Business Paper-Demand Capacity Management

1. What are some ways to have effective demand capacity management? Why is this important for organizations?
2. Name at least two strategies service organizations can use to manage wait times for customers.
3. Review the Service Insight on page 305. This provides details on how service should be set up to serve patients and their families. Compare this Servicescape plan to an experience you have had (if you haven’t been in a hospital (you’re lucky!), compare this to a hotel stay or other service. How does the Servicescape plan of your experience compare with the one outlined?
4. What are ambient conditions? How do they impact a customer’s experience?
5. Why is the front line staff so important to the organization? Name at least one strategy managers use to ensure they are getting the best in their front line employees.
6. Describe at least two strategies for building a foundation for customer loyalty.
7. Unhappy customers will complain. Describe at least three guidelines front line staff can use to handle customer complaints.

8.  Discuss at least three ways organizations can improve productivity in service sectors.
9.  Describe the four different levels of service performance.

10. If you were (or are currently) in a position to transform a service organization, what ‘tools’ have you learned that you could put in place right away?

True/False –

____ 1.  Adjusting capacity refers to the capacity being elastic and can be used to serve more people.

____ 2.  The Cycle of Medocrity involves low pay and high employee turnover.

____ 3. A Service Culture describes the basic assumptions and values that guide organizational action.

____ 4. Value creation is used to provide a unified customer interface across many different service delivery channels.

____ 5.  The Rulebreaker is a type of customer who delays payments.

____ 6.  There are hard and soft measures of service quality. Hard measures are based on perceptions and feedback from customers and employees.

____ 7. Loyalty bonds are used to build relationships with customers.

____ 8. Effective spatial layout and functionality are important for making the service operation more efficient and enhancing its user friendliness.

____ 9.  CRM stands for Culture Relationship Management.

____  10.  Service leaders are the breakthrough service champions that are regarded as the best in their respective industries.