- Identify a service organization that interacts with customers face-to-face and via the Internet and describe the company in a written report. The report should consist of four parts worth 5 points each. Each part should be no longer than 3 pages long. Your paper must be APA Style 6th Ed., Times New Roman 12point font, and double-spaced. Save your completed assignment to your computer as "yourlastname_project." Below is the description of what particular parts of your report could include:
1. Description of the company and its access channels (5 points):
Introduce your company, the ways it interacts with customers, and the service bundle that it offers. More specifically, this part of your report should address the following:
Give a brief description of the organization (name, what service/product it provides). Who are the customers and what is the organization’s mission, vision, goals? Does the organization have a preferred channel of contact with customers (face-to-face, phone, Internet, etc.)? What purposes do these communication channels serve? What are the important elements of the service (e.g. facility, facilitating goods, explicit and implicit services, etc.) and why are these elements important? Does the organization have designated customer service personnel? Are customers able to interact with the organization 24x7? How?
2. Describe the organization of the selected service process using a service blueprint (5 points):
Use the blueprint example from the textbook for reference. Your blueprint can be drawn by hand but it must be readable! It is important that you blueprint a complete service process. This means that all typical scenarios regarding the flow of events in the service operation are included within the blueprint and the roles of service personnel/equipment/facilities are identified. For example, if you are blueprinting a restaurant service, it would probably be better to start with the activity of “the customer contacting a restaurant by phone to make a reservation” rather than “the customer arriving at a restaurant.” The best way to start is to organize the flow of events as they are seen and experienced by customers. If you are unable to recognize the roles and the organization of supporting personnel and/or processes (below the “line of visibility”), you should rely on your best judgment or ask the employee of the organization for a brief explanation of how things are done.
3. Design a customer satisfaction questionnaire (5 points):
Prepare an instrument for measuring customer satisfaction with the service that you blueprinted. Explain what elements of the service process are important for customers and how these elements affect customers’ perceptions of the service quality. For example, you might think that a restaurant guest would evaluate the quality of service based on the quality and selection of food, interactions with personnel, and tangibles such as the appearance of the restaurant, interior design and style, quality of materials, etc. Thus, if you were preparing a report for a restaurant your questionnaire could include items that measure how customers evaluate these elements. The questionnaire should be short (remember that customers can see a long questionnaire as a nuisance) and should conform to the most general guidelines of designing a questionnaire that we discussed in this course. Also, include a brief explanation of how the questionnaire should be administered.
4. Subjectively evaluate your interactions with the organization (5 points):
This part of the report should describe your personal experience with the organization. Provide both supportive (positive) and constructive (negative) feedback. In your opinion, what improvements could be instituted by the organization and what aspect of their service are fine? You can complete this part of the assignment by reporting and describing memorable experiences or situations that you witnessed. You can also “test‟ the service yourself, for example, by pretending to be an annoying or dissatisfied customer (but be reasonable). Here are some ideas on what you could report:
Is the communication with the company easy? Are you able to find contact information easily? How precisely does the company address customer questions or concerns? How prompt are the responses? Does the company know who you are? Are they interested in who you are? Does the company recognize returning customers? Do they remember customer preferences from the previous interactions? Is the company able to handle service or product recovery well? If something goes wrong (the service is temporally unavailable or the product is faulty) is the company still able to create favorable customer experience? How well do they handle complaints? Can they maintain a professional and caring attitude? Do you feel that they really care about customers? Do they make you feel important? Are the employees well trained and competent? Does the company have a strong organizational culture? Are the employees aware of what their organization stands for? Do they act as if they believed in the organization’s goals? Are they empowered to make their own decisions regarding customer service?
