Revisiting “Where Does the Customer Fit in a Service Operation?”

Abstract

In 1978 I asserted that a “rational approach to the rationalization” of services requires first of all a classification system that sets one service activity system apart from another (Chase 1978). The classification I developed came about from an effort to derive a business classification scheme and was predicated on the extent of customer contact with the service system and its personnel during the service delivery process. Based upon open systems theory, I proposed that the less direct contact the customer has with the service system, the greater the potential of the system to operate at peak efficiency. And, conversely, where the direct customer contact is high, the less potential exists to achieve high levels of efficiency. In this chapter I will review the contact approach as it was discussed in the article and offer some suggestions for its future development.