Service Observation Report

Instructions

We all encounter services every day, but we rarely stop and really observe the service. The purpose of this assignment is to get you “out in the wild” and observing a service in detail and thinking about “what are the trade-offs and decisions that service managers face?”

The Task

·         Observe a service carefully for at least one hour.

·         Submit a 2-4 page written summary

Selecting a Service to Observe

·         Here are some criteria and suggestions for selecting a service to observe:

·         It must be a largely “visible” service in that you can see customers moving in and out of the service, and preferably during the service.

·         Go when you will be able to observe many customers over the course of an hour.

·         Here are some suggested services:

o    A fast-food or quick-serve restaurant such as McDonald’s, Chipotle, Panera, Starbucks, Burgerville, mall food court, etc.

o    Food trucks (watch more than one)

o    Airport: Both ticketing/check-in and security screening

o    Department of Motor Vehicles service center

o    Post Office

o    Emergency department or urgent care center

o    Retail stores such as grocery, drug store, discount, big box, department, etc.

o    Barber shop such as GreatClips, SportClips, SuperCuts, TheBarbers, etc.

·         Feel free to use this Service Observation Grading Sheet to get you started in your observation.

Things to Look for and Consider

·         In general, you want to “reverse engineer” the Service Design Framework of the company. In other words, you want to try to figure out what decisions and tradeoffs managers have made in designing the service and why might they have made these.

·         Try to consider both the company and the customer perspectives.

·         Here are some specific things you might look for:

o    Customer arrivals:

§  Are they scheduled? Random? Predictable? Individuals or batches? How often? (Take a stopwatch and collect some data. e.g., for each customer, record arrival time, departure time, etc.)

·         Customer variation:

o    Are customers all the same in their needs and desires?

o    If not, how do they differ?

o    Do customers ever leave before being served? Why?

·         Service process:

o    How involved is the customer in the creation of the service?

o    Is the service the same for each customer?

o    How long does the service take, and does this vary from customer to customer?

o    How flexible is the service process, in terms of capacity and variety?

o    In what ways does the physical facility help or hinder the service?

·         Funding Mechanism:

o    When and how does the customer pay?

·         Overall:

o    Are there any glaring problems? Are they easily fixed or difficult?

o    Are there any aspects of the service that you think are particularly challenging?

o    Are there aspects of the service design that are novel or innovative?

The Written Report

·         2-4 pages is a guideline. You may go a little longer if need be.

·         Include pictures, drawings, data tables, whatever helps convey what you saw. (These do not count as part of the page count.)

·         The format does not need to be terribly formal or verbose. It can be similar to this document in that it is a combination of full paragraphs and bullet points. That said, don’t be sloppy. Check your grammar and spelling, and proof-read to make sure that you are conveying complete thoughts.