
  • Some see service encounters as social experiences and prefer to deal with people

Key weakness of SSTs: too few incorporate service recovery systems

  • Customers still forced to make telephone calls or personal visits

*

Further Reading

  • Ackfeldt, A. L., Malhotra, N., (2013). Revisiting the role stress-commitment relationship: Can managerial interventions help?. European Journal of Marketing, 47(3/4), 353-374.
  • Collier, J. E., Kimes, S. E., (2013). Only If It Is Convenient: Understanding How Convenience Influences Self-Service Technology Evaluation. Journal of Service Research, 16(1), 39-51.
  • Donavan, D. Todd, Tom J. Brown, and John C. Mowen., (2004). "Internal benefits of service-worker customer orientation: Job satisfaction, commitment, and organizational citizenship behaviors." Journal of Marketing, 68 (1), 128-146.
  • Eisenberger R, Huntington R, Hutchinson S, Sowa D., (1986) Perceived organizational support. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71, 500-07.

  • Lings, I.N., Greenley, G., (2010) Internal market orientation and market-oriented behaviours. Journal of Service Management, 21(3), pp. 321-343.
  • Lings, I.N., (2004). Internal Marketing Orientation: Construct and Consequences. Journal of Business Research, Vol. 57, No. 4, pp. 405-413.
  • Lings, I.N., (1999). Managing Service Quality with Internal Marketing Schematics. Long Range Planning, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 452-463.
  • Riggle, Robert J., Diane R. Edmondson, and John D. Hansen., (2009), A meta-analysis of the relationship between perceived organizational support and job outcomes: 20 years of research. Journal of Business Research, 62 (10), 1027-1030.

*

Autumn 2020

Associate Professor Francois Carrillat

Marketing Discipline Group

UTS Business School

24706 Strategic Services Marketing

A Customer Experience Perspective

Next session: May 9th (lectures and workshops)

Quickly after that: May 13th progress report due!

*

Most annoying passengers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObgpFydLOcw&list=PLqpBJ9DtSj_4hLeSB8ws0SOD16v8GldUO&index=125

Southwest airlines Kelleher’s address https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7b391n_TnY

The internship coffee scene Google: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKKuCnhSZ6w

Nike: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV0ELJ8_3xk

Southwest airlines’ pilots help with rampers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLJXDLWEBIM

*