Richard B. Chase & Sriram DasuWant to Perfect Your Company’s Service?Use Behavioral ScienceSummarized by,AnubhavVanmaliSharadkumar R BhattSiddharth AnandSymbiosis Institute of Business Management, Bangalore

IntroductionExamining Service Encounters from the customer’s point of viewThe feelings that customers experience during these encountersInsights from behavioral science into better service managementTranslating these into operating principles for service-encounter management

Applied Behavioral ScienceIn any service encounter – from a simple pizza pickup to a complex, long-term consulting engagement- “perception is reality”

Sequence EffectsWhen people recall experiences, they remember snapshots, not moviesExperiences are assessed based upon:Trend in the sequence of pain/pleasureThe high & low pointsThe endingThey pay attention to the rate of improvement in a sequence

Trend in the sequence of pain/pleasure

The high & low points

The ending

Duration EffectsPeople who are mentally engaged in a task don’t notice how long it takesThey overestimate the time elapsedIncreasing the number of segments in an encounter lengthens its perceived durationUnless an activity is much longer or much shorter than expected, people pay little attention to its durationThe pleasurable content & how it is arranged dominate assessments

Rationalization EffectsCounterfactual Thinking/ Second-guessingPeople desperately want things to make senseIf there’s no handy explanation, they’ll concoct onePeople:View the likely cause as a discrete thingConclude that deviations from rituals/norms caused the unexpectedTend to ascribe credit/ blame to individuals, not systems (Put a human face on the problem)

People desperately want things to make sense

If there’s no handy explanation, they’ll concoct one

Principle 1 : Finish StrongThe end is far more important because it remains in the customer’s recollectionsPeople’s innate preference for improvementExamples:-Commercial websitesConsulting: Schedule the project so that a golden nugget or two appear at the end of the engagementAirlines: Focus on the last encounter- Baggage Collection

Principle 2 : Get the Bad Experiences Out of the Way EarlyPeople prefer to have undesirable events come first- so they can avoid dread- and to have desirable events come at the end- so they can savor themUnfortunately, service providers dread delivering bad news, so they delay it until the last possible moment - Exactly the wrong thing to do

Principle 3 : Segment the Pleasure, Combine the PainGambling - Prefer winning $5 twice over $10 onceClinics – Let patients spend more time in waiting room so they don’t have to endure a second, third or fourth wait in the examining roomsService companies should cut the number of steps to reach the final destination, thereby reducing the pain of waitingTrade ShowsDisney’s Theme Parks ( Two 90 Sec rides better than One 3 min ride)Both halves of the principle:

Trade Shows

Disney’s Theme Parks ( Two 90 Sec rides better than One 3 min ride)

Principle 4 : Build Commitment Through ChoicePeople are happier and more comfortable when they believe they have some control over a process, particularly an uncomfortable onePatients, when involved in decisions, feel less helpless, less hopeless & more committed to making the process workHotels – Alarm clock vs. Wake-up callXerox Servicing - Choice over schedule

Principle 5 : Give People Rituals, and Stick to ThemRituals are used to mark key moments in the relationship, establish professional credentials, set expectations, and get feedback“McKinsey grunt—uh-huh, uh-huh”Not getting the weekly call from the consultant on a project, not copying the CEO on a progress report, not returning phone calls immediately – any of these lapses can be blamed after the fact for a failure

The Right Remedy Process-based remedies should be applied to process-based problems and outcome-based remedies should be applied to outcome-based problems

ConclusionService encounters can be engineered to enhance the customer’s experience during the process and his/ her recollection of the process after it is completedBehavioral science, applied with equal doses of empathy and imagination, can improve service deliveryIt can change the impressions that your customers remember

It can change the impressions that your customers remember

Thank You!