Service: the Discipline of Service Thinking - Essay Example

? Service Service Introduction A service is any economic activity whose end product is non-physical, and it is comprised of acts or deeds. Services are intangible and time perishable performance done for a customer. The way to improving and advancing customer experience and enhancing the interaction between the customers and the service providers is by service thinking. Service thinking can be described as the ideal and practical way of marketing and channeling services to customers in a way that develops customer experience and in the process strengthening the bond between the producers and the end users of the services (Bettencoat, 2011). The discipline of service thinking involves an understanding of various disciplines way of handling customer service issues with a blend of different interdisciplinary methods and tools. This involves tools and methods from the traditional service thinking, the current thinking and going beyond. Service thinking offers organization with new ways of thinking apart from depending solely on the academic disciplines. Instead, service thinking integrates both the necessary academic and professional together with the application of set service design and thinking (Moote, 2008). The main objective of this approach to service provision is to ensure the best customer experience that provides mutual benefit to both the service providers and the end users of the services offered. Service thinking appreciates the interdisciplinary relationship that aims at integrating the customers and the producers throughout the service process (Bettencoat, 2011). For an effective and efficient service provision, some chronological steps of service delivery have to be observed. The steps include; first understanding who the customers are, make visualizations about the service and what it can deliver, understand how the service will flow, design the project including all the relevant resources, and lastly deploy the service. According to the article, one of the major motivators for organizations and firms to adopt the service thinking in their marketing strategies is the speed and the scale of labor migrations. Service thinking and design have the ability to expand revenues fetched by a firm. Service thinking has also proven to be one of the economic fuels by ensuring production of quality services and putting up high levels of productivity. Services are one of the fundamentals in the worldwide business competition dome. Through good service provision that enhances high customer satisfaction, organizations are able to build competitive advantage over their competitors. However, the author of the article acknowledges some of the challenges of building a systematic service innovation as the nature of services being multidisciplinary, the incorporation across technology, social, business and customer innovations. It is evident how services have raised the revenues for companies due to service provision and revenues of the organization in general. Services are more paying if well rendered to the customers. Giving an example of two competing hotels adjacent to each other, with the same products, at the same price in the same quantity, and of the same quality, customers may be observed to prefer one to the other despite of the similarities. The question is what makes a customer prefer one hotel to the other, yet they have similar products at similar prices. The most possible answer to this question is the service difference in the two hotels. One hotel may have friendly waiters than the other, may be it may be serving its meals in a more appealing designing compared to the other hotel, and may be one hotel has more attractive seat arrangement compared to its competitor. Such service provision has made organizations gain more competitive advantage over their competitors not necessarily as a result of the products produced but how customers are served, and the services customers can get apart from the product itself. The economy worldwide is embracing service provision as one of the important economic driving forces due to its potential in advancing economic growth and development. The service system has changed and transformed the labor which has led to increased productivity. The economy experiences shifts as a result of service innovation. Such shifts include the changing of high productivity that led to low value portions of the economy to low productivity that results to high value portions of the economy. Service systems aim at producing value to both customers and the producers where the customer and the service provider are co-producers of value. Value is therefore, fundamentally determined by demand and supply, in that, when the demand is high and the supply is low economic value is said to be created. High productivity gives room for the service providers to have leisure time and at the same time giving high returns to the businesses. This means that the extra time created can be invested in service innovation, coming up with new ideas of service provision, which will lead to new demand from consumers. Likewise, the extra revenue collected from high level of productivity can be invested in other service oriented business activities which will result to increased demand. Both these two outcomes of high productivity demonstrate how service leads to shifts in labor and creation of economic value. This implies that productivity is an outcome of new procedures of performing activities, technology, and specialization. Over the years, the service sectors have been lagging behind. However, the sector has started to be at par with the other well performing sectors of the economy. The service sector improvement in the recent years has mainly been as a result of internet services and information technology. Another cause of the expansion of the service sector is the increased reduced cost of outsourcing at a reduced cost of geographic. Everyone in the world is trying to connect an internet interaction because of the experienced economic merging together to build a service system that is global. A service system is a system that aims at integrating economic units that play twofold roles as both the provider and the customer. The two entities, thus the service providers and the clients interact for them to coproduce economic value. Examples of the fundamental economic entities involved are; people, governments, other organizations, businesses, and technologies from other businesses. Looking at the current service sector of the economy for instance, it is evident self-service technologies are beginning to take centre stage. Such technologies include websites as the e-learning sites, e-business, e-commerce, and the Automated Teller Machine kiosks in banks, supermarkets, airports and other places (Chesbrough, 2009). According to the article, the return a performance receives is what defines a service. However, a service is more than just the returns from performance; it is the actual satisfaction of both the client and the service provider. From the various definitions of service as stated by many scholars, it is evident that the customers also have to take part for the service to be successful. The client plays a key role in transforming his/her state. This instills a sense of responsibility in the client towards the co-production of service for the client’s utility. This can be demonstrated by a doctor and a patient situation in a hospital set up where the doctor is the service provider and the patient are the client. The doctor gives the patient the right prescription, and for the client to change his/her state, the client has to follow the doctor’s prescription. This clearly elaborates the essence of client/producer co-production (Chesbrough, 2009). The client and the service provider have to take part for the client to receive the desired satisfaction and the provider to achieve the desired goal. For the case of a business set up, the service system can be put up successfully by putting in place the necessary technological systems that would sure the services reach the client. These technological systems have to be set up at both ends of the client and the provider. The client for instance has to set up the necessary information technology while the provider has to train the necessary personnel for service provision, and set standards and ethics that do not compromise the loyalty of the client (Chesbrough, 2009). This gives both the client and the producer a chance to monitor each other’s responsibility in service delivery and hence leading to economic value. An efficient twofold service delivery in business is of high importance especially in areas of outsourcing. Such areas require high levels of integrity from both the client and the provider. The provider in such cases should ensure the systems are safe, of good standards, and of great convenience to the client. It should be free from the vulnerability of ill motive people. On the side the client the systems should be convenient, up to date, and reliable and have a way of differentiating them from those of malicious people who may use the company’s name to solicit funds from the customers. With the same view of the returns to performance as the value being derived by co-production between the client and the customer, there are three types of performance that are of interest to the service provider. To explain this, a hotel scenario serves as a good example. The first type of performance is the talent performance which is demonstrated by the chefs (Ulwick. 2006). The second type of performance is the technological performance which can be explained by the website for food ordering. The third form of performance under this analogy is the routine performance which can be compared to having all the kitchen items available and service personnel. These are the fundamentals of systematic service innovation. For the talent analogy, it allows for a wide range of providing services that enhance a good environment for performance. Technological performance plays a key role in improving efficiencies for companies in terms of service delivery. This reduces cost and hence maximizing revenue for the businesses. Lastly, setting up an ideal environment helps in improving the flexibility of service delivery hence giving the service providers extra time for them to make more service innovations. This translates to the creation of new demand and hence leading to economic value. Technological performance goes in hand with technical skills. For service innovation to be effective, organizations and firms have to ensure that the right personnel are hired and trained to operate the relevant technological systems. This also goes with the cost of acquiring the relevant hardware such as computers for the technological performance to be achieved (Moote, 2008). Apart from the economic shifts highlighted above, service innovation and service thinking has led to academic shifts. Most institutions of learning are also working towards teaching and producing service professionals. Academicians have also demonstrated interest in the field of service delivery by conducting various researches on the service sector of the economy. Various disciplines have acknowledged service in their curriculum. For instance the school of business establishing courses such as marketing service, operations research that appreciates the services offered in business and such fields as organization theory and behavior that seeks to study and comprehend the behavior of the personnel of organization and how to maximize their productivity. Other fields also embrace service innovation; in engineering there exist engineering services that give room for services to be appreciated (Ulwick. 2006). Service innovation is one of the contemporary driving forces of the economy and all sectors of the business world. For service innovation and service science era to be sustained successfully, then good education systems should be set as a beginning point of achieving such goals. In the learning institutions, knowledge will be imparted and service professions made. This will set a background to achieve an efficient service system. Also at the learning institutions is where most research work is done. This means that more services can be innovated and absorbed in the real business world. This will lead to the creation of economic value. Conclusion The world has become dynamic, and most businesses are shifting their concern from the exchange of just products from customers for cash and end the transaction. Most organizations are now changing to service innovation as it has proved to be one of the major driving forces of the economy (Moote, 2008). This has been demonstrated by the many shifts that service innovation and service thinking have led to in the different sector of the economy. For an instant in economic shift, the way labour is administered has changed. Many organizations are putting more emphasis to service delivery as compared to product. In most business self service has been embraced whereby client can access most of the services without necessary visiting the premises of business this calls for service innovation that is co-produced by both the client and the service provider. This has also been evident in the academic sector (Bettencoat, 2011). It has been noted that most learning institution such as universities and colleges has started to appreciate service innovation in their courses. For example, in business schools new courses have been introduced such as organizational behavior and theory, operation research, marketing services, e-commerce and e-business. The best way to achieve a service innovation system is by putting up educational background that acknowledges the service as the driving course of the economy. These forms the basis of service innovation and service thinking because also it is in the learning institution that research can be done and new services innovated. References Bettencoat, L. (2011). Service innovation: How to go from customer needs to breakthrough services. (1 ed.). New York: McGraw-Hil. Chesbrough, H. (2009). Open services innovation: Rethinking your business to grow and compete in a new era . (1 ed.). New York: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Moote, I. (2008). Design thinking for strategic innovation: What they can't teach you at business or design school. (3 ed.). London: Wiley publications. Ulwick , A. (2006). What customers want: Using outcome-driven innovation to create breakthrough products and services. (1 ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. Read More