Incorporating human resource management initiatives into customer services: Empirical evidence from Chinese manufacturing firms

The existing operations management literature has extensively investigated the associations between customer satisfaction and firm performance. However, how to improve customer satisfaction through employee empowerment, service reward, and service training has rarely been investigated. In this research, we tied human resource and service operations management to each other and examined the relationships among employee empowerment, service reward, service training, employee satisfaction, customer service and customer satisfaction based on empirical study of 214 Chinese manufacturing companies. Using structural equation modeling, we found that both employee empowerment and service training have significant impacts on employee satisfaction and customer service, while service reward only has significant impact on customer service. We also found that both employee satisfaction and customer service have significant impact on customer satisfaction. However, the impact of employee satisfaction on customer service is insignificant. The findings suggest that employee empowerment, service reward and service training are important considerations for operations managers to boost employee satisfaction and customer service, which in turn improve customer satisfaction. We provide empirical evidence that employee empowerment, service reward and service training play significant roles in increasing customer satisfaction in the context of manufacturing businesses.     

A service perspective on business relationships: The value creation, interaction and marketing interface

Adopting a service perspective or logic on business directs suppliers' focus in business relationships towards engaging with their customers' business processes. The purpose of this article is to analyze implications for value creation and marketing of adopting a service logic in business relationships. In the article it is demonstrated that a service perspective is multi-dimensional, enabling the mutual creation of value, with service as a mediating factor in that process. It is argued that value creation, purchasing, usage and marketing are intertwined processes. Here supplier-customer interactions are in a focal position. This perspective enables marketers to better understand how to develop and extend service offerings through assistance to customers' processes relevant to their businesses. Therefore, the underpinning logic of industrial interactions is analyzed in detail, extending marketing's conventional boundaries.     

The roles of service encounters, service value, and job satisfaction in achieving customer satisfaction in business relationships

Along with variables like the service process, perceived service value and customer satisfaction, job satisfaction of service employees plays a vital role in customer evaluation of service result. However, there has been little in-depth research into the nature of this relation, in particular in the context of B2B relations. In the sphere of an organization providing financial intermediation services to the banking sector and on the basis of a literature review, hypotheses are developed which establish the mediator role of service value and the moderator role of job satisfaction of service employees when delimiting customer satisfaction. Reliability and validity analysis give satisfactory results and our conclusions establish firstly that service encounter directly and significantly affects perceived service value which is the final antecedent to customer satisfaction and secondly, that the level of employment satisfaction moderates its effect on service value.     

Refining value-based differentiation in business relationships: A study of the higher order relationship building blocks that influence behavioural intentions

Research on the behavioural intentions (BI) of business-to-business customers has focused on the influence and the interactions among constructs driving BI, giving rise to two perspectives for the structural equation modeling of constructs influencing BI. In the first perspective, BI is impacted directly by relationship quality (RQ) and its antecedents such as relationship benefits (RB) and relationship sacrifices (RS). The second perspective suggests that antecedent dimensions of RB and RS may act indirectly through the construct of relationship value (RV), which drives RQ but also directly influences BI. The current study was undertaken to resolve the differences between these two perspectives. The findings indicate that RQ has a strong direct influence on BI while RV has a weak direct influence but a significant indirect influence on BI through the RQ construct. In addition, the constructs of RB and RS influence RQ directly, as well as through the RV construct.     

The antecedents and consequences of organizational and personal commitment in business service relationships

This paper explores the potential for business service customers to form separate bonds of commitment with the service firm and the service representative. It examines the role of the individual and identifies six potential antecedents to each type of commitment. It also proposes that both types of commitment will influence the degree of relational exchange between the customer and the service firm. The hypotheses are tested using multiple regression and data from a survey of marketing research managers. The results support the majority of the hypotheses.     

Constraint programming for project-driven manufacturing

Project-driven manufacturing, based on the make-to-order or the build-to-order principle and predominant in small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs), calls for an efficient solution of large combinatorial problems, especially in such areas as task scheduling or resource management. This paper addresses the problem of finding a computationally effective approach to scheduling a new project subject to constraints imposed by a multi-project environment. A constraint programming (CP) modeling framework is discussed in the context of an efficient decomposition of the constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) and the evaluation of strategies for pruning the search tree. The proposed approach is illustrated through examples of its application to the evaluation of a new production order.     

Best practices in identifying customer-driven improvement opportunities

This article makes a significant contribution to the literature by modifying traditional performance-importance analysis and by expanding customer-driven improvement models. The model significantly advances theory, addressing many important research issues and gaps. It is extremely useful to practitioners, providing a guide for identifying continuous and breakthrough improvement opportunities.     

The development of consulting in goods-based companies

The article focuses on the developments in several B2B companies which traditionally produce goods and based on this experience are trying to enter the business of management consulting. It is the aim of the paper to identify the specific challenges that these companies are facing regarding marketing and selling their management consulting services. Furthermore hypotheses are developed that should give direction how to overcome those challenges successfully. Due to the lack of current research results, an explorative case study approach is chosen referring to two companies from the IT industry having gained relevant experience in this business area. In addition, theoretical frameworks demonstrate the plausibility of the hypotheses developed. If further research supports these hypotheses, it will have significant impact on the market strategy, marketing communication and sales organization of companies going to increase their consulting services.     

Transitioning from product to service-led growth in manufacturing firms: Emergent challenges in selecting and managing the industrial sales force

Despite the increasing strategic value of service-led growth in competitive and commoditized markets, firms frequently encounter problems orienting their industrial sales forces toward these new organizational objectives. To identify important potential challenges to firms attempting to make the transition to service-led growth, we conducted focus groups and depth interviews with 38 sales executives at goods-dominant business-to-business firms. Our discussion with C-suite managers uncovered four major transition issues, to wit, (1) the magnitude of change at the sales organization level triggered by a service transformation; (2) unique elements of selling hybrid offerings versus industrial goods; (3) the link between these differences and the sales proficiencies required for hybrid offering sales; and (4) potential individual differences among high-performing hybrid offering salespeople, compared with sales reps focused on goods sales. These insights highlight some of the managerial and sales force-level challenges that goods dominant firms will have to address as they attempt to initiate and maintain the transition to a service-led growth strategy.     

Investigating the influence of velocity performance on satisfaction with third party logistics service

The Third Party Logistics (3PL) service industry is characterized by customer relationships that can extend over several years, involving multiple instances of service delivery. When services are delivered on an ongoing basis, customers are able to not only evaluate positional (current) performance, but also velocity (rate at which the service changes) performance. This research presents findings from an empirical study utilizing an online survey of 3PL customers to examine the influence of these two types of performance on 3PL service satisfaction. Environmental moderators including market turbulence and competitive intensity are also examined, and results indicate that velocity performance is a more important driver of satisfaction when customers operate in industries characterized by high market turbulence. The findings suggest that 3PL service providers should implement velocity performance metrics, especially for customers operating in rapidly changing environments, and use velocity performance information during the sales process and customer negotiations.     

企业质量文化初探

介绍了质量文化建设的内涵,包括质量观念(理念)文化、质量行为准则、质量体系建设文化、质量创新质量文化、质量品牌战略文化、质量宣教培训文化。就如何培育优良的质量文化进行了初步的探讨,指出,质量是企业的生命的观念是质量文化建设的灵魂;领导观念创新是质量文化建设的关键;质量方针是质量文化建设的核心;质量管理创新是质量文化建设的源泉;质量品牌经营是质量文化建设亮点;实施卓越绩效管理模式是质量文化建设的动力;用户满意是质量文化建设的目标。     

录井企业顾客满意度测评体系建立和实施

为了提高企业市场竞争能力,渤海钻探工程公司开展了录井服务质量满意度测评。通过建立顾客满意度测评体系,实施顾客满意度测评,将顾客的反馈信息和意见进行统计分析,把顾客的期望应用在公司服务质量方面的改进。通过进行测评实施,总结了顾客满意度测评的经验,从而达到了持续改进服务质量的目的,实现了增强企业的市场竞争能力和企业盈利能力。     

Relationship quality as a resource to build industrial brand equity when products are uncertain and future-based

This article extends our understanding of industrial branding and the influence of buyer–seller relationships by examining key constructs within an industrial context where products are uncertain and future-based. SEM results elicited from 249 buyer surveys empirically validate satisfaction, trust and commitment as dimensions of relationship quality, and show that buyer–seller relationship quality facilitates direct and indirect seller brand equity accruals. Findings reveal that while focusing on sellers' corporate and product brands is good advice for building buyer–seller relationships, seller resource allocations to these areas should vary depending upon the selected target market segment(s). Findings support that sellers should place more focus on developing quality relationships with buyers than they should in focusing on the non-relational attributes of their corporate brands; however, if sellers choose to bypass building high quality customer relationships, they should instead funnel resources into their product brand offerings. Findings demonstrate that buyers credit their own skills and acumen when evaluating products with which they are confident, and ascribe increased value to the involvement of the seller as their attitude and certainty decrease. These findings provide strategic guidance to the sellers of uncertain and future-based industrial products.     

Development of automatic fault tree synthesis system using decision matrix

Fault trees synthesis, the basis for fault tree analysis (FTA), serves as a powerful tool for risk analysis. It has become a trend to accomplish computer-assisted fault tree synthesis in the field of system safety engineering because conventional manual construction of fault trees can be extremely time-consuming and vulnerable to human errors. This paper expounds upon a fault tree synthesis information system (FTSIS) developed by means of decision matrix for the purpose of its application to process plants, where the objective system is decomposed into a series of system components whose cause-effect models are constructed and stored in the relational database and transferred into decision matrix. The fault tree is synthesized automatically after the decision matrix is fully searched in FTSIS, the availability of which has been verified after it was put into effect successfully.     

树立全面质量管理观提高供电服务质量满意度

供电服务质量是电力客户对供电服务质量的预期同其实际感受的供电服务水平或体验质量的对比,它由服务的产出质量-电能质量与服务过程质量两方面构成,树立全面质量管理观,提高供电服务质量客户满意度,要求供电企业注意服务质量管理的全员参与性与全过程性,加强企业服务文化建设,激励员工参与和受教育以及建立健全供电服务的质量监督体系。     

Service productivity and service quality: A necessary trade-off?

This paper is about service productivity and perceived service quality. Both a high service productivity and a high customer perceived quality are two main drivers of good performances in service companies and they simultaneously occur as a consequence of a synergy of several drivers such as employees' competences and motivation, organizational efficiency, technical devices availability, information technologies employment, etc. In scientific literature a trade-off between productivity and perceived service quality is asserted and several cases derived both by market observations and academic research could bear such trade-off out. But, is it possible to state that, under some circumstances, such a trade-off between productivity and perceived service quality could be avoided? And if yes, why such certified substitution should not work?In this paper, in order to trace some theoretical answer to the above questions, a managerial model based both on service science and production economics will be proposed. The model aims to find out some key causes that allow to explain the foundations of the mentioned trade-off and the potential conditions for its overcoming; moreover, such model will be employed in order to integrate services' productivity function with new variables and to provide some managerial guidelines for improving service management.