ABSTRACT
In almost all service organizations, employees are critical to creating a positive customer experience – even when the business is primarily selling ‘products’ (e.g., groceries, automobiles, etc.). In many ways, a firm's most important resource and core competency is its workers. The importance of employees to deliver service excellence has prompted leading organizations to regard their employees as ‘internal customers’ – that is, service managers understand that internal customer satisfaction is ultimately reflected in external customer satisfaction and that employees can determine the firm's success in the external marketplace. Thus, an organization's human resources represent a remarkable asset and can provide a company with a unique competitive advantage that cannot be copied by other firms. This chapter highlights a series of interrelated considerations regarding people in service organizations and stresses the benefits of nurturing a service culture, service climate, and employee empowerment. The service-profit chain is introduced as a conceptual framework to understand the links between service employees (and how they feel cared for and important), customer satisfaction, and firm performance.
