Used in the first module of a Harvard Business School course on Managing Service Operations, which addresses managing the operating role of customers (606-032). To maximize their effectiveness, color cases should be printed in color. At Zipcar, customers share the use of cars and, as a result, rely on each other for their service experience. Customers are required to keep the car clean and the gas tank full and to return the car on time. Told fro...

A brand new hotel has opened with a new service strategy: import to America Asian-style service using a butler-like employee group called the personal valets. To achieve this high level of service, the hotel has paid great attention to its human resource policies, believing that the quality of its service will depend on the quality and motivation of the people, It articulates a series of employee "rights," which it tells employees are enforceable...

To maximize their effectiveness, color cases should be printed in color. Describes the Mumbai-based Dabbawala organization, which achieves very high service performance (6 Sigma equivalent or better) with a low-cost and very simple operating system. The case explores all aspects of their system (mission, information management, material flows, human resource system, processes, etc.) and the challenges that the Dabbawala organization faces in a ra...

It's easy to conclude from the literature and the lore that top-notch customer service is the province of a few luxury companies and that any retailer outside that rarefied atmosphere is condemned to offer mediocre service at best. But even companies that position themselves for the mass market can provide outstanding customer-employee interactions and profit from them, if they train employees to reflect the brand's core values. The authors studi...

This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. When products become commodities, manufacturing companies may seek to differentiate themselves with value-added services - a potentially profitable strategy. Unfortunately, companies often stumble in the effort. Reinartz and Ulaga conducted in-depth studies of 18 l...

Used as part of the second module of a course on Managing Service Operations, which addresses the design of sustainable service models (606-031). Consumer auto insurance is a price-sensitive industry in which customers rarely pay a premium to a provider even for additional service features. Progressive spends more on additional service features than its competitors do; consumers don't pay extra for these features, yet the company makes money on a...

During the past 15 years, companies have flocked to a handful of cities in India and Eastern Europe for offshore service functions. As a result, the most popular sites are now overheating: Demand for young professionals is outstripping supply, wages and turnover are soaring, and overburdened infrastructure systems are struggling to serve the explosive growth. The happy news is that the tight labor markets in the well-known hot spots are the excep...

This article was originally published in March-April 1994 and was republished in July-August 2008 as an HBR Classic. This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. In exemplary service organizations, executives understand that they need to put customers and frontline workers at the center of their focus. Thos...

SIG Beverages, a leading supplier of bottling and packaging systems for the beverage industry, has recognized an opportunity in providing services for its product end users. Management's challenge is to develop a service portfolio to address end users' needs, while balancing the competing initiatives to develop internal service capabilities. In the midst of a series of projects to improve spare parts and repair services, a customer requests a fix...

Describes Star's experiment with gain sharing over a three-year period. Background on the industry and company's history are provided to establish the context for the shift to pay-for-performance. Describes the three different gain sharing programs, the resulting payouts, and organizational impact.