chapter 21
....................................................................................................................................................SERVICE
STRATEGIES
MARKETING,
OPERATIONS, AND
HUMAN RESOURCE
PRACTICES
....................................................................................................................................rosemary batt
21.1 Introduction
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
Overthe last three decades, the principles of service management have become
widely accepted. These call for an integrated approach to marketing, operations,
and human resource management (HRM). The scholarly and business press
routinely point to the importance of customer loyalty and customer relationship
management for corporate proWtability. Advances in marketing concepts and
information systems make it possible to capture more precisely the demand
characteristics of customers and to tailor solutions to meet their needs. Why is it,
then, that measures of customer satisfaction have declined steadily in the last
decade, websites for consumer complaints have proliferated, and media accounts
of bad service appear with regularity?