What is customer participation service?

There is a unique varied roles played by customer in service delivery and co-creation. In some cases, services customers are present in the “factory”, interacting with employees and other customers. For example, in classroom or training situation, students (the customer) are sitting in the factory (classroom) interacting with the instructor and other students as they consume and co-create educational services. Since these customers are present during the service production, customers can contribute to or detract from the successful delivery of the service and to their own satisfaction.

Because customers are participants in service production and delivery, they can contribute to the widening of gap 3, the service performance gap. That is, customer themselves can influence whether the service meets customer defined specification. Sometimes customer contributes to gap 3 because they lack understanding of their roles and exactly what they can or should do in a given situation. Since these customers are present during the service production, customers can contribute to or detract from the successful delivery of the service and to their own satisfaction.

Table Of Content

1. The importance of customers in service co-creation and delivery
2. Customer’s roles
3. Customers as competitors
4. Strategies for enhancing customer participation
5. Summary

source: istockphoto.com

Customer participation at some level is inevitable in service delivery. Services are actions or performances, typically produced and consumed simultaneously. In many situations employees, customers and even others in the service environment interact to produce the ultimate service outcome. As the customers receiving the service participates in the service delivery process. He or she can contribute to the gap through appropriate or inappropriate, effective or ineffective, productive or unproductive behaviors.

Customers who are unprepared in terms of what they want to order can soak up the customer service representative’s time as they seek advice. Similarly, shoppers who are not prepared with their credit cards can “put the representative on hold”. While they search for their credit cards or go to another room or even out of their cars to get them. Meanwhile, other customers and calls are left unattended, causing longer wait times and potential dissatisfaction.

Customer Receiving Service: because the customer participates in the delivery process, he or she can contribute to narrowing or widening gap 3 through behaviors that are appropriate or inappropriate, effective or ineffective, productive or unproductive.

Fellow Customers: In many service contexts, customers receive and/or concrete the service simultaneously with other customers or must wait their turn while other customers are being served. In both cases, “fellow customers” are present in the service environment and can affect the nature of the service outcome process.

2. Customer’s roles

The following sections examine in more detail three major roles played by customers in service co-creation and delivery:

Customers as a productive process

Service customers are referred to as “partial employees” of the organization. They are human resources who contribute to the organization’s productive capacity. In other words, if customers contribute effort, time or other resources to the service production process, they should be considered as part of the organization.

Customer inputs can affect the organization’s productivity through both quality and quantity of output. E.g. research suggest that in an IT consulting context:

• Clients who clearly articulate the solution they desire.
• Provide needed information in a timely manner.
• Communicate openly.
• Gain the commitment of key internal stakeholders.
• And raise the issues during the process before it is too late will get better service.

Customers as quality contributors to service delivery and satisfaction

Another role customers play in service delivery is that of the contributor to their own satisfaction and the ultimate quality of the services they receive. Customers may care little that they have increased the productivity of the organization through their participation. But they likely care a great deal about whether their needs are fulfilled. Effective customer participation can increase the likelihood of service delivery that their needs are met and that benefits the customer seeks are attained. Services such as health care, education, personal fitness, and weight loss, where the service outcome is highly dependent on the customers participation. In such services unless the customers perform their roles effectively, the desired service outcomes cannot be achieved.

Research has shown that in education, active participation by students — as opposed to passive listening — increases learning the desired service output significantly.

3. Customers as competitors

A final role played by service customers is that of a potential competitor. If self-service customers can be viewed as resources of the firm, or as “partial employees,” self-service customers in some cases. They can partially perform the service or the entire service for themselves and may not need the provider at all.

Customers thus in that sense are competitors of the companies that supply the service. Whether to produce a service for themselves (internal exchange). E.g. child care, home maintenance i.e. have someone else provide home services for them (external exchange) is a common dilemma for consumers.

Similar internal versus external exchange decisions are made by organizations. Firms frequently choose to outsource service activities such as payroll, data processing, research, accounting, maintenance, and facilities management. They find that it is advantageous to focus on their core businesses and leave these essential support services to others with greater expertise. Alternatively, a firm may decide to stop purchasing services externally and bring the service production process in-house.

4. Strategies for enhancing customer participation

The level and nature of customer participation in the service process are strategic decisions that can impact an organization productivity, its positioning relative to competitors, its service quality, and its customer participation.

• Define Customer’s role: In developing strategies for addressing customer involvement in service co-creation and delivery, the organization first determines what type of participation is desirable from customers and how the customer wishes to participate.
• Helping Oneself: In many cases the organization may decide to increase the level of customer involvement in service delivery through active participation. In such situations, the customer becomes a productive resource, performing aspects of service previously perfumed by employees or others.
• Helping others: In many cases the organization may decide to increase the level of customer involvement in service delivery through active participation. In such situations, the customer becomes a productive resource, performing aspects of the service previously performed by employees or others.
• Promoting the company: In some cases the customer’s job includes a sales or promotional element. Service customers rely heavily on word-of-mouth endorsement in deciding which provider to try. They are more comfortable getting a recommendation from someone who has experienced the service than from adverting or other forms of non-personal communication.
• Individual differences: In defining customer’s role it is important to remember that not everyone will want to participate. Some customers enjoy self-service, whereas others prefer to have the service performed entirely for them.
• Recruit educate and reward customers: Once the customer’s role is clearly defined, the organization can think in terms of facilitating that role. In a sense, the customer becomes a partial employee of the organization, and strategies for managing customer behavior in service production and delivery can mimic to some degree the efforts aimed at service employees.
• Recruit the right customers: Before the company begins the process of educating ans socializing customers for their roles, it must attract the right customer to fill those roles.

5. Summary

This chapter focused on the role of customer in service co-creation and delivery. The customer receiving the service and fellow customer in the service environment can all cause a widening of gap 3 if they fail to perform their role effectively.