NMIMS

Service Operations Management

APPLICABLE FOR JUNE 2022 EXAMINATIONS

1. Define and briefly explain the term ‘Service Design’. What are the various
approaches that organizations adopt to implement ‘Service Design’? Explain with
examples for approach from setups like Banking or a Healthcare setup (choose any one
reference of your own choice)

Answer:

Service design is the basic design of a service which includes; who all will be related to this
service, how this service will be delivered, what all processes to be followed etc. so that
customers’ experience and satisfaction can be improved. A good service design is generally
constructed after examining the purpose of the service, its intended use and the target group
of customers. Each service requires preparation of a unique service design. However, there
are certain approaches that service organisations can follow in order to prepare service
design. These include production line approach, customer as a co-producer approach,
customer contact approach and information empowerment approach.

In all businesses, Customer is the king as you cannot survive in the market without good
customer base. It is the duty of all service providing companies to take special care of their
customers as sales is not the only motive but there should be excellent after sales service as
well. Companies must do everything to satisfy their customers as Customer satisfaction is the
best indicator of how likely a customer will make a purchase in the future. Loyal customers
are resources in the sense that the organization can depend on them with respect to new
service brands and brand extension programs. If there are a number of hardcore loyal
customers in the customer inventory, the risk in relation to all marketing decisions reduces
considerably. The loyal customer provides a simulated experience to prospective customers
and thereby helps companies hone their customer service skills.
Each service has its own unique features. Thus, the approach applied for each service differs
as per the nature of service. However, it is possible to formulate a generic approach for
service design.

Approaches that organizations adopt to implement ‘Service Design’

Production line approach: First approach to be adopted by organizations to implement

service design is production line approach. Under this approach, most of the work processes
are automatic and requires no or less human intervention. Workers are trained and skilled for
providing specific services or performing specific tasks. A service organisation that adopts
this approach can have a competitive advantage and cost leadership over its rivals as core
processes of services are integrated with technology and customers can avail services without
visiting the location of the service provider. This speed up the delivery process. Here, I am
taking the example of banking setup where most of the tasks are automatic like ATM,
humans just need to load the cash and machine itself helps the customers who withdraw cash.
Apart from this, there are many banking activities which are automatic and online like bills
payment via auto debit, reminders for payment etc. Under the production line approach,
emphasis is given on controlling the process.

Customer as a co-producer approach: Another approach of service design is directly

related to the customers. Here, you can provide good service to the customers as per their
choices and preferences. Usually, customers and the service provider both prefer self-service
activities as it leads to savings of money and time. Using this approach, the degree of
customisation can be adjusted as per customers’ requirements. Here we can take the example
of any customer care department, where the staff can work as per the requirements of their
customers such as solving their queries, providing relevant details, suggesting the useful
products to them with exclusive features, provide privilege status to some customers etc. The
main advantage of this customer as a co-producer approach is that customers generate content
that indirectly serves as an advertisement for the service provider. If customers are happy
with the services provided by bank, they will motivate others to open account in the same
bank and avail their services.
Customer contact approach: Under this approach, operations of an organization will be
divided in low contact and high contact operations. The operations that require low or no
customer contact are performed at the back end. High-contact operations are performed at the
front end with the involvement of customers. Commercial banking activities will come under
high contact operations. For example; a bank branch offers both simple services such as cash
withdrawals that take just a minute or so as well as complicated services such as loan
application preparation that can take in excess of an bout. Moreover these activities may
range from being self-service through an ATM to co production where bank personnel and
the customer work together as a team to develop the loan application.

Information empowerment approach: Technology touches our lives on a daily basis. Most
services require the use of IT; however, the degree of use may vary. Availability of
technology
empowers both employees and customers by providing accurate information. Employees can
maintain a record of customers and their needs with the help of record keeping software and
database and can render services accordingly. Similarly, IT also helps customers. The most
important part of customer empowerment is a willingness by a business to continually adapt
to the needs of their customers. While this may sound like an obvious and old-school
approach, it is often overlooked, especially in the faced-paced digital space. That makes a
customer feedback engine the real all-star of customer empowerment. We all know the value
of technology in banking. With the help of technology it is very easy to transfer the amount
from one bank account to other through various options like NEFT, IMPS, and RTGS etc. By
downloading the banking apps it is very easy to do multiple banking activities like paying
bills, doing the transactions, keeping track of account statements and so on. Technology has
made our lives so easy that without pitting any manual effort, various activities can be
performed sitting at home.

2. Discuss the Role of Service Engineers in ‘Engineering’ Service Operations. Explain

the three techniques used to evaluate service operations with reference to a setup for an
Educational Institute. (10 Marks)

Answer:
Most manufacturing organisations have a department or team that is dedicated to managing
production processes so that products can be produced in conformance with product
standards. However, these days, service organisations also hire service engineers and have
service laboratories in place in order to design, test and evaluate their service processes.
Creating service processes through a well-defined research is called service process
engineering. This process is started by understanding the customer’s perspectives and
designing services accordingly. For this, service engineers use a number of tools and
techniques. As customers and service providers create new value through globally
interconnected service enterprises, service engineers are finding new opportunities to
innovate, design, and manage the service operations and processes of the new service-based
economy.

The roles of a service engineer play a vital role for the upgradation of a company. The
roles are:
They are the Front-end employees directly interaction with the customers.
To provide better service & customer satisfaction.
To managing the team member for better operations & service to customer.
Get an opportunity to learn in-depth knowledge about a particular product & also to run
operation smoothly.
Coordinating with the Back-hand Team members of our own company for providing feasible
& quick solution to customer.

Evaluating quality of a restaurant

Tangibles: Tangibles play a key role while evaluating the quality of any service. Restaurant
is one thing, which has to be good for all of us in terms of food and hygiene but before that
tangibles of the restaurant will come into the picture. If any restaurant is providing quality
food to the visitors, it must keep in mind some tangibles like the exterior of the restaurant
should be visually appealing, should have modern infrastructure, restaurant staff should have
neat appearance, should have good menu, and variety of food etc.

Reliability: You cannot just visit any restaurant and start eating there, before that, you
perform basic research about the same and one which you find more reliable in terms of food
quality, hygiene level, better and infrastructure will be chosen. Here, visitors consider the
restaurant reliable if they find the food quality is up to the mark, staff behaviour is
professional, hygiene level is good etc.

Responsiveness: In this point, you will consider that if staff of the restaurant gives prompt
service to all the visitors, waiters and managers are willing to solve your problem, adequate
facilities to render service etc. In a restaurant, you may have various issues so there should be
quick response from the restaurant staff.

Assurance: The assessment of food quality at good restaurant is in the heart of the quality
assurance system. Here we will check if the staffs like waiters, managers are experienced and
professional enough to check if they can provide you professional service, or you feel happy
and excited while visiting the restaurant etc.

Empathy: In any restaurant we find so many new visitors visiting on daily basis and it is not
easy to handle all of them effectively, so here we will assess how the staff is managing all the
guests and serving them professionally, restaurant is easily accessible and having all related
facilities.

Techniques used to evaluate service operations:

Process mapping: There are various techniques to evaluate service operations and process
mapping is one of them. As the name suggests, this technique will help mapping the whole
processes and analyse everything. After that, you can make necessary changes in the
processes and improve the services as well. Process mapping for restaurant setup analysis can
help understand and improve their work processes and achieve significant productivity and
efficiency gains. Process mapping is a primary tool for accomplishing this. Process mapping
is typically implemented through multiple, facilitated sessions with a group of individuals
who understand and participate in the process. The facilitator works with the group to create a
“map” of the process that illustrates the sequence and description of each step in the process
and identifies the things that may go wrong at each step throughout the process. Finally,
solutions are developed and implemented that will eliminate the problems and improve the
process.

Request fulfilment: 
To set up the educational institute, request fulfilment is one of the best processes. It is a
significant process to deal with the various service requests through the proper service desk
mainly. This is primarily used on a process that is similar but separate from the incident
management process. The method of request fulfilment tables or records is correctly linked
wherever required to the problem or incident records, which are initiated the requirement for
the request. With the help of this process, the educational institute can able to be built. 

Incident management: 

The process of incident management is majorly noticeable to various educational institutes,

and it is straightforward to demonstrate its process than in multiple sectors of the service
operation. It is the initial process to implement in the project of service management. The
significant advantage of evaluating the service operation to set up an educational institute is
that the incident management can able to be useful for high spot areas. This mainly needs
attention and hence provides a reason for the process of implementation. 

Problem management

Problem management is essential for all kinds of companies. It mainly comprises of various
activities which needed to recognize the significant cause of incidents. It is also useful in
determining the problem resolution very effectively. It is also very much responsible for
making sure that the decision is executed via suitable control procedures. 

Conclusion:

From the case mentioned above, here you can able to thoroughly know about the significant
role of service engineers to play in engineering the service operations. You can also
understand the great techniques to evaluate various service operations in setting up the
educational institute.

3. The Hospitality sector is a good example wherein the businesses involve both
manufacturing (food preparations) as well as service operations. The sold products are
evaluated by the customers and they are also rated based on the service that the seller
provides. With reference to the industry discuss the following aspects of service
operations
a. Discuss the elements that need to be planned in a Service Framework of a Hospitality
setup.
(5 Marks)
b. What are the challenges faced by the Service Managers who manage these service
operations?

Answer:

A)

Here, in this case, you can check out the elements required to be planned at the time of the
hospitality setup's service framework. In general, the service framework is mainly considered
as the set of standards, principles, constraints, and policies to be utilized to guide the
development, design, retirement, deployment, and operation of services. This is mainly
delivered by the service provider to provide a reliable service experience to the particular user
community. 

Have a look at below to go through the elements of the service framework for the hospitality
setup.

 Service culture

It is mainly built on the elements of the leadership principles, work habits, vision, norms,
values, and mission. The culture is the particular set of overriding principles which is based
on the management controls. After that, it will develop and maintain the social process that
itself manifests as the service delivery and gives customer value. 

 Employee engagement

The process of employee engagement mainly included various employee attitude activities,
HR processes, and a required driven leadership process. Also, the extraordinary designed
systems and methods can be useful if carried out by the people through the higher
engagement process. The engagement will act as the moderator between the design and
execution of the hospitality setup. 

 Service quality
The service quality process mainly includes processes, performance management systems,
and strategies to the extreme. The process design and plan is necessary to design the complete
service management process. This will help the client to fulfill the entire mission and to
support during the hospitality setup. 

 Customer experience

This process mainly includes the elements of account management, continuous

improvements, and customer intelligence. Here, perception is critical, and finding out the
evaluation of the customer and the users perceiving the service framework. It is mainly
required at the time of continuous collaboration—the successful service framework work
based on the customer to deliver the service effectively. 

From the case mentioned above, you can clearly understand about elements which are
required to be planned at the time of the service framework of the hospitality setup.

B. What are the challenges faced by the Service Managers who manage these service
operations? 

In general, the service manager is having the overall accountability for defining the service.
After that, it can be useful in ensuring the services meet the business requirement, and it is
delivered based on the agreed business needs. After that, they will manage the service
lifecycle correctly. Here, in this case, you can able to check out the significant challenges that
are faced by professional service managers to manage these service operations effectively.

In this world, every business is planning is to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and then take
over the competition. Then the service management process plays a significant role here for
customer loyalty and satisfaction. Service management has some challenges since its
operations have been spread over various resources, and areas are covered in many locations.
Have a look at below to find out the challenges faced by professional service managers.

 Customer high expectation and demand

For the past decade, the customer relationship over the organization has changed a lot. At
present, customers are expecting their relationship to increase over the initial sale. Also, the
customer at present requires a particular level of preventive service in a top-notch manner.
These show the service standards which are expected during delivery time.  

 Service delivery optimization

In this process, assigning the work orders to the suitable engineers and field technicians is a
significant challenge faced by the service managers. If anything goes wrong, then the
complete blame will be on the service manager. Therefore they must place a suitable one for
suitable work. 

 Resource location and real-time communication

The complete list of the work requests is most famous for managers to understand where their
field service workers are located, and their availability is provided out there. 

 Increase in operations cost

This is the main test faced by all the managers in the most eventual manner. When any detail
went accurate, then sure everything goes wrong. 

From the case mentioned above, you can understand the significant challenges faced by
professional service managers in managing these service operations.