Managing People In Service Organization

Managing People in Service Organization

Internal Marketing: It is means of applying the philosophy and practices of marketing to people who serve the external customers so that –

The best possible people can be employed and retained and

They will do the best possible work.

Employees as internal Customers A diverse group of employees who engage in exchanges between

each other. In order to have their needs met, employees are often dependent

upon internal services provided by other departments or individuals within their organization.

These includes relationships between customer contact staff, back room staff, managers, and contact between head office and branch office etc.

Value chain for internally produced services

Employees process Stage 1

Employees processStage 2

Employees process Stage 3

Front line service employees

Intermediaries

The final consumers

Input form outsider suppliers

Value chain for internally produced services Different internal suppliers and customers, some of which deal

directly with the service delivery process and some of which provide support services to the service delivery process, closely related to the concept of the value chain.

Different roles internal customers play in a service firm

Internal customers play a variety of roles that leads to four categories by employees of a service firm.

Analysis of the groups and consequent roles will reveal the importance of the people factor to the following:

The efficiency and effectiveness of the service firm

Customer responsiveness

Image and positioning of the firm, especially where any relevant tangibility to service. They form the major part of differentiation of the service firm.

Opportunity to create additional value.

Roles of employees and their influence on customers

Contactors Modifiers

Influencers Isolateds

Frequency of periodicCustomer contact

Infrequent or noCustomer contact

Involved withConventionalMarketing Mix

Not directly involvedWith marketingMix

Contactors They are having very frequent contact with customers and very

involved with all front line marketing activities like sales, promotions, handling customers enquiries and also complaints.

They make maximum impression on the customers and are wholly responsible for moments of truth.

They are trained to deal with customers, and situations-and require being highly motivated on a continuous basis.

Modifiers

They have regular encounters with customers and also go on to build the Moments of Truth of a service firm

They occupy less points of interaction with the marketing activities.

They constitute receptionists, call centre personnel, direct sales agents of banks and insurance companies.

When service personnel end up interacting with customers without being fully aware of the management objectives and strategic goals. Customers relationship building becomes, one of the most important skills for these categories of employees.

Influencers They are senior personnel who have planned and devised

strategies but they very infrequent contact with customers. It is in their involvement with different marketing activities like

marketing research, strategy, product development, and marketing communication that they influence the service firm.

The objective and goal of influencers should revolve around developing customers orientation amongst the work groups and the organization. They have a potential to develop customers responsiveness amongst his peers and subordinates.

Isolateds These role players perform support functions like data processing,

back office operations, maintenance, purchasing etc

They do not interact with customers, nor are they deeply involved with usual marketing activities.

There handle functions that are critical to the effectiveness of the service firm. They tend to display minimum customer responsiveness.

Human Resource Development

The most important assets for gathering a competitive (aggressive) advantage and distinctive (individual) positioning was its internal customers.

HRD can convert the people factor, which is generally perceived as liability, into assets.

Controlling and empowering staff Controlling: Staff can be supervised closely and corrective action

are taken where they fail to perform to standard.

On the other hand, staff can be made responsible for controlling their own actions. Empowerment: It may be crucial for turning service failures into

effective recovery, and for closely tailoring a service to individual customers needs.

The degree of empowerment given to employees, or the control exercised over them depends on the format of a service delivery system.

Creating involvement by employees.

Strategies to empower employees to create more effective service encounters will not be effective if employees do not feel involved in their job.

Motivation, consent, participation, Moral involvement and communication form essential focal points for an organization’s HRM strategy.

Creating involvement by employees.

Consent: It covers a variety of management –led initiatives and strategies which seek to give it authority without actively emphasizing its coercive power.

For many services provided on a one-to-one basis, direct monitoring and supervision of employees by management may be impossible to achieve anyway.

Moral involvement: It refers to some mechanism whereby employees can identify with the corporate goals of their employer and relay their feelings about these goals back to management.

Management can generate moral involvement through joint consultation with employees on decisions made by management.

Creating involvement by employees Motivation: Motivation concerns goals and rewards. It is

based on individuals desire to satisfy various levels of needs. Rewards for reaching goals can be tangible e.g. money or can be intangible e.g. awards which add to status or self-esteem.

Participation: An employees participation in an organization itself through more qualitative measures such as employee involvement in decision making through quality circles or team briefings. e.g. selecting, recruiting and appraising employees within a work group

Communication: Improving communication between a company and its employees. effective communication should be based on a one-way channel of information from managers to employees through such media as staff newsletters.

Training and Development

Training becomes a important tool and it can bring at par all those employees who are lagging behind some of their peers in skills and capability.

This would give the image and impression of consistency in service delivery to the customers

E.g. call centre employees in handling voice calls would speak with same accent irrespective of their backgrounds, only due to the training in soft skills imparted to them.

Career Development

An organization in it goals of recruiting and retaining staff is a clearly defined career progression pathway.

Career progression refers to a mechanism which enables employees to visualize how their working life might develop within a particular organization.

Rewarding Staff The purpose of rewarding staff is to improve the standard of staff

performance by giving employees something which they consider to be of value in return for good performance.

Rewards to employees can be divided into two categories-

Non-monetary rewards cover a wide range of benefits. E.g. subsidized housing or sports facilities and public recognition for work achievement.

Monetary rewards are more direct and the principal motivator for employees which helps for improving the performance of employees.

Reducing dependency on human resources

Employees represent an expensive and difficult asset to manage, and furthermore, the quality of output received by final consumers can often be perceived as being highly variable.

The aim of employee replacement schemes can be to increase consistency or to reduce costs.

The number of strategies can be identified to reduce dependency such as:-

Reducing dependency on human resources

A human development in a service production and delivery process can be completely replaced by automatic machinery.e.g. ATM machines, vending machines, automatic car washes etc.

Equipment can be used alongside employees to assist them in their task.

So these are the HRD Practices can convert the people as a factor, perceived from liability to assets.

Satisfy the Dissatisfied

Hear the customer out.

Empathize

Apologize

Take responsibility for action.

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