Designing Service Excellence : People and Technology

The moment of truth—that instant when consumers experience and judge service quality—is often a deciding factor in business success. Designing Service Excellence: People and Technology provides practical information on the design, management, and organization of many different types of service industries, such as hotels, restaurants, banks and financial institutions, retail, and the public sector. The authors investigate the consumers’ experience and judgment on service quality, which ultimately determines the success or failure of the service. They then consider people, usability, and technology in the automation of high-quality service.

This research-driven book identifies service—in a variety of forms—as an area of business and management where rapid change is taking place. The authors examine how service has become a balance between people and technology and explore this relationship as one of the key drivers of change. They discuss how social, cultural, and technological developments influence the ways in which customers contact, negotiate, and purchase services from their chosen service providers. These same developments are also driving communications between customers relating to the services they buy and are willing to recommend to others (or otherwise). Intermingled, these features of our current-day lives have changed the nature of service provision and service use.

When your organization has its moment of truth, how will it measure up? Organizations whose business has service at its core and whose activities focus mainly on service design, management, and delivery are likely to find increasingly that, for survival, service is a matter of life or death. This book provides a deep understanding of the relationship between people and technology along with an ergonomic approach to the design and management of service delivery that helps you deliver the value and benefits that customers not only want, but increasingly come to expect.

Dr. Toni K. B. Ivergard has a post doctorate in Science of Work from the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, a PhD in Human Sciences and a Master in Ergonomics and Cybernetics from Loughborough University, UK. He was a regional director of the Swedish National Research Institute of Working Life and he has published numerous books and over 220 papers and articles. Currently he is Director of a Master of Management in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Rangsit University in Bangkok. He is also the Managing Director of the Ivergard Management Consultancy (IMC) Ltd in Stockholm. IMC specializes in top leadership development. Over several decades he has been in management positions in both the public and private sectors. He was R&D Director of the Scandinavian Airline University, Managing Director of the consultancy and research company ERGOLAB and the Head of the Environmental Laboratory of the Cooperative Union and Wholesale Society). Recently he has focused on 'Learning at Work', macro aspects of HR and Technology and the role of corporations in the society. Together with Brian Hunt he is co-author of the Handbook of Control Room Design and Ergonomics: A Perspective for the Future (published by CRC Press in 2008).

Dr. Brian Hunt is a full-time member of faculty and Assistant Professor at the College of Management Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand where he held the post of Director of Research from 2000-2004. Brian is a graduate of the universities of East Anglia (UEA), Reading, and Bath, all in the UK. He has conducted business research projects at City University Business School and at Imperial College, London. Brian holds a PhD from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Brian has published widely in the areas of business and management, specifically in corporate strategy, learning in organizations, pubic management, and ergonomic approaches to management and organizational design. His most recent book (co-authored with Toni Ivergard) is the Handbook of Control Room Design and Ergonomics: A Perspective for the Future (published by CRC Press in 2008).