How services should be measured?
Services are not easily as measured and observed as production processes. Production can increase by the managers’ rigorous measures on changes.
High competition conditions in the world, increasing customer demands, high labor costs, decreasing growth factors. Services companies are trying to increase their efficiencies in these conditions.
In the mean time, direct production companies can proceed more easily with efficiency measurements, by doing improvements in their productions or distribution processes. But, services companies try to increase their efficiencies by dealing with more complex subjects and skills. Moreover, with human factor, services can provide unexpected results on skills, experiences and business motivations.
These off hand factors cause most of the managers’ acceptance about the high changes in services costs. Generally, managers may face with these changes as inefficient and unnecessary.
Managers, in order to support the big changes and provide more efficient services, instead of hiring more people, they can prepare more valid contracts.
In an operation or in an implementation, to increse the services efficiency, it is necessary to proceed with the lessons learned in the past. As a result, performance measurement and tracking are the main prerequisites for the best examples and efficiency in the organization. Even though the wiew of the changes in the services are fatal, most of the managers think to control with new services contracts by using the subjects like the changes in the customer base, the size of the business, and the customer’s character. In order to realize this, there are some elements for services measurements:
- Firstly, services companies should assess themselves instead of using the external assessments. External measurements only help to extract the difficulties of services companies’ internal organizational problems.
- Services companies should investigate the reasons of their expenses and track, also they should investigate the items other than financial ones. Human factor in services subject, makes this more necessary.
- Lastly, services companies should install new systems inside the whole organization for cost measurements, reporting and comparison. Its purpose is to analyze the services from the other units in the organization and the caused problems.
It is not easy to implement the above items. Generally, executives may have resistance from their managers or from their services staff, stating the given services are in high quality and the measurements are unnecessary. The managers worked with loose measurements can be reluctant when they see a powerfull tracking.
Simply, to implement and realize these items, necessary strict measurement systems should be applied in the whole organization. This will result a better change management, dropping in the costs and prices, and increase in the service quality.
Mehmet Bilginsoy – March 09