From the article: Globalization and technological innovation has led to an increasing competition between telecommunication service providers and has eroded traditional product- and service-based differentiation. One way to gain a competitive advantage is to create distinctiveness by improving customer experience in such a manner that it leads to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty. One of the drivers to improve the customer experience is the service interface. To improve this service interface, organizations must get insight into their customer interaction process. The amount of data about customers and the service provider processes is increasing and becoming more readily available for analysis. Process mining is a technique to provide insight into these processes. In this paper, a framework is presented to improve the customer satisfaction by alignment of the business service delivery process and the customer experience by applying process mining.
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Within large service organizations there are currently two trends visible. These trends seem to be diametrically opposed. On the one hand organizations face increasing price pressure and thus a pressure to cut costs. One of the consequences of this trend is that organizations are increasingly encouraging customers to make more use of digital communication channels. At the same time, companies find it important to know their customers in order to respond adequately to their needs. To do this, organizations must have a certain degree of personal involvement to their customers and they must have regular personal contact. It is assumed that both trends – digitisation and personalisation – will have a strong impact on customer experience and (perhaps) on the relational models customers use. If it is true that relational models - so the way in which people perceive and assess a relationship - play a role in the perception of the customer, it is also interesting to know if it is possible to influence these relational models. During the last fifty years much research has been done into the possibilities to influence customers by using subliminal priming techniques. In these techniques thoughts and feelings are unconsciously activated by showing people certain words or images (eg Bargh, Chen & Burrows, 1996; Dijksterhuis, 2005). In recent years a number of experiments were performed in which customers were unconsciously primed at some type of relationship (eg Aggarwal, 2004; McGraw & Tetlock, 2005; Tuk, Verlegh, Smidts & Wigboldus, 2009). These experiments showed that it is possible to activate a certain type of relationship. The experiments however the researchers used scenario’s based on an interpersonal relationship, and often to a fictitious relationship. The question is whether priming techniques also work for an already existing and more complex relationship between an organization and its customers. From 2010-2013 we conducted research for six large service providers in banking, insurance, utilities and social welfare to discover what the customer experience of these organisations, what role relational models played in customer experience and whether it was possible to influence these relational models. The research project has provided answers to the following questions: - Which relational models are used by customers and what is the influence of these models on customer experience? - What is the influence of digitisation in customer communication on relational models and customer experience? - What is the influence of personalisation in customer communication on relational models and customer experience? And finally, - Is it possible to influence relational models (and customer experience) by using specific words and images that are associated with relational models (relational framing)?
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Previous research suggests that in today’s experience economy, service is no longer the key determinant and that customer experience has taken over. However, few studies compare the relative impact of service quality and customer experiences on outcomes. The aim of this quantitative study is to examine the separate effects of service quality and customer experience on satisfaction, revisit intentions and word-of-mouth communication. Contrary to expectations, service quality has a larger effect on outcomes than customer experience. The mediation analysis shows very small indirect effect sizes, suggesting that that customer experience hardly mediates the relationship between service quality and the three outcomes. The conclusion is that measuring service quality remains essential to explaining consumer behaviour in the experience economy.
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During a service interaction, a customer should be viewed as having three distinct capacities: as a client, as a connection and as a resource. In each of these respective capacities, service (S) processes, relationship (R) processes and loyalty (L) processes create value for both customers and organizations. Satisfactory service is the minimum requirement for relationship processes to be effective and for the connection capacity to be activated. Likewise, high relationship quality is a minimal condition for loyalty processes to be effective and for the resource capacity to be activated. After presenting the measurable and actionable dimensions of relationship quality, I explain the difference between service processes and relationship processes. According to the service integrated relationships (SIR) framework, when relationship processes are integrated with existing service processes: (a) relationship quality improves; (b) loyal customer behaviours are evoked; and (c) service satisfaction improves. I conclude by discussing implications of the SIR framework for organizational systems and service employees.
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Customer-supplier relationships are becoming more digital. However, a personal approach still seems to be a key success factor in the service journey, creating an optimal customer experience. In this research, we investigated the effects of a personal communication approach on customer experience and customer relationship. The personal touch was operationalised in two studies focusing on written forms of communication (Study 1) and spoken forms of communication (Study 2) amongst customers of an energy company. Both studies show that a personal tone of voice in customer contact results in a more positive customer experience (in terms of consumption emotions, customer satisfaction and recommendation intention). However, it does not impact the long term relationships between service provider and customers. Customers do not adjust previously built relationship norms when they are approached in a more or less personal way, as long as the chosen approach does not violate relationship norms. The research is relevant for organisations interested in the effects of a more personal approach in customer contact. The paper combines existing theories on customer experience and customer communication with the existing theories on relational models.
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Firms increasingly use social network sites to reach out to customers and proactively intervene with observed consumer messages. Despite intentions to enhance customer satisfaction by extending customer service, sometimes these interventions are received negatively by consumers. We draw on privacy regulation theory to theorize how proactive customer service interventions with consumer messages on social network sites may evoke feelings of privacy infringement. Subsequently we use privacy calculus theory to propose how these perceptions of privacy infringement, together with the perceived usefulness of the intervention, in turn drive customer satisfaction. In two experiments, we find that feelings of privacy infringement associated with proactive interventions may explain why only reactive interventions enhance customer satisfaction. Moreover, we find that customer satisfaction can be modeled through the calculus of the perceived usefulness and feelings of privacy infringement associated with an intervention. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the impact of privacy concerns on consumer behavior in the context of firm–consumer interactions on social network sites, extend the applicability of privacy calculus theory, and contribute to complaint and compliment management literature. To practitioners, our findings demonstrate that feelings of privacy are an element to consider when handling consumer messages on social media, but also that privacy concerns may be overcome if an intervention is perceived as useful enough.
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Aanleiding : Het vakgebied Customer Experience is de laatste jaren enorm in ontwikkeling. Organisaties zien de toegevoegde waarde van een positieve klantbeleving. Voor commerciële organisaties kan een positieve klantbeleving leiden tot meer tevreden klanten die loyaler zijn naar de organisatie, meer bereid zijn de organisatie aan te bevelen (NPS) en minder gevoelig zijn voor prijs. Voor organisaties in de publieke sector kan een goede klantbeleving daarnaast leiden tot een beter imago en meer vertrouwen in de organisatie. Omdat klantbeleving een steeds belangrijker plek inneemt op de agenda van organisaties heeft het lectoraat Marketing en Customer Experience in 2021 besloten om een onderzoek te doen naar de toekomst van het vakgebied customer experience. Het belangrijkste doel van dit onderzoek was om duidelijk te krijgen hoe deze toekomst er mogelijk uit komt te zien en wat hiervan uiteindelijk de consequenties zijn voor nader onderzoek, onderwijs en de beroepspraktijk.
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Van de flaptekst: Service design - het ontwerpen van dienstverlening verbetert bestaande diensten of ontwerpen geheel nieuwe. Daarbij wordt gekozen voor een andere invalshoek: creatief onderzoekend en gericht op de ervaringen van individuele gebruikers. Dit is een eindpublicatie van het prgramma Innoveren in Dienstverlening. In negen verschillende projecten werden door creatieve bureaus methoden van service design toegepast. Van dit boek is ook een Engelstalige versie beschikbaar.
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The focus of this chapter is the customer journey, a concept that has emerged from business practice and that now commands the attention of practitioners and academics alike. The customer journey is defined as the sum total of all customer interactions with a product, brand or organization across multiple channels and touchpoints. The customer journey is still primarily a concept from business practice and is an immature field for academics. As a result, we draw upon existing literature streams, which are not directly focused on the customer journey but which deliver key insights and enable us to build understanding. Specifically, we draw upon multichannel management and services management research and demonstrate how these knowledge streams help to build understanding of the dynamics of the customer as they move along their journey. We present a detailed examination of one specific form of customer journey, the shopper journey, and assess the drivers of shopping channel choice and journey configuration. The evolution of the shopper journey from single channel, through multichannel, to omnichannel is discussed. The chapter then moves on to discuss the service journey, broadening the journey perspective from the act of shopping to the holistic experience of service consumption. The key role of the customer in co-creating value along the service journey is identified, and we note the importance of personalization and of understanding customers’ relational needs to service journey optimization. Next, we examine the role that customer journey mapping can play in helping organizations to understand and improve their customers’ current journey configurations and in informing future service journey design. The challenges inherent in measuring the customer experience along the journey are discussed, and alternative customer journey metrics are evaluated. The chapter concludes with our reflections on the current state of knowledge, and we identify future directions for customer journey research and also future challenges for business practice.
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For IT services companies, delivering high quality IT services is of eminent importance. IT service quality drives customer satisfaction, which in its turn drives firm performance. It is this link that is addressed in this paper: How can the performance of customer service delivery teams be improved, when looked upon from the perspective of firm performance? Based on the literature on excellent performing organizations, we apply the concepts that, according to Collins (2001), drove the development of 'good' companies to 'great' companies to a case study of an under performing service delivery team that developed into an excellent performing service delivery team. The lessons from this study were that most of the drivers behind the performance improvement of this team were in fact 'soft' factors that concerned the human side of the team more than the organizational, procedural or structural measures.
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