Measuring and managing customer service in industrial firms

How buyers frame problems: Revisited

“…General administrative capability -services that make it easy for the customer organization to conduct business with the supplier on a day-to-day basis (Anderson & Narus, 1995;Morris & Davis, 1992). These include integrating order-processing technology, order-process improvements, maintaining and nurturing a productive relationship, and other value-laden services that customers need (e.g., disaster recovery, sufficiently broad product line, financial stability, insurance, etc.).…”

Non-linear relationship between industrial service offering and sales growth: The moderating role of network capabilities

“…To develop an operationalization of the different views presented in previous literature, we initially considered six dimensions of the service offering: 1) maintenance services (Boyt & Harvey, 1997;Gebauer, Edvardsson, and Bjurko (2010) ;Gebauer, Edvardsson, Gustafsson, et al, 2010;Gebauer, Fischer, et al, 2010;Homburg et al, 2003;Morris & Davis, 1992;Oliva & Kallenberg, 2003;Samli et al, 1992), 2) R&D services (Gebauer, Edvardsson, & Bjurko, 2010;Gebauer, Edvardsson, Gustafsson, et al, 2010;Gebauer, Fischer, et al, 2010;Homburg et al, 2003;Oliva & Kallenberg, 2003), 3) customer services (Homburg et al, 2003;Morris & Davis, 1992;Oliva & Kallenberg, 2003;Samli et al, 1992), 4) finance and insurance services (Homburg et al, 2003;Samli et al, 1992), 5) performance services (Gebauer, Edvardsson, & Bjurko, 2010;Gebauer, Edvardsson, Gustafsson, et al, 2010;Gebauer, Fischer, et al, 2010;Oliva & Kallenberg, 2003), and 6) procurement services (Homburg et al, 2003). Subsequently, we identified 33 services within those dimensions.…”

“…The first classification considers the product and process relatedness of services: a) product-related services (e.g., installation), b) process-related services (e.g., the operation of customer processes) and c) service products per se (e.g., finance options) (Cunningham & Roberts, 1974;Mathieu, 2001;Oliva & Kallenberg, 2003). Another classification centers on the product life cycle (time dimension): 1) pre-transactional (e.g., R&D), 2) transactional (e.g., customer seminars) and 3) post-transaction services (e.g., maintenance) (LaLonde & Zinszer, 1976;Morris & Davis, 1992;Samli, Jacobs, & Wills, 1992). Some combinations of these dimensions appear to create an embedded base for most of the existing service classifications.…”

“…Based on the measurement purification processes (Anderson & Gerbing, 1991;Byrne, 2001) that were employed for identifying an empirically sound operationalization (elaborated in the methodology section), we reduced the dimensions. In this study, we concentrate on the first three Cunningham and Roberts (1974) 1) Convenience service activities 2) Reliability service activities Morris and Davis (1992) 1) Pre-transaction services related to internal operations 2) Transaction services related to physical appearance 3) Transaction services related to order status 4) Transaction services related to order accuracy 5) Post-transaction services related to start-up 6) Post-transaction services related to problem handling LaLonde and Zinszer (1976); Samli et al (1992) 1) Pre-transaction or presale services (e.g., written customer policy) 2) Transaction services (e.g., order cycle time) 3) Post-transaction or post-sale services (e.g., maintenance) Oliva and Kallenberg (2003) 1) Basic installed base services 2) Maintenance services 3) Professional services 4) Operational services Gebauer, Edvardsson, Gustafsson, et al (2010) 1) Customer service 2) Basic service for the installed base 3) Maintenance service 4) R&D-oriented service 5) Operational service Homburg et al (2003) 1) Information and consulting services 2) Services for training and further consulting 3) Services in the business-related field 4) Services for technical security and optimization 5) Services supporting the process of cooperation Meier et al (2011);Tukker (2004) 1) Product-oriented: product-related advice and consultancy 2) User-oriented: product lease, product rental and product pooling 3) Result-oriented: activity management, pay per service unit and functional results dimensions (i.e., maintenance services, R&D services and customer services) because they most accurately reflect the nature of the service business in small and medium-sized product manufacturing firms. Small and medium-sized manufacturing firms often limit their service offering to maintenance, R&D and customer services owing to a greater need for specialization and a lack of internal resources.…”

Quality and effectiveness in Web-based customer support systems

“…[8]. Customer support may be used to avoid adversity and build long-term relationships [54]. The technical component of customer support is addressed by both information and system quality, the relationship aspect by service quality.…”