This course examines the need to build and sustain a service quality culture in an organization through the effective management of human resources. The course includes consideration of philosophy, concepts and techniques integrating a service quality perspective with more conventional HRM perspectives. The thrust of the course is on the design and implementation of HRM practices that build and support a service quality orientation. Increasingly, service organizations worldwide are recognizing that a comprehensive understanding of their customer is critical to their long-term success. This course provides an overview of the concepts and skills that are fundamental to understanding the consumer and to building customer-focused organizations.
Special attention is given to customer behavior in service settings.
Borrowing from the behavioral sciences, a variety of frameworks and tools will be presented to provide a foundation for conducting customer analyses. The course provides students with a sophisticated yet practical understanding of the consumer behavior issues that drive business success. Selected cases are analyzed to isolate the unique challenges that confront the marketing strategist in high-technology markets. A key to business success is the ability to effectively manage service operations from both the customers' and organization's perspectives. This course focuses on design, management and utilization of the supply chain and internal personnel to produce high quality services as outputs.