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    Why should I care about supply chain management? I always answer – “because supply chains run the world!” Read my blog and join the conversation, we want to hear what you have to say! Visit the Blog

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    Your learning should be a journey, not a destination. But it is not always easy to navigate through your studies so here I provide a wealth of guidance on how you can become a great student. Visit our Learning Module

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    As a professor, I spend the majority of my time designing and running executive education, consultancy and being invited to give presentations, talks and seminars. Find out more about available services

Why is Good Service Important, yet hard to get?

World class service organization are exceptionally good at repeating the experience. Most service organizations, however, fail to grasp the complex dynamics of poor service – both internally and externally. Here’s a structural model we often use to help elaborate on the drivers and consequences of service delivery issues:

One of the golden rules is:

‘Customer Satisfaction is less than or equal to employee satisfaction‘

This is significant. Delivering great service requires employees to be motivated, to want to give that exceptional experience for which customers will come back time and again. Without a motivated workforce, good service is just not going to happen. However, there is one exception. When employees take pity on customers, they can deliver great service!

A second powerful tool is this:

 

The Complaint Value Chain highlights the connection between poor service experience and recovery. Even when customers are unhappy and complain, if you can recover the situation by resolving the complaint and satisfying the customer, the result can even by greater satisfaction than if there had been no complaint! Drawing attention to the organization’s willingness to resolve a problem and put effort into listening to the customer, treating their concerns as important and validating their views will make the customer feel positive about their experience – and often tell others how pleased they were. It has been said – ‘To err is human, to recover is divine!’…One can see that it can be profitable too!

 

This week I have taken two groups of students to Cinepolis in Del Mar, CA a VIP (luxury) cinema experience. The company is a Mexican family owned business with $4bn revenue. Rather than reviewing the experience through my eyes, I welcome my students to post comments….

The Future of Education updated – MIT lead the onslaught

The inexorable change in higher education has taken yet another significant leap!

A week after posting this blog the news about the launch of MIT’s first FREE, online, course hit the news wires. This is not a surprise, MIT announced in December that they had established ‘MITx’ as their online learning initiative, coupled with a study into student online learning. here’s the original announcement:

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/mitx-education-initiative-1219.html

I particularly welcome their focus on research into student learning.

For fifteen years I and colleagues have been engaged in developing learning resources and programs intended to enhance student learning. Much of this has employed media deployed through web-mediated technologies, whether interactive tutorials, video, or our award winning development of Curatr on USD’s MS in Supply Chain Management, a student-centered learning organization approach.   We have had a number of papers published on our results, and more recently have been actively engaged in driving such a philosophy through executive programs. I am now a participant in USD’s iPad pilot project, intended to explore the opportunities iPads bring to student learning.

Throughout this period one hing has remained constant – focusing on student learning will deliver far better performance in curriculum design than taking a traditional content focused orientation. Further, students now learn in ways that their peers ten years ago could not have imagined. But, it’s not just me ‘banging on about’ learning centred curriculum:

Lawrence Summers has entered this debate on several occasions, both in the context of high schools and universities,  highlighting the inordinate cost of university education and the paucity of innovation in learning apparent on so many campuses. Clayton Christensen and Henry Eyring have published a useful polemic on the need for innovation on campuses, Thomas and Brown seize the initiative too – providing some compelling discussion of distributed learning whilst an educational ‘guru’, Ken Robinson (watch the video – it’s fantastic) provides food for thought on the topic of education through engaging passion:

When I think about my teaching responsibilities I reflect on the challenge of inspiring students’ passion.. one thing for sure, sitting in a warm, 1980s style classroom on a sunny afternoon is the LAST place I am likely to stimulate passion! Yet, that is where I have to schedule classes. So this semester I am scheduling 1/4 of my classes outside the campus, using multiple media resources, conducting role playing and trying my best to shut up! I will keep you posted on how this evolves, as so far it is week two of semester.