I'm in the thick of dissertation mode, but I found this video interesting and wanted to post it just to be able to record it.
March 16, 2011
March 2, 2011
Dinner and a Movie - Mash-ups
Service Encounter Onstage recently blogged about the benefits of combining two experiences into one - a dinner AND a movie. AMC calls is "Fork and Screen".
I think the premise is solid; however, I think it is folly to think that since I do movies well, I can easily do food well or vice versa. Certainly the nature of the experience is different, the first being the tangibility of the food vs the intangibility of the movie - if the food is no good the blame falls on the theater, if the show is no good the blame will fall on the movie producer. Ordering and eating food is an active customer action while watching a movie is passive. I wonder if combining these two disparate forms of experience is a good idea from a management stand point; at the very least it would raise a lot of questions about how quality and experience theme be maintained, how are customer expectations managed, how do HR policies change etc?
Something like this came up in class the other day as a joke. We were discussion the intangibility of services and compared a massage to an auto repair shop. Massages are very intangible because you leave with only a feeling of relaxation, but no physical product. I always thought that an auto repair was pretty tangible because you do get a car back when you are finished, but a student pointed out that because it is difficult for customers to know if the car is actually fixed or if it needed what was said to be fixed, it was very intangible and customers leave feeling stressed. So we came up with a recommendation of a massage at the auto repair shop to relive stress of the unknown.
All this talk of combining things reminded me of a term "Mash-up" made popular by the television show Glee. the idea of a mashup is to combine elements of two songs to create a new better song - maybe the melody of one song with the lyrics a rhythm of another In their words:
Here's a clip of some Glee mash-up action. Enjoy!
I think the premise is solid; however, I think it is folly to think that since I do movies well, I can easily do food well or vice versa. Certainly the nature of the experience is different, the first being the tangibility of the food vs the intangibility of the movie - if the food is no good the blame falls on the theater, if the show is no good the blame will fall on the movie producer. Ordering and eating food is an active customer action while watching a movie is passive. I wonder if combining these two disparate forms of experience is a good idea from a management stand point; at the very least it would raise a lot of questions about how quality and experience theme be maintained, how are customer expectations managed, how do HR policies change etc?
Something like this came up in class the other day as a joke. We were discussion the intangibility of services and compared a massage to an auto repair shop. Massages are very intangible because you leave with only a feeling of relaxation, but no physical product. I always thought that an auto repair was pretty tangible because you do get a car back when you are finished, but a student pointed out that because it is difficult for customers to know if the car is actually fixed or if it needed what was said to be fixed, it was very intangible and customers leave feeling stressed. So we came up with a recommendation of a massage at the auto repair shop to relive stress of the unknown.
All this talk of combining things reminded me of a term "Mash-up" made popular by the television show Glee. the idea of a mashup is to combine elements of two songs to create a new better song - maybe the melody of one song with the lyrics a rhythm of another In their words:
"A 'Mash-up' is when you take two songs and you mash them together to create an even richer Explosion of Musical Expression."It seems to work best if the two songs have something in common enough for the audience to pickup on the clever combination of the themes of the two songs. Perhaps similiar advice might apply when considering combining two experiences. Maybe a dinner and a movie might fit better together than a massage and an auto repair?
Here's a clip of some Glee mash-up action. Enjoy!
March 1, 2011
Analytics of a Service
The good news is that I have recently accepted a faculty position at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey California! I will likely be teaching business statistics, so in preparation I have started an additional blog to record some idea to share with my future student along the line of business statistics. In the meantime, I'll keep posting here too. In honor of this new blog, I found a great clip from IBM touting the use of analytics in a healthcare setting:
We had a great discussion in my operations management MBA class yesterday about what I identify as 2 main frameworks that can be applied to practical service operations management. I call them analytical and behavioral. Under analytical we discussed queuing, revenue management, optimization, simulation, data modeling, etc, while under the behavioral framework we have to understand motivation, experiences, emotions, needs, etc. Because customers are often in the service process, ignoring the behavioral aspect can be detrimental. Additionally, behavioral aspects of a service cannot be delegated to the marketing department alone, instead the discussion of the experience desired for customers has to be a part of the operations management priorities or it won't be executed. This clip discusses how a hospital in Toronto has been able to record and analyze data from a new born from the instruments that surround it. The difficulty in the behavioral side of service operations management is that measurement is hard and near impossible in real time. While it is fairly easy to count how many people are in a line at a give time, it is not easy to tell who is upset about it and who is not.
We had a great discussion in my operations management MBA class yesterday about what I identify as 2 main frameworks that can be applied to practical service operations management. I call them analytical and behavioral. Under analytical we discussed queuing, revenue management, optimization, simulation, data modeling, etc, while under the behavioral framework we have to understand motivation, experiences, emotions, needs, etc. Because customers are often in the service process, ignoring the behavioral aspect can be detrimental. Additionally, behavioral aspects of a service cannot be delegated to the marketing department alone, instead the discussion of the experience desired for customers has to be a part of the operations management priorities or it won't be executed. This clip discusses how a hospital in Toronto has been able to record and analyze data from a new born from the instruments that surround it. The difficulty in the behavioral side of service operations management is that measurement is hard and near impossible in real time. While it is fairly easy to count how many people are in a line at a give time, it is not easy to tell who is upset about it and who is not.
February 14, 2011
Enchanted Art of Disney Cruise
I've blogged about this before here, but I like the idea so much I wanted to show it again - now it full production mode. What I like most is that it is more than just a new monitor with an animation on it, if it ended there it would just be a TV with a motion sensor on it. The exciting part is the interaction that can take place in the game.
February 4, 2011
Back of the house management: Airport baggage handling edition
Not a lot of detail about how they do things (i.e., this is a commercial of sorts for IBM services), still this video does a fair job of describing the complexity of baggage handing and routing. My wife and I had a conversation about this on our last flight; we were both in awe that baggage usually (not always...) ends up where we are going even after hoping several airports with delays and cancellations.
My favorite lines:
At first blush it seems that this type of operational efficiency improvement has little to do with the "experience" of a customer since the customer is not directly being processed. However, we all know that after a long day of flying the worst thing that an airline could do is say that your bag is in the Bahamas (unless you are in the Bahamas - in which case good for you...) Worst still, is that this type of service failure becomes apparent to the customer at the END of the experience. My research suggests that that is the worse possible time for such a low point in the experience. So, its easy to see that although this is clearly not a customer facing operation, it has dramatic impact on the overall experience of flying.
Further thoughts: it might be interesting to consider if the timing of when to tell a customer that their bag is not going to be at their final destination upon arrival will have impact on service recovery aspects. Again, research suggests that if you have bad news for a customer, you should give it to them early on as opposed to later. Similarly, steps could be taken to facilitate the service recovery before landing perhaps expediting the final stages of the flying experience further enriching the recovery efforts. I would imagine that the capability to do this exists in most modern airlines, but little along these lines are attempted.
My favorite lines:
... there are two worlds, the worlds that the customer goes in and the world of the processes, like baggage handling.
... we must make more capacity available by making the system smarter.
At first blush it seems that this type of operational efficiency improvement has little to do with the "experience" of a customer since the customer is not directly being processed. However, we all know that after a long day of flying the worst thing that an airline could do is say that your bag is in the Bahamas (unless you are in the Bahamas - in which case good for you...) Worst still, is that this type of service failure becomes apparent to the customer at the END of the experience. My research suggests that that is the worse possible time for such a low point in the experience. So, its easy to see that although this is clearly not a customer facing operation, it has dramatic impact on the overall experience of flying.
Further thoughts: it might be interesting to consider if the timing of when to tell a customer that their bag is not going to be at their final destination upon arrival will have impact on service recovery aspects. Again, research suggests that if you have bad news for a customer, you should give it to them early on as opposed to later. Similarly, steps could be taken to facilitate the service recovery before landing perhaps expediting the final stages of the flying experience further enriching the recovery efforts. I would imagine that the capability to do this exists in most modern airlines, but little along these lines are attempted.
January 17, 2011
More on Queuing: Disney World Edition
I recently had a discussion with my wife while waiting in a long queue at a wedding reception about queue management. One thing I found out is that I have been saying "balking" wrong (pronounced "bawking" like a chicken - no 'l'). We discussed ways that the bride and groom could have managed the line different to make the time pass a bit better, like more pictures and stories to see about the bride and groom, maybe a sign saying "expect 10 minutes from here", fast pass given to special guests, etc.
Here was an interesting New York Times article I stumbled on with some things that Disney does (hat tip Design For Service). It is good article about taking queue management to an extreme and is worth a read. Here are some excerpts:
Here was an interesting New York Times article I stumbled on with some things that Disney does (hat tip Design For Service). It is good article about taking queue management to an extreme and is worth a read. Here are some excerpts:
In one corner, employees watch flat-screen televisions that depict various attractions in green, yellow and red outlines, with the colors representing wait-time gradations.
If Pirates of the Caribbean, the ride that sends people on a spirited voyage through the Spanish Main, suddenly blinks from green to yellow, the center might respond by alerting managers to launch more boats.
Another option involves dispatching Captain Jack Sparrow or Goofy or one of their pals to the queue to entertain people as they wait.The following sounds like revenue or demand management applied to queuing:
What if Fantasyland is swamped with people but adjacent Tomorrowland has plenty of elbow room? The operations center can route a miniparade called “Move it! Shake it! Celebrate It!” into the less-populated pocket to siphon guests in that direction.
Behind-the-scenes systems — typically kept top secret by the company as it strives to create an environment where things happen as if by magic — are also highly computerized. Ride capacity is determined in part by analyzing hotel reservations, flight bookings and historic attendance data. Satellites provide minute-by-minute weather analysis.
January 16, 2011
Queuing theory explained well
A bit delayed, but I thought this was a good video explaining some principles of queuing:
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