Leveraging customer competency in service firms

Abstract

Integrates perspectives across operations, marketing, human resources, and organizational theory in a conceptualization of the theoretical relationships between customer competency and marketing and operations practices in service firms. Suggests service firm strategies to leverage customer competency by managing process variation in an industry through service firm co‐operation when altering process structure does not support or achieve a differentiated market position for individual firms; by using market segmentation on the basis of customer productcore competency to develop new service offerings; by balancing the mix of customers at different competency levels with the firm’s productive capacity; and by optimizing socialization of four types of new customers: “Virgin Newcomers”, “Virtual Newcomers”, “Value Switchers” and “Vagabond Switchers” who have different levels of experience with competing firms and expectations for competency fit with new firms.

Citation

Farber Canziani, B. (1997), "Leveraging customer competency in service firms", International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 5-25. https://doi.org/10.1108/09564239710161051