Employees' role in

service delivery

The Services Marketing

Triangle Company
(Management)

Internal Marketing

External Marketing
Making the promise

Enabling the promise

Employees

Interactive Marketing

Customers

Delivering the promise

Three interlinked groups work together to develop, promote and

deliver services

Frontline Service Personnel: Source

of Customer Loyalty and Competitive
Frontline is an important source of differentiation
Advantage
and competitive advantage.

a core part of the product

the service firm
the brand

Frontline also drives customer loyalty, with

employees playing key role in anticipating customer
needs, customizing service delivery and building
personalized relationships

Boundary Spanning Roles

Boundary spanners link the inside of the organization

to the outside world

Multiplicity of roles often results in service staff having

to pursue both operational and marketing goals

Consider management expectations of restaurant

servers:

deliver a highly satisfying dining experience to their

customers
be fast and efficient at executing operational task of serving
customers
do selling and cross selling, e.g. We have some nice desserts
to follow your main course

Role Stress in the Frontline

3 main causes of role stress:
Person vs. Role: Conflicts between what jobs

require and employees own personality and beliefs

Organization vs. Customer: Dilemma whether to

follow company rules or to satisfy customer

demands

Customer vs. Customer: Conflicts between

customers that demand service staff intervention

Emotional Labor

The labor that goes

beyond the physical
and mental skills
needed to deliver
quality service.

The act of
expressing socially
desired emotions
during service
transactions

Service Culture

Corporate Culture

The pattern of shared values and beliefs that

give the members of an organization meaning,
and provide them with the rules for behavior in
the organization.

Cannot be developed overnight.

No magic or easy way to sustain a service

culture.

Hire the Right People

The
Theold
oldsaying
sayingPeople
Peopleare
areyour
yourmost
most
important
importantasset
assetis
iswrong.
wrong.
The
TheRIGHT
RIGHTpeople
peopleare
areyour
yourmost
most
most
mostimportant
important asset.
asset.
Jim Collins

Recruitment

The right people are a firms most important asset:

take a focused, marketing-like approach to
recruitment

Clarify what must be hired versus what can be taught

Clarify nature of the working environment, corporate

values and style, in addition to job specs

Ensure candidates have/can obtain needed

qualifications

Evaluate candidates fit with firms culture and values

Fit personalities, styles, energies to the appropriate

jobs

Train Service Employees

The Organizational Culture, Purpose and Strategy

Interpersonal and Technical Skills

Promote core values, get emotional commitment to strategy

Get managers to teach why, what and how of job.

Both are necessary but neither is sufficient for optimal job

performance

Product/Service Knowledge

Staffs product knowledge is a key aspect of service quality

Staff need to be able to explain product features and to

position products correctly

Factors
Favoring
Employee
Firms strategy is based on competitive differentiation
and on personalized, customized service
Empowerment

Emphasis on long-term relationships vs. one-time

transactions

Use of complex and non-routine technologies

Environment is unpredictable, contains surprises

Managers are comfortable letting employees work

independently for benefit of firm and customers

Employees seek to deepen skills, like working with

others, and are good at group processes

The Inverted Organizational

Customer Base
Pyramid
Top
Mgmt

Frontline Staf

Middle
Mgmt

Legend:

Frontline
Staf

Middle Mgmt
& Top Mgmt
Support Frontline

Traditional
Organizational Pyramid

Inverted Pyramid with a

Customer & Frontline Focus

= Service encounters, or Moments of Truth.