Monitoring and Control in Service Operations

Service organisations do not always manage those items which affect customer satisfaction to the same level as manufacturing organisations, which indicates a possible mismatch between what customers think they are buying and what service organisations seem to be providing. Efficiency is certainly needed but too much emphasis on efficiency may be dysfunctional if it leads to over‐standardisation, or emphasis on the product at the expense of the process, when the customers think they are buying process elements. Effectiveness could be better achieved by emphasis on the processes rather than by trying to become more “product‐orientated”.