CSL’s Executive Director Emeritus Mary Jo Bitner Receives Honorary Doctorate

– Interview conducted and post written by Jack Lechich for the Center for Services Leadership On October 25, the Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland conferred the CSL’s own Executive Director Emeritus Mary Jo Bitner an Honorary Doctor of Hanken for her contributions as a leader and pioneer in the development of the service …

ServiceFriday: Interesting Reads for Service and Beyond

The CSL has launched a weekly feature on our blog called “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. …

Introducing ServiceFriday: Interesting Reads for Service and Beyond

The CSL is excited to launch a new weekly feature on our blog we are calling “ServiceFriday”. Each Friday we will 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 …

New CSL White Paper – Customer Success in the Age of Data

Customer Success in the Age of Data – Partnering with Customers for Mutual Success Customer Success (CS) is a new concept helping companies find ways to retain customers and maximize revenues in a business environment characterized by big data, changing modes of consumption and new business models.  The latest white paper produced by the CSL, along …

Edge: Helping Youth Get that First Job

The Center for Services Leadership is helping develop a customer service curriculum aimed at youth between the ages of 16 and 24 who are not in school and not working. This is the first time that the Center is involved in delivering customer service education to those who will man the front line. The music …

Ethics: Maintain Bright Lines – Interview with Dr. Marianne Jennings

Click Here to Listen to Audio the Podcast with Dr. Marianne Jennings Transcript:  For 40 years, Marianne Jennings has been teaching students and companies about ethical behavior in business settings. Professor emeritus of legal and ethical studies at the W. P. Carey School of Business, Jennings is the author of The Seven Signs of Ethical …

What Service Innovators Can Learn From Coproduction in Prolonged Complex Services

By Jelena Spanjol While frontline employees are critical in creating positive service encounters, many customers are left to their own devices to fully extract the potential value from a service. Across industries such as education, personal finance management, and healthcare, customers are the primary agents in the production of value from services provided by companies. …

Where Does the Employee Fit in a Service Operation?

By: David Bowen In the classic 1978 HBR article, “Where does the customer fit in a service operation?” Richard Chase described the impact of high or low customer contact on the efficiency of the service production system. The article also posed the question, “What do you, (a service operation), have to give up in order …

The Service Profit Chain: Reloaded

By: Joe Wheeler Just over 20 years since its first publication, the Service Profit Chain still appears in the presentations of leading companies at conferences around the world. Perhaps no other management model has survived the test of time and scrutiny by both business and academic leaders. Why? Well, perhaps the premise is difficult to …

What You Need to Know about the Impact of Service Crises

In sum, companies should focus on a stable (and good) service performance level. Such performance level has the best outcomes for customers’ service assessment, and takes much less effort compared to constant adjustments needed in response to peaks and troughs in service performance. A good and stable performance, in turn, is a strong argument for companies in their communication to customers, as it may engender favorable perceptions of the service quality.