To streamline and improve their service delivery systems, service organizations have much to learn from their manufacturing counterparts in the use of quality and process improvement tools. The purpose of this article is to present a practical framework which integrates these tools in order to enhance the efficiency and customer orientation of service delivery systems. Two examples are used to …
“How can I create an innovation engine that will consistently deliver substantial organic growth?” This question is the number-one issue for most CEOs and senior executives today. Innovation is a critical driver of organic growth, yet based on the authors' research, only a small percent of companies effectively use innovation to sustain long-term, profitable growth. And the stakes couldn't…
We are deep in a service crisis. In the operating room, surgeons and their teams communicate in a very precise language; airplane pilots follow a strict protocol to take off and land safely every time; and, when launching a new product, companies lay out a plan that all employees follow. But when it comes to building a strong service culture, the path to success is usually much less clear. We r…
ohn Tschohl's latest book, Empowerment: A Way of Life, focuses on one simple, yet powerful, principle: Empowered employees will give excellent customer service, turning unhappy customers into happy, repeat customers. Moreover, happy, empowered, fulfilled employees are less likely to leave the company--reducing turnover. Solving a customer's problem quickly benefits everyone, and that is why the…
In Leading the Starbucks Way, Michelli establishes five actionable principles that fuel long-term global sustainability at Starbucks and that can be used in any company, in any industry: Savor and Elevate Love to Be Loved Reach for Common Ground Mobilize the Connection Cherish and Challenge Your Legacy Leading the Starbucks Way is a penetrating look at the inner workings of one of today?s most …
The purpose of this paper is to explain the onshore satisfaction of cruise passengers, in the port of call of Cartagena de Indias.
This paper aims to provide a tool for measuring air passenger satisfaction and for identifying the critical service aspects available in the terminal in order to offer services characterised by a high level of quality.
The company, BJ's, is a large snackfood manufacturer, with plants in Bathurst and Wodonga. The dried snackfood manufacturing facility is located at Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. Prior to 1988 small quantities of standard domestic product were exported to the Pacific islands and South East Asia. The dried products for these orders were transported to Wodonga, Victoria, to be combined wi…
In recent years, ports have experienced a period of significant growth and development along with intense inter-port rivalry as a consequence of intermodality and hinterland development. It is therefore vital that port management bodies define and implement suitable strategies. This paper aims to adapt the benchmarking technique to the sphere of ports. Compares the activity of a port with tha…
In recent years, ports have experienced a period of significant growth and development along with intense inter-port rivalry as a consequence of intermodality and hinterland development. It is therefore vital that port management bodies define and implement suitable strategies. This paper aims to adapt the benchmarking technique to the sphere of ports. Compares the activity of a port with that …
In recent years, ports have experienced a period of significant growth and development along with intense inter-port rivalry as a consequence of intermodality and hinterland development. It is therefore vital that port management bodies define and implement suitable strategies. This paper aims to adapt the benchmarking technique to the sphere of ports. Compares the activity of a port with that …
Companies engage in several business relationships ranging from arm’s length to close relationships based on trust and commitment. Several companies have recognized that their supply chain capabilities give them a competitive edge for delivering what customers want. However, often customers are not a homogeneous group requiring the same physical products and services. From a manufacturer’s …
There have been numerous extensions of the maximum covering location problem that has been developed in the last decade to deal with facility location. Most of the research, however, addresses a single attribute or objective. In the case when a single criterion such as minimizing average response time to access a service facility is insufficient to address the interests of the decision maker, m…
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a 3R (right time, right place, and right material) principle for characterizing failure in humanitarian/relief supply chains’ response to natural disasters, and describes a Bayesian methodology of the failure odds with regard to external factors that may affect the disaster-relief outcome, and distinctive supply chain proneness to failure.
The objective of this paper is to propose a model for assessing the quality of service at various interfaces of supply chain using third party logistics.
The purpose of this paper is to identify the effects of benefits, barriers and risks on user satisfaction in ERP projects.
The purpose of this paper is to understand what breaks trust in a customer supplier relationship and how to repair it.
Despite the fact that customer orientation is increasingly used as a strategic guideline to ensure companies’ long-term success, it is too often left at conceptual level without any managerial or executive translation. To address this practical gap, the purpose of the paper is to build an executive perspective on customer orientation through the mechanism of customer value dimensions.
The use of the customer concept and ways of interacting with customers in support functions are relatively new areas of interest for public organizations. The purpose of this study is to describe the development toward a stronger customer orientation in a support function in a Swedish county council from a management team perspective.
Within the service industry, the serviceperson enhances customer loyalty by increasing customer benefits and decreasing customer costs, but is also embedded within and influenced by the organizational context. Thus, the influence of a serviceperson’s orientation may differ or even conflict with the organization’s orientation. There are two purposes to this paper. The paper first aims t…
The purpose of this paper is to explore, analyse and discuss the published concepts of “the customer” and “customer service” in the context of managing international emergency relief chains.
The purpose of this paper is to explore, analyse and discuss the published concepts of “the customer” and “customer service” in the context of managing international emergency relief chains.
A broad product assortment is usually valued highly by customers. However, holding a great number of product variants in inventory increases the costs of a supplier. It is possible to reduce need for warehousing with direct deliveries from manufacturing units, but customer value is reduced when orders are received on several shipments. Merge-in-transit is a distribution method in which goods sh…
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how perceived service quality influences both a shipper’s satisfaction and subsequent loyalty in third-party logistics outsourcing relationships.
The purpose of this paper is to report on a study of a shipper’s dilemma as a customer. Shippers desire both lower costs and good service levels, and this dilemma may lead in the long run to a trade-off consideration between staying loyal to existing service providers and seeking cost reductions from competing providers.
The purpose of this paper is to explore how the performance management (PM) process may be affected by the design and contents of logistics service performance (LSP) contracts between customer and supplier.
When approaching a stock-out situation, a company should be able to actively manage the allocation of available products on the basis of customer requirements and priorities as well as contractual relationships. The purpose of this paper is to describe different order promising mechanisms and analyze how well they can contribute to the effective management of stock-out situations.
The purpose of this paper is to extend the stream of thought regarding the concept of demand and supply integration (DSI) within the domain of environmental responsibility and green marketing.
In logistics strategy, it is now being recognized that revenue generation is as important as cost reduction. Although it has long been known that logistics customer service has a positive effect on customer satisfaction, little research has been conducted to determine precisely the degree to which logistics customer service affects sales and generates the revenues for the firm. The purpose of t…
To succeed in an uncertain environment, firms must respond to changing customer needs, and logistics flexibility is an important part of the response. This paper defines logistics flexibility, creates a framework to understand it, and shows how it relates to customer satisfaction.
The purpose of this paper is to implement a multi-criteria preference disaggregation approach to measure logistics service quality (LSQ) of manufacturing companies’ supply chains.
With the performance of service personnel often constituting a major element of a service per se, the customer orientation of service personnel is often regarded as a main determinant of service firms’ success. Drawing on a deductively derived four-dimensional conceptualization of the customer orientation of service personnel, consisting of employees’ technical skills, social skills, motiv…
This article deals with the evolution of customer service practices in grocery products distribution in Brazil (1994‐2001), based on a longitudinal survey of grocery retailers. Data were collected on retailers’ expectations on four relevant dimensions of customer logistics service provided by manufacturers, as well as on their perceptions of logistics service performance of the typical supp…
The objective of any business must be to maximize share‐holder value. This can only be achieved by providing products and services which delight customers and through the commitment of all people within the business to its goals. Logistics is a means of providing effective customer service within that overall strategy and has the potential to be a significant contributor to improved value. Tr…
Logistics has a profound effect on a product′s life cycle. Examines each of the nine elements of logistics: logistics engineering, technical publications, personnel technical training, spare/repair parts provisioning, maintainability, relability, finance, test equipment and facilities. Suggests that each element has a distinct responsibility to the product and each contributes to the work of …
In order to receive adequate rewards for the firm's innovations and performance in logistics, managers have to measure and sell the value that is being provided to customers. Value, once determined, must be sold to customers and also to top management within the firm. There are several value metrics mentioned in the literature, ranging in financial sophistication from customer satisfaction to s…
Customer service represents a significant opportunity for segmenting markets. This article reviews the importance of customer service and the conceptual issues associated with segmenting industrial markets on the basis of customer service. A methodology is presented which can be used by managers to classify a market into segments with different customer service needs. Empirical results from a h…
Considers the dynamical effect of lateral emergency transhipments within a supply chain. It tests various different strategies for improving customer service via the MIT Beer Game. Four distinct strategies are considered. “Electronic point of sales (EPOS)”, where marketplace information is forwarded to all players throughout the supply chain; “Excel”, where the stock levels in all echel…
The purpose of this paper is to examine how goal achievement and goal exceedance influence the aspects of loyalty in logistics outsourcing relationships. Specifically, it aims to develop and test a model of customer loyalty across two cultures to determine if dedicated strategies for building loyalty are required.
The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into commonalities and differences of service innovation across industries. The compared sectors are logistics service providers and IT service providers (SPs).
The purpose of this paper is to test the moderating effects of technological and demand uncertainties on the relationship between supply chain integration and customer delivery performance.
The purpose of this paper is to develop a better understanding of how strategic relationships between firms and environmental context affect operational decisions and how each firm allocates resources to improve overall firm performance.