Review of Service Management: Strategy and Leadership in Service BusinessesThe cover of the 1984 edition is slightly less photogenic yet displays a simple dark brown four square intersected flow chart with a central inter-connected point on a plain brown background. That also amply describes the contents of the book, a heavily lined thesis of simplicity itself and a reassuring brown bag background which makes me think this Normann was an incredibly honest and easy to understand leader and educator. I can see him quietly going about his business and venturing around with a brown bag lunch and perhaps quite low-key at the office. We have dug or are digging most of the accessible resources out of the earth's ground. Our factories are chugging along on JIT most of the time. So Normann correctly tagged service industries as the next big growth opportunity of the future and the intangibility in definition of services, be they acts or interactions, all which have simultaneous occurances. He contended that operational service quality is created and contended in series upon series of "moments of truth", his term, he coined it in terms of business service quality, describing the customer as the raging bull and the matador the dashing service provider.
Normann contends this definition of quality is greater than the sum of its definitive parts in description of 'personality intensity' where it is not what a person does in the service of a customer but how one does it, regardless of the capital, equipment, logo, or corporate background attached to that service. Refreshing to note even some painters manage to do great things with a few scraps of paper, crusts of bread and unsteady scratches.
Normann selected a few notable case studies, refreshing in their relative antiquity, none of the companies listed were really known to me, nor have I ever feasted upon escargots in any European climates anyway. One may tire of hearing about the same business success stories over and over again. Perhaps some of these companies are now fossils fertilizing the successes of newer European shoots? He seems to be discussing EF English First which perhaps in 1984 existed as a former organisation known simply as EF Colleges? The one which most clearly demonstrates moments of truth concerns Les Freres Troisgros where instead of bulls and matadors we are presented with an operatic anticipatory equivalent to lolling canine tongues salivating over the latest culinary feasts being lovingly basted and prepared in the gormande kitchens which seem to recall a medieval tendancy to revel in observation of moments of truth be they timeless as in Shakespeare or tiresome as in the 100 years war.
His thesis is encapsulated by diagramatic representation on the original 1984 cover and by the third edition it loses its prominence and emminence (savoury food would be a more dramatic illustration) but is comprised of five facets: service concept, market segment, culture and philosophy, service delivery system, and the image of the company. How well these facets inter-relate through the extension of personality intensity and moments of truth which reverberate and vibrate through internal customer as well as external customer relations determine whether or not a workplace can be as satisfying as witnessing one's portion of spring lamb levered from up out of the stove and thus carved on to the warmed plate of one's own portion or slapped together like a Big Mac.
In the service concept, the entire package is described as tangible, intangible, explicit, implicit, core, and peripherals in a grid block of inter-relatedness. He describes the service elements as one would whisk together a cup of soup. First specialized capacities to deliver services better or more cheaply are considered essential. Linkages and social relationships are then described as required to create connections that would not otherwise exist. This is followed by an ability to transfer knowledge, information and capabilites such as formal courses or training programs for customers even when allowing them access to new services might implicate their desire to continue using old ones. Finally the sale of management systems has become a service within a service determining options to consult or take-over management of key services. In the market segment, the client serves two roles; first as customer and second as participant/observor. He credits Alvin Toffler for detailing the needs and role of the "prosumer" and Zeleny as originating a descriptive 'self-service" customer as determining the improvements possible in industries where many innovations have already been made. Client participation is described on a variety categorical determinations from development of service, marketing, physical, intellectual and emotional participation. He states that finding the right questions often determines the productivity of a client relationship to service improvements. Normann explains the concept of creating customers where there were none through participatory evaluation and whether contact personnel actually embody the image and emotional empathy required of them through the expression and practice commitment, patience and skills to guarantee the satisfaction of customers, minimizing turnover and maximizing profitability.
In the culture and philosophy, Normann illustrates that service concepts themselves require innovation and creativity which transfers knowledge and capabilities from the company to the clients to ensure continued patronage. These vital transfers include variety and consumer freedom, and the growth of what is termed "social innovation." Such innovations include: client participation, the linkages of different contexts, career and job rotations, refocusing human energy, and scale advantages in knowledge. In the service delivery system, Normann describes the physical aids to delivery of services and the requirements of cost rationalisation, quality control, increasing quality, forging closer links to customersand the use and benefits of specific technologies interestingly noting the potential for inappropriate technological use implicating the social processes of effective services or the possibility that such processes may be disturbed rather than enhanced in some cases. In the image of the company, Normann relies on Kenneth Boulding for a definition of image a s merely a model or signifier of beliefs or understandings of phenomena or situations. He describee image as constituting culture, organsiation and people influences, products or service influences, market segmentation influences and other image influencing activities such as thr reshaping of reality by managers to suit a reshaping of image. This aspect of service is described as purposeful in the art of strategic market positioning, making certain resources available, and increasing motivational and productivity factors in the company which leads to internal marketing to "sell" the company essence or mission to internal customers first.
If any of this appears at all familiar it could be due to its role as a keystone to current day concepts of service. While some might argue it is all common sense, it seems trite to suggest that of course it is, now.
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