Customer Processes in Business-to-Business Service Transactions (Business-to-Business-Marketing)

Services cannot be produced without the participation of the customer. The customer’s impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of the service process implies significant consequences for service process management. Due to this fact, customer processes need to be taken more into account. Janine Frauendorf analyzes how customer processes can be used to optimize the overall service process. In this context, the service blueprint represents the key tool of the thesis – originally a tool for designing and optimizing the internal process of the service operator, it is now extended by the customer process side. Transaction cost theory, as the link between supplier process and customer process, on the one hand and the script construct from cognitive psychology on the other, provide the theoretical basis for the thesis. On the basis of empirical results, the author presents significant implications for services research and helpful suggestions for business practice. Services cannot be produced without customer participation. This aspect involves significant consequences for services management. The integration of the customer and the integration of the external resources that customers need to provide require comprehensive means to coordinate the activities of suppHers and customers. Services management Hterature is based on the idea that the success of service companies mainly depends on an effective and efficient design of supplier and customer interfaces. As a result, academic and practice-oriented service management problems are concerned with managing service processes. However, most approaches are focused on the supplier process side. Here, numerous concepts as well as IT supported tools for service process documentation and service process management have been developed. Customer processes, on the contrary, have mostly been ignored even though it is obvious that they have a high impact on the overall success of the service process. The present work is a major step forward to close that research gap. The author analyses the customer influence on efficiency and effectiveness of the service process depending on the customer's service process knowledge. The empirical data of the thesis was gained from a practice study: it was made in cooperation with a corporate division of T-Systems International that provides business customers with virus wall and firewall service packages for data network security. The study is based on the assumption that service customers have a script, i. e. a relatively precise image of the structure and process of the service transaction. Annotation Janine Frauendorf analyzes how customer processes can be used to optimize the overall service process. Her focus is on the service blueprint: Originally a tool for the design and optimization of the service operators internal process, it is now extended taking into account the customer process aspect. She presents significant implications for services research and helpful suggestions for business practice Front Matter....Pages I-XV Introduction....Pages 1-10 Service Engineering....Pages 11-52 Transaction cost theory....Pages 53-71 Customer processes....Pages 72-135 The conceptual model....Pages 136-144 Methodology....Pages 145-185 Data analysis and interpretation....Pages 186-213 Theoretical and practical implications....Pages 214-239 Conclusion....Pages 240-244 Back Matter....Pages 245-300 In service transactions, customers inevitably form part of the production process even though they generally do not ask for being involved in it.