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Marketing Letters

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01-03-2015

The adoption of customer service improvement practices

Author: Peter R. Dickson

Published in: Marketing Letters | Issue 1/2015

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Abstract

A study of 20 customer service improvement practices tests several hypotheses that explore the antecedents and consequences of customer service improvement practice adoption. Adoption was observed to coevolve with organization size and to be higher in firms that claim service excellence superiority and firms that face operating environments where service delivery is more uncertain. In the public service sector, where market winnowing and incentives are much lower, organizations adopted fewer service improvement practices. The diffusion penetration of service improvement practices in the health care, finance and banking, professional, and lodging and food service sectors was correlated with the extent to which service improvement practices explain service excellence in each sector. Imitation and learning is service sector specific.

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Institutional theory (Meyer and Rowan 1977; Zucker 1987) claims another reason for imitation as follows: organizations copy each other to minimize sanctions from various stakeholders: “We were doing what everyone else was doing.”

No claims are made about the 20 SIPs chosen to be studied other than that they are 20 illustrative examples of SIPs drawn from literature that recommends them as worthy of imitating/adopting.

Winnowing occurs when organizations offering inferior service quality or inferior value for money are less preferred, sell fewer services, are unprofitable, and ultimately fail (are acquired, sell-up, or close their doors).

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Title: The adoption of customer service improvement practices
Author: Peter R. Dickson
Publication date: 01-03-2015
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Marketing Letters / Issue 1/2015
Print ISSN: 0923-0645
Electronic ISSN: 1573-059X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-013-9263-0

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