Managerial implications

Managing and developing the skills and capabilities of their organization, is most likely one of the central interests of management. In the following, the findings of this study are observed through managerial lens, and important issues based on the results of this study are brought up.

Communication

In case of customized services, the planning plays an essential role in service providing. It is extremely important to gather the relevant parties around the same table to be able to create mutual understanding and common vision. Facilitating the face-to-face contacts is needed during the planning stage and in case of difficult problems arising or changes to be made. Customers do not expect that there would be no problems. They do expect, that any problems are honestly brought up, and solved without delays.

In standardized services, the effectiveness of communication is important.

As the service product itself is already ready-made, the challenge is located in convincing the potential customer in buying the service. The communication channels have to be clear, simple and technology-enabled. The role of individual sales persons is vital. They should be able to map the central points that are relevant to any unique customer in a quite a short time, e.g. during one phone call. This requires high social interaction skills, which are not easily developed by managerial actions. It can be possible through knowledge sharing with colleagues, observing the competent colleagues, and also having written instructions or framework to follow. Knowledge acquiring from customers is often based purely on communication. To be able to ask the right questions is not always easy.

To be able to collect the experiences of the employees in straight customer contacts is a valuable capability.

Customer in the study emphasized the easiness of communication. This means basically the easy way of contacting the service provider’s representative, and also, the contact person’s skills to understand what the customer’s needs. The one, responsible contact person, who is able to

“speak customer’s language” was valued by the customers. In practice, this means the skills to understand the terms and concepts the customer uses, and also, to be able to understand their meaning in customer’s context.

Internal communication forms a valuable basis also for the customer-oriented culture. The attitudes and values of the company must be communicated by management to every single employee in the firm. The results of the study indicate that individuals desire to think of customer’s best interest rises partly from their character, but also from the leadership.

Visualizing the invisible

The challenging characteristic of knowledge-intensive business services is the intangibility of the service output. The service output should be made visible somehow, or otherwise the customer relationship must involve a great deal of trust. In co-produced or co-created services, the visualization can be proceed through iterative idea generation. Service provider must be able to propose some alternatives and visions. It is always easier for the customer, to figure out what they might want, if there is something to compare. Reference lists of similar or quite similar cases are always good.

Possibility to test the service somehow, would be important. Also in customized services, there should be a possibility to test the service a long before the final version, to make changes to the plan. In standardized services, as in this study case Beta, the demo-version of the software was seen an important factor from customer’s point of view, to test, and to be able to trust the unknown service provider.

Promise management

As Grönroos (2009) has put it, to succeed, the promises have to be realistic and the employees and service systems have to be enabled to deliver the service, and keep the promise. The results of this study indicate that promise keeping is not self-evidence. It requires common vision of the target, participation of all the relevant parties, accurate sharing of responsibilities and constant communication between the promise makers and promise keepers. In practice, the promise keeping has to be monitored by the promise makers, or a group of promises makers. This has been realized by steering groups that involve the experts from both customer’s and service provider’s side. To be able to keep promises, can be seen as a vital precondition in building trust and lasting relationships.

Decision making

In business services, service provider has to understand also the customer’s decision making process. In the beginning of relationship, it is important to locate the relevant decision makers in customer’s side. The own decision making process should be flexible and sensible. As different parties and business areas might participate in producing the service, there should always be somebody, who sees the ‘big picture’ and has got enough knowledge to make the decision.

Expertise on customer’s business field

To understand customer’s needs and to be able to communicate with them in a convincing way requires expertise on customer’s business environment. According to study, the expertise was mainly possible to obtain through experiences. There is a plenty what management can do though: arrange training, arrange mentors, store references, facilitate formal and informal knowledge sharing concerning previous cases, and circulate employees in different jobs to learn more and renew their skills.

Resource management

According to this study, the resource management is especially important in customized services due to the greater complexity and several participants. If the firm is large, the resource management requires strong internal and external networks to locate the necessary knowledge and skills. Electronic databases which include knowledge about the available skills and competence can be very useful.

In this study, the individuals skills were classified in three groups, mainly based on the classification of Lowendahl et al. (2001, 918). It is important to consider their meaning from managerial point of view: First group, the personal, dispositional skills are the most tacit form of skills, including

mainly personal characters, values and emotional and intelligence based issues. It is likely, that these types of skills are not easily managed, at least not directly. The second group, personal, experience-based skills like problem solving and negotiation skills, require a combination of general and context-specific knowledge. These skills are likely to be developed by facilitating the opportunities to experience and learn by doing. The third group, technical skills involve the highest level of explicit knowledge, and could be acquired through education, internal training, and perhaps also with the help of technological tools.