Servuction as a service creation process

There may be a diversity of services with different mixes. And it gives rise to services with different characteristics, to be assumed globally, for the entire system: hospital, restaurant, hotel, university, etc.; it is difficult and impractical.

It is then necessary to divide the system into subsystems that must be managed according to its characteristics, that is, its behavior. For this it is important to correctly classify the subsystem, taking into account how each variable it classifies acts.

There have been various proposals for classifying services, which have nothing to do with classifications given to manufacturing systems (Lovelok, 1997; Schemenner, 1986; Schroeder, 1992).

Any of the variables used can serve as a basis for understanding service management. With this knowledge the manager can propose, on a solid basis, the way of managing adapted to the peculiar characteristic of the service.

Introduction

1. Serving as a service creation process

Servuction: "The production of the Service". It is the systematic and coherent organization of all the physical and human elements of the client-company relationship necessary for the performance of a service whose commercial characteristics and quality levels have been determined.

Its essence is to define, first, the service you want to give and for what type of client; and from here you can establish what type of physical supports are needed and which personnel will establish contacts with the client so that, finally, the organizational system that ensures the proper functioning of the method can be created, all considering the organization as a service manufacturing system.

The concept of servuction provides a particular vision of the management of organizations, referred to as the service production system, that is, the visible part of the organization in which services are produced, distributed and consumed.

There is no word in Spanish to designate the creative process of a service, so these French authors have opted for the neologism servuction.

The great contribution of this approach is to put the emphasis on the quality of services as a result of the system, an increasingly important differential characteristic for the survival of organizations.

They point out that the great difference between the manufacture of a service and the manufacture of a product, is that the client is a fundamental member of the servuction system, that is, he is both producer and consumer. Therefore, the key point is to understand the sequence of acts of participation in the service that the client carries out to benefit from the service offered.

Development

The French group services into base systems and this is the way it is useful to study them.

In the base 1 service system, two people are considered and their interaction results in a service as a final product:

Base Service System

The second base-type system brings into play two different base elements than No. 1. It is now about a person and a product. The result of the interaction is service. It usually involves the use of a tangible asset. The three elements of the system are linked to each other, if the relationship is also reciprocal. In all cases where a tangible good is used and is used and consumed, it is like this:

Type 2 Base Service System

It is precisely the third of them in which two or more people constantly interact, a product and the necessary or desired service is obtained. It would be appropriate to pay attention to the participation of the beneficiary and the provider, the role of the product and the resulting service.

Type 3 Base Service System

1.1 The basic elements of the servuction system are

The client or beneficiary: Active subject of the service, provides information about their need, expectation or desire. The quality and precision of the information are necessary but not sufficient conditions of the quality of service provided, which it also evaluates. That is why the total satisfaction of the customer's needs is the first element in the Servuction system, they must feel encouraged and motivated to request the service to be provided. The physical support: (tangible elements of the servuction). It constitutes the material support necessary for the production of the service such as construction installation, access, premises, furniture, general infrastructure and equipment, technology, component parts and accessories, useful materials, tools, means of protection, among others. The personnel: They are the people employed by the company to provide the service according to the information of the beneficiary according to their knowledge of the process and the acquired skills. These personnel can be contact, support and management. Personalized customer service is a point of utmost importance in Servuction; the personnel in charge must be qualified and prepared to fully satisfy the needs of consumers.The service: It is the result of the interaction of the three basic elements that are the client, the physical support and the personnel. This result constitutes a benefit that must satisfy the customer's need. It is essential that an internal strategy is carried out in which all the points to improve are identified, communicating everything that is going to be done so that everyone "pulls" towards the same side, towards the achievement of the final objective.

The combination of the basic elements, that is, the participation of the client or its possession or ownership in a given physical medium, in the face of the behavior of the contact personnel, results in the type and quality of the service offered. Working on these and the relationships between them is what will allow companies to provide services that stand out in the market (Salinas, 2002; Díaz Cerón, 2002; Fernández Clúa, 2002; González Méndez, 2002 / a /)

On the other hand, there are competitors whose behavior must also be evaluated to determine their strengths and weaknesses and to be able to learn from the possible advantages they have compared to the company itself, which must be considered in the strategies for Service. This point is important, since if you are only in the market, you would not have a direct reference regarding the service provided.

1.2 Basic precepts for the service manager

Taking into consideration the criteria of different authors such as (Schroeder, 1992; Shostack, 1987; Albrecht, 1990; Kotler, 1992; Christopher, 1994; Schemnner, 1986; Carlzon, 1991; Juran, 1993; Ishikawa, 1988), they were stated by González Pérez (1997) the basic precepts that will serve as guides or suggestions to the manager of service activities.

1.3 Sell two products: physical and service

Sasser, Olsen and Wyekoff in 1978 defined a service product as something that consists of the following mixture: the physical items or facilitating goods, the sensory benefits or explicit services and the implicit psychological benefits or service, in a restaurant, the physical items consist of the facility, food, beverages, etc. The sensory benefits are the taste, the service of the clerk, the aroma of the food, etc. Psychological benefits include comfort, social status, and a sense of well-being. (Schroeder, 1992). Shostack (1987) emphasizes that products are combinations of goods and services.

For his part, Theodore Levitt, said, there are no service industries, what there are are industries whose service components are greater or less than those of other industries. Everybody is in service. (Albrecht, 1990).

A product is the result of activities or processes, it can include hardware and software or a combination of these, this can be tangible or intangible or a combination and it can be intentional or not. (ISO Standards, 1995).

Kotler (1988) argues that the service may or may not be linked to a physical product, in effect, the offer of any company or organization may contain, to a greater or lesser extent, elements of service (Martín, 1993).

It is considered, then, that when offering a physical product a service product must be granted (a sensory and psychological benefit) and when offering a service a physical product may or may not be present, the service product can never be lacking in the mix. This is in contrast to what was proposed by Martín, where the possibility of the granting of a pure product is destroyed. Add value to the product.

1.4 The need to consider the service as a process

Albrecht (1990) reports that it is often a real chore to make managers and people liaising with the public change their views and see the product as the customer sees it.

In contrast to this idea, the client never sees that the service is departmentalized according to the organization's structure, the client has an end and wants to achieve it, he does not know how?

To solve this problem, the thinking of the product must be in terms of the service cycle. Several authors recommend the representation of processes such as flow charts, “flat” flow charts or blue drawings. The team in charge of developing and implementing the process improvement activities has as its first fundamental activity: developing a process flow diagram (Shostack, 1994; Schroeder, 1992; Harrington, 1989).

The essence lies in indicating how it articulates the supplier / client relationships between functions, for the granting of the product.

For the study of the service, each of the steps of the process and their relationships must be diagrammed, very similar to the techniques used in manufacturing, which as a consequence of this should be reservations and proposals to improve the level of customer service.

1.5 Impact in moments of truth

Jan Carlzon, President of Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) metaphorically defined the term, moment of truth, as an episode in which the customer comes into contact with any aspect of the organization and has an impression about the quality of the service. (Albrecht, 1990)].

The conceptual value of the Carlzon approach lies in an essential difference that the manufacturing processes have with respect to those of service, the latter is produced and consumed at the same time, which means that a service will be endowed with innumerable deliveries of services, and each moment that you deliver, the client perceives, and what he perceives is only a moment of truth. It is suggested, then, that in the diagrams that represent the service process mark each moment of truth, they would be the points of the process that respond to the guarantee of the quality of the service, not with a sense of inspection and control, but with a sense of humanizing and give autonomy to the personnel who deliver the service.

In this sense, Albrecht rightly said that "if the concept of moment of truth was taken concretely, one should forget about tasks and positions and organizational structures and procedures to start thinking in terms of results."

1.6 Invert the pyramid

The well-known business organization chart, given the traditions of management theory (Figure 1.6 (a)), where in the upper part, the quality of authority is granted to the director of the organization causing various negative consequences such as:

The client is not part of its structure, so some management functions may not take it into account. Employees appear at the bottom, however, they are the most knowledgeable about the client, so they are the ones who create the product of service.

According to Albrecht (1990), the inverted pyramid is a dramatic metaphor for the service-oriented organization (Figure 1.6 (b)), clarifying that this does not imply an inversion of authority but a change in the minds of managers.

1.6 (a) 1.6 (b)

Structural investment in the minds of managers

Figure 1.6 Structural investment in the minds of managers

For Harrington (1989), the change in attitude towards quality must begin at the top, with the highest executives of the company and, like a waterfall, wash away all levels of management. The Waterfall Effect.

It is true that the customer must exert a pull effect on the organization, a change in the entrepreneur's paradigm is difficult.

1.7 Consider the consumer as a king, but do not ignore that a king can be blind and that training may also be necessary

Customer-oriented companies have undoubtedly demonstrated significant achievements and have remained competitive. Albrecht stated, "Perhaps the fundamental rule of service management is: Know your customer." Jan Carlzon stated: The only thing that counts is a satisfied customer ¨.

Based on these statements, if the administration was only interested in having a satisfied client, it could fall into a ¨ dangerous inertia ¨, as the client may not be aware of the type of service being sold and may slow down the technological development of the organization While the business grows, others grow as well and may pass you by.

It is necessary to make the customer aware of the best that the service company should provide, that is, educate the customer, which does not mean giving education to the customer, but giving the experience of having used it well.

1.8 Clients are original, do not have a copy

Customer is someone who has been impacted by a product, user are those customers who perform positive operations with the product. (Juran, 1993). Any of these two terms could be used for this precept: customer or user.

Both are people who come to the service with very personal needs, with very own ways of perceiving the physical product and the sensory and psychological goods.

This is a basic principle of the good employee of the contact line, but it is no less true, that the direction of the organization to convert the expectations of the clients into rules and norms of conduct of the organization, needs a Standard.

1.9 The first market is the employee

Employees should be seen as a ¨ market ¨ in a sense with the aim of:

Involve the employee in the mission of the organization. That employees believe that they will be successful and it will be worth it for them.

Once these two elements are resolved, the ¨ ship will drive itself ¨, this implies autonomy, the employee must be free to act, he will make decisions based on the client; but preserving the interests of the organization. (Albrecht, 1990).

Here it is important to consider the Service Profit Chain, where the profits of the service company are linked with the satisfaction of employees and customers, based on five elements:

Quality of internal service Satisfied and productive service employees Higher value of service Satisfied and loyal customers

1.10 A customer culture is necessary

Albrecht's (1987) assertion that if the customer is not served, it would be better if someone who is served is closely linked to the term customer breakdown, known as external customers and internal customers.

External customers are impacted by the product; but they are not members of the company that produces the product. (Juran, 1993).

In relation to internal customers: In all companies there are numerous situations in which departments and people supply products or services to others. We will call those who receive them "customers" even though they are not customers in the usual sense, that is, even if they do not buy the product. (Juran,; 1993).

For a more complete Conceptualization of the rule, it would be convenient to remember the phrase “the next process is your customer”. (Ishikawa, 1988)

The degree of contact will define how the impact on the production efficiency of the service will be, to the extent that the customer has more influence on the operation. On the other hand, if the contact is high, the opportunity for additional product sales will be greater, as a result of the interaction between customer and service provider.

The left side shows that the higher the degree of contact, the greater the sales opportunity.

The right side shows the impact on production efficiency as the customer has more influence on the operation.

The entries in the matrix indicate the ways in which the service can be delivered.

At one extreme, the service contact is made by mail so that customers have very little interaction with the system. At the other extreme, customers “get the service the way they want it (personalized)” through personal, face-to-face contact. The other 4 inputs constitute varying degrees of interaction.

As can be seen, the production efficiency decreases as the customer has more contact (and therefore more influence) with the system. However, this face-to-face contact offers a fairly high opportunity to sell additional products.

On the other hand, a low contact (mail) allows the system to work more efficiently, because the client cannot significantly affect (or disturb) the system, however, there are very few opportunities for additional product sales.

Strategic uses of the matrix

Allow systematic integration of operations and marketing strategy Accurately define the service delivery mix Allow comparisons with respect to the competition, determining competitive advantage Indicate evolutionary changes or life cycles that occur

Operational analysis. The service and failure prevention scheme

The standard tool for the design of service processes is the flow diagram, currently called the service schema.

A unique feature of the service schema is the distinction it makes between aspects of the service with high customer contact (the part of the process that the customer sees) and activities that the customer does not see.

This distinction is made by the line of sight.

Example: segment of a schematic of an auto repair service operation operation:

One method that solves this is the application of Poka-yokes (avoid mistakes, translated from Japanese). They are procedures that prevent unavoidable errors from turning into faulty service.

Within the process, not all the activities that are developed have the same impact on the final result, being necessary to identify the critical activities, on which we can act from the control of failures that occur in them (Parra Ferié, 2004 / c /, 2004 / d /, 2004 / e /).

One method that can be useful in identifying the improvement program is the Poka-yokes or Failure Prevention technique. It is a process that prevents inevitable mistakes from turning into faulty service. Poka-yoke is a quality technique developed by the Japanese engineer Shigeo Shingo in the 1960's, which means "error-proof." The main idea is to create a process where errors are impossible to carry out, its purpose being to eliminate defects in a product either by preventing or correcting errors that arise as soon as possible.

2. Definition of the Hotel Reception department

It is the department of the hotel facility that offers services related to the arrival and departure of clients as well as controlling, coordinating, managing and providing different services during the stay of the guests within the facility. The Reception, therefore, is the department where requests, claims and complaints (opportunities) directly related to the facility service flow. In addition, it is the Reception where daily information is prepared and issued to the different hotel departments (lists, bookings, reports, etc.) to guarantee a harmonious and fluid work, which at the same time ensures a quality service.

It is also a hotel and tourism information center, as well as non-hotel information.

From the previous definition we can infer the great importance of the Reception Department within the service chain of a hotel facility, as well as the decisive role that it plays in the always difficult commitment to offer quality service.

We must add that for many the reception is the nerve center of the hotel where the newly arrived client has their first contact, gets their first impressions about the service, which is generally offered, and sees an extension of the management at the reception, for. what goes to him immediately before any need or difficulty

2.1 Location of the Reception department

The reception of a hotel must be located in a place where the client has easy access to it, it must be in the lobby itself, from where there is a wide view of the main entrance of the hotel and the access parts to the living area (doors, elevators, stairs, etc.). In this way we can have direct control of the people who enter or leave the housing area, in order to guarantee the safety of the guests who live there, and avoid possible disturbances to their privacy. We also guarantee that no person leaves the facility without having properly settled their debts with the hotel.

2.2 The service at the hotel reception

We will begin with the analysis of the design matrix of a service system, turning out to be a reactive system that is both penetrable and reactive to the client's requirements, it is face to face, total customization, because the client from the moment of truth arrives that receives is with the reception staff. Therefore, the possibility of selling additional products is high and when the occupancy is high, the efficiency of operations may decrease if there is no competent staff due to the number of simultaneous operations carried out, in addition to the information on the services that are not are part of the all-inclusive, such as:

Hairdresser.MassagesRoom WeddingsQuincesScuba diving instruction in the pool.Meal in specialized restaurants.Doctors.Aerobics, gymnasticsTable tennis competitionAmong others that contribute to raising income.

Next we show the elements of the servuction in the hotel reception department.

Degree of Customer Contact

Analysis of the servuction in the reception department

The basic elements of the servuction system are:

The client or beneficiary: The client may not be satisfied or present a concern and will be at the reception.

The physical support: The facility has new services, in the case of receiving technical computer equipment, furniture, premises, to provide the service with the required quality.

Staff: Contact staff with good professionalism, experience and command of languages.

The service: The reception process begins with the reservations, the client arrives at the hotel (servuction), the check-in is carried out, the public and commercial relations department also participates, the client takes the room and we are already interacting (with the accommodation process, public relations and technical services), the client accepts or not the room, stays at the hotel and at the end of this the check-out is made and the client leaves and concludes the service reception process as shown in (Annex 1) Hotel reception service process.

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Annex 1 Hotel reception service process

Source: Ruiz, Llilian 2007. Thesis in option for the title of Lic. Tourism