Blog Posts

Welcome to the CSL’s “ServiceFriday”. Each Friday we post three summaries from some of our favorite sources from research literature, news articles, blogs, and more. The posts are curated to cover topics that are interesting, relevant, and thought provoking in the realm of service, business, education, and beyond.

Companies try to manage customer expectations by communicating their capabilities, by way of their salespeople and other, non-human channels such as websites. One oft-recommended method is to promise the customer less than the firm is capable of producing, then delighting the customer by over-delivering.

When flights are cancelled or a noisy party disturbs hotel guests, financial compensation is an effective and often-used salve to sooth aggrieved customers. Still, some firms try to avoid paying compensation, while others pay too little or not enough to achieve the customer satisfaction impact they seek.

Is the customer experience at your company frictionless?

Douglas Olsen, faculty director of the Strategic Service Institute, describes the omni-channel customer experience this way.

Welcome to the CSL’s “ServiceFriday”. Each Friday we post three summaries from some of our favorite sources from research literature, news articles, blogs, and more. The posts are curated to cover topics that are interesting, relevant, and thought provoking in the realm of service, business, education, and beyond.

Companies such as equipment providers have added services to their product offerings, responding to increased competition and changing customer expectations. In many cases, revenues realized from services now exceed revenues derived from products, and firms have new understanding of how to fulfill customers’ needs.

Leaders of firms that strive to provide superior customer service build customer orientation (CO) into their culture. Customer orientation is an attribute of individual employees in these firms, but many companies are now organizing service through teams.

What does your customer really need?

In service research, much attention has been paid to the role of the customer when it comes to service delivery and service evaluation. However, less attention has been paid to the role of the customer in service recovery.

Welcome to the CSL’s “ServiceFriday”. Each Friday we post three summaries from some of our favorite sources from research literature, news articles, blogs, and more. The posts are curated to cover topics that are interesting, relevant, and thought provoking in the realm of service, business, education, and beyond.

While service managers understand the importance of frontline service employees possessing emotional intelligence (EI), a study authored by Cécile Delcourt, CSL Faculty Network member Dwayne Gremler, et.

Web 2.0, otherwise known as non-static websites that focus on the ability for users to collaborate and share information, allows consumers to readily share their experiences, thoughts, and opinions with others.

This week we are doing something a little different for ServiceFriday. We are featuring the top three blog posts from the CSL that deliver relevant and compelling content for service science.

How can service providers link convenience to customer satisfaction in order to drive profitability? Research in the Journal of Service Marketing found that search convenience is the most important dimension of overall customer satisfaction.

Economists have come to recognize the importance of establishing trust and reciprocity in human interactions around financial transactions. Additionally, networks of trust and reciprocity are essential for bolstering all economic exchange.  

Welcome to the CSL’s “ServiceFriday”. Each Friday we post three summaries from some of our favorite sources from research literature, news articles, blogs, and more. The posts are curated to cover topics that are interesting, relevant, and thought provoking in the realm of service, business, education, and beyond.

The importance of customer experience in service environments is indisputable.

Complaints and negative customer feedback certainly get our attention as service providers. Current research mostly focuses on addressing the consequences of negative customer feedback, but is positive customer feedback just as important to influence customer behavior and service outcomes?

Feedback seeking behavior, or FSB, is a proactive way in which employees can seek out feedback from managers and supervisors to improve work performance. Seeking feedback also goes a long way to establish trust among employees and to build solid relationships within an organization.

Excellence in health services management is a goal that many health care organizations, hospitals, and other medical care facilities aspire to. Yet, achieving that excellence is not necessarily easily attainable.