Originally published as Managing Service Quality Volume 15 Number 6, 2005
ISBN: 1 84544 867 7
Guest edited by: Allard van Riel, University of Liege, Belgium.
Once a service – any service – is launched, the most important question for service managers becomes: how can we attract more customers, satisfy them and keep them? In other words: how can we best improve our service offer, while optimally using our limited resources?
Each of the well-crafted articles in this special issue investigates an innovation related issue in service management, trying to answer this question in one way or another. In answering the question, some authors or author teams clearly have more general and academic ambitions, while others write to directly help decision-makers in a specific service sector to make better service innovation decisions.
Contents:
Leadership styles in technology acceptance: do followers practice what leaders preach?
This study models and tests two leadership styles (transactional and transformational) as antecedents to perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of new technologies.
Linking perceived value and loyalty in location-based mobile services
This paper introduces new context relevant concepts and develops a multidimensional perceived value and loyalty model. Results give practical implications on how to increase awareness of location-based services (LBS) in a way that gives a realistic picture of how LBS create value for customers.
The added value of web innovation for customer satisfaction: Experiences with a barbeque catering service
This research proposes a combination of traditional service quality and e-service quality frameworks. The central question focuses on how to assess the added value of the web as a service innovation for a traditional service. The setting of the study is a traditional-style barbeque delivery service with a recently installed advanced web-initiated order entry facility now used by a majority of the customers.
Service innovation and customer choices in the hospitality industry
The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact service innovation has on customers' choices within the hotel and leisure industry. The paper also discusses the influence of the creation of new services on both service development and operational strategy.
The role of guides in artistic industries: The special case of the “star system” in the haute-cuisine sector
This paper has the objective of analysing how the Michelin guide “star system” operates as a “signalling device” in the industry, and handles these two market requirements. The research also explores how secrecy contributes to preserve chefs' creativity for the benefit of customer satisfaction.
What works, and why, in business services provision for SME: insights from evolutionary theory
Programmes providing services for small- and medium-sized enterprises are important. Yet, quality and impact of many of these programmes lag behind expectations. This paper attempts to shed light on the reasons behind this disappointing state of affairs.
About Managing Service Quality
Service quality is about ensuring customers, both internal and external, get what they want. As travel and technology bring markets, people and products ever closer, it is the single most effective and sustainable means of differentiation between competing companies.
Managing Service Quality is packed with case histories, insights and guidance to the latest and most insightful academic thought in the field of service quality. Senior managers and board directors share with you their ideas, experience and advice as they strive for excellence in service quality. In every edition, you will find examples to which you can relate, lessons that you can learn and conclusions about how service quality can be achieved.
Visit the Managing Service Quality homepage
