Service operations management entails the activities, decisions and responsibilities of operations managers in service organizations. The operations manager in service organizations is responsible for understanding the needs of their customers, managing the processes that deliver the services, ensuring their objectives are met, while also paying attention to the continual improvement of their services. As such, managing service operations is critical to organizational function and success.
Yet, operations managers are among the most under trained and ill-prepared employees in many companies. Most operations managers are experienced service people promoted from within the service unit. They receive training in the technical and systems side of their job but rarely receive in-depth training in service operations management—the core skills needed to keep customers highly satisfied.
Hence this program is designed for operations managers and explores management of operations in service organizations. It covers key service operations issues and arms operations managers in service organizations with the tools and frameworks that can be used to understand, assess, and improve the performance of their operations.
This 2-day course will expose participants to the concepts of service operations, including their lifeblood which is service process. It also covers the strategic aspect without leaving out the control and capacity part which contributes to financial objectives. Participants will also learn how to manage and motivate service people to help drive continuous operational improvement.
The course is ideal for heads of operations in service organizations. For example, operations managers, heads of operations, service managers, or any other role that manages service operations.
Course Outline
Introduction
-Service operations
-understanding service and service process
-Judging the success of a service operation
The Service Concept
-Understanding the service concept
-The service concept as strategic tool
-Focused and unfocused service operations
Customer Expectations and Satisfaction
-Customer expectations
-Service quality factors
-Finding expectations and assessing satisfaction
-Managing perceptions
-Excellent service
Service Processes
-Introduction
-Service processes and their importance
-Understanding the nature of service processes
-Engineering service processes and the customer experience
-Controlling service processes
-Repositioning service processes
Service People
-Characteristics of service professionals
-Managing and motivating service professionals
-Managing customers
-Case exercise
Resource Utilization
-Capacity management
-Operations planning and control
-Managing bottlenecks and queues
-Managing the coping zone
-Improving resource utilization
Operations Decisions and Business Performance
-Relationship between operations decisions and business performance
-The service performance network
-Key stages in developing a network
-World-class Service
Driving Operational Improvement
-Approaches to operational improvement
-Service recovery
-Service guarantees
Service Strategy
-Understanding service strategy
-Service as competitive advantage
-Turning performance objectives into operations priorities
-Strategy formulations and development
-Sustaining a strategy
-Management of change and service delivery