The services sector is expanding in all advanced economies of the world and even for firms that produce and sell physical goods, customer service is critical to their success. This research program focuses on service design, delivery and service recovery.
To be successful firms need to develop innovative service designs, deliver the services to their customers/clients and deal effectively with customer complaints and dissatisfaction with appropriate service recovery strategies. Customer-employee co-production in the service design and delivery is critical as is the servicescape (the place where the service is developed and delivered). Preventing and appropriately dealing with strong negative customer emotions (including customer rage) is recognised as important yet most firms are ill-equipped to deal with this growing phenomenon. The program contributes to both marketing theory and practice, providing knowledge that enables organisations to develop higher levels of customer service, better service design and delivery and more effective service recovery strategies. We specialise in professional services and retail services.
Researchers in the program are currently involved in a number of projects funded by grants from the Australian Research Council and other funding sources.
