Reflective Report
Managing service operations entails designing firms’ service quality, in order to achieve business success. To manage service operations accurately, one needs to fully understand the firm’s internal mechanisms, customers and competitors. Service quality is established by creating value for clients, employees and owners.
For service operations managers to achieve their goals, they need to study business trends carefully. The current business scenario is characterized by a customer behavior where customer satisfaction decreases with increase in service costs. Therefore, for a company to increase its service customer base, service initiation costs need to be reduced. In addition, service quality implementation strategies require regular restructuring in order for them to work efficiently.
According to management lessons, there are various ways to improve service quality. First, operations managers should design service models. These service models ought to achieve value for investors, customers and employees at large. Further, service models should be effective. In order, to assess the effectiveness of a service model, managers need to carry out a thorough research on the model. This is where they test the service model effectiveness through case study where the models, which they intend to impose to the company, has been successful or unsuccessful (Hollins & Shinkins, 2006, pg 64). This way they can be able to assess the flaws and strengths of the model.
Consequently, service models involving customers should be well managed. For instance, in some companies, they offer self-service to customer in order to attract more customers. In such service models, operations managers should ensure they influence the customer behavior through the self- service model.
Further, employees are the most essential part of a service model, since their role widely impacts the success of service delivery. Therefore, one should design effective performance management systems. Managers should also measure performance levels among employees for quality assessment of service delivery.
Managers who initiate new service models are burdened by the pressure put on them by their firms to succeed. Market competition also creates substantial pressure on operations managers to fight for customers. Therefore, for a successful service transformation, proper service management skills need to be employed.
In my individual project as a subsidiary operations manager at a local postal firm, I engaged in key management operations. First, I planned for the choice of progress. This way I was able to determine the best way for service transformation to create a better service delivery system. In order to achieve accuracy, I engaged in numerous consultations with my employers. This created a vertical integration of power. I also created room for resource flexibility in order to accommodate customer’s tastes and preferences. For the project to be successful, I had to involve the customers in the service transformation model, in order to assess the potential of the model. Furthermore, I engaged in service initiation costs reduction by creating resource flexibility and efficiency.
In my group project, we engaged in a project which entailed managing a college cafeteria. We decided to use the line flow process where we organized the business procedures in a sequence. Orders, payments and employee management were dealt with differently, by different managers. There was continuous communication between the different managers, and we shared resources effectively. The line flow process is effective because inventories are not held up at one managerial point. This way we were able to create good customer satisfaction and service delivery was easily improved.
Operations managers are faced with the core task of establishing effective service delivery procedures, which determine business success. In the current economy, service quality plays a vital role in establishing business success. This way, the is a less room for mistakes available for operations managers
Reference List
Hollins, B., & Shinkins, S. 2006. Managing service operations design and implementation. UK: Sage Publications. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10256779.
