Collaborative Research: Customer Efficiency and the Management of Multi-Channel Service Delivery Systems

合作研究：客户效率和多渠道服务交付系统的管理

• 批准号: 0519054
• 负责人: Lorin Hitt
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Pennsylvania
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-09-15 至 2008-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0519054&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Customer; Efficiency; Management

A critical challenge for modern service industries is providing high levels of customer service while minimizing service delivery costs. This is especially true for transaction oriented consumer service businesses such as retail banking, brokerage, package transport, and retail trade in which consumers can have frequent and multiple points of contact with an organization. One significant service innovation over the last decade is the use of information technology to support customer self-service. A well designed multi-channel service delivery system, including both customer-provided self-service and employee-provided full-service, can simultaneously lower costs and improve service quality, as well as create related benefits such as increased customer retention. The profound impact of this proliferation of self-service is evident in the strong growth of the so-called "self-service economy" that involves almost all major service industries as well as the service operations of manufacturers.While offering multiple service channels is generally viewed as a competitive necessity in many industries, there is a considerable amount of discretion on the design and management of self-service channels. Our research will specifically focus on the role of the customer in service co-production, drawing on customer efficiency. Efficient customers are able to co-produce required services at a low cost and therefore will tend to disproportionately utilize self-service channels when it is feasible for a given service need. Therefore, it has become important to measure and improve customer efficiency for successful service delivery that features technology-enabled self-service. We investigate a series of issues in regard to the design and management of a multi-channel service delivery system featuring self-service technology in the retail banking industry, an industry at the forefront of this transformation. Through alliances forged with industry participants, we have access to data of unprecedented scale and scope on customer utilization of banking service channels and active participation of senior management at our partner institutions to maximize the contribution to industry practice. The expected insights from this work can be readily extended to other service industries as well as government institutions, service and support operations in manufacturing firms, and non-commercial organizations seeking to improve their service operations by offering self-service.

现代服务行业的一个关键挑战是提供高水平的客户服务，同时最大程度地降低服务交付成本。 对于以交易为导向的消费服务业务（例如零售银行，经纪，包装运输和零售贸易）尤其如此，在这些业务中，消费者可以频繁地与组织有多个联系点。 在过去十年中，一种重要的服务创新是使用信息技术来支持客户自助服务。 设计良好的多渠道服务交付系统，包括提供客户提供的自助服务和员工提供的全方位服务，可以同时降低成本并提高服务质量，并创造相关收益，例如增加客户保留率。这种自助服务扩散的深远影响在所谓的“自助服务经济”的强劲增长中显而易见，几乎涉及几乎所有主要的服务行业以及制造商的服务运营。在许多行业中，通常将多种服务渠道视为在许多行业中提供的竞争性必要性，但在自助服务渠道的设计和管理渠道中有相当多的酌处。我们的研究将特别关注客户在服务联合生产中的作用，并利用客户效率。 高效的客户能够以低成本的价格共同生产所需的服务，因此，当它适合给定的服务需求时，它会倾向于不成比例地利用自助服务渠道。因此，衡量和提高客户效率的服务交付具有以技术支持的自助服务而变得很重要。我们研究了有关在零售银行业中具有自助技术的多渠道服务交付系统的设计和管理的一系列问题，零售银行业是这一转型最前沿的行业。通过与行业参与者建立的联盟，我们可以访问空前规模和范围的数据，并在客户利用银行服务渠道以及高级管理层在我们的合作伙伴机构中积极参与，以最大程度地提高对行业实践的贡献。这项工作的预期见解很容易扩展到其他服务行业，以及政府机构，制造公司的服务和支持运营以及寻求通过提供自助服务来改善其服务运营的非商业组织。