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

现代服务业面临的一个关键挑战是提供高水平的客户服务，同时最大限度地降低服务交付成本。 这对于面向交易的消费者服务业务尤其如此，例如零售银行、经纪、包裹运输和零售贸易，在这些业务中，消费者可以与组织有频繁和多个接触点。 在过去十年中，一个重要的服务创新是使用信息技术来支持客户自助服务。 一个设计良好的多渠道服务提供系统，包括客户提供的自助服务和企业提供的全面服务，可以同时降低成本和提高服务质量，并创造相关的好处，如增加客户保留。自助服务的普及所产生的深远影响，在几乎所有主要服务行业以及制造商的服务业务都参与其中的所谓“自助服务经济”的强劲增长中显而易见。虽然在许多行业中，提供多种服务渠道通常被视为竞争的必要条件，但在自助服务渠道的设计和管理方面存在相当大的自由裁量权。我们的研究将特别关注客户在服务合作生产中的作用，借鉴客户效率。 效率高的客户能够以低成本共同提供所需的服务，因此，在某种服务需求可行时，往往会不成比例地利用自助服务渠道。因此，衡量和提高客户效率对于成功提供以技术支持的自助服务为特征的服务变得非常重要。我们调查了一系列的问题，在一个多渠道的服务提供系统的设计和管理，具有自助服务技术在零售银行业，一个行业在这一转变的前沿。通过与行业参与者建立联盟，我们获得了前所未有的规模和范围的客户使用银行服务渠道的数据，以及我们合作机构的高级管理层的积极参与，以最大限度地为行业实践做出贡献。这项工作的预期见解可以很容易地扩展到其他服务行业，以及政府机构，制造企业的服务和支持业务，以及寻求通过提供自助服务来改善其服务业务的非商业组织。

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.