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This article reports the outcomes of a study on communication support, commissioned to develop a borough‐wide strategy in 2003 by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.The research stems from a recognition of communication as a key to successful delivery of public services and enhancement of a multicultural community.The focus is on ‘communication’ (rather than ‘language’), since it captures issues beyond the exchange of information through words: interpersonal interactions and relationships, techniques and modes of organising information exchange. Language is a key component within the broad ambit of communication mechanism and skills. Hence interpretation and translation are perceived as models of communications support alongside advocacy, integrated team, multilingual professional team, family/friends and minors, supported language, symbols and signs, and Plain English.While engaging in the debate and highlighting some of the broader issues concerning communication support services, the focus is on the following main issues:• policy frameworks and guiding principles in communication support• methods and techniques for needs assessment, monitoring and evaluation of communication support• communication support provision in Tower Hamlets including quantifying need, actual state of provision and users' perceptions.Probably among the first of its kind, the strategy draws on existing knowledge and good practice to develop a common framework for public services in Tower Hamlets. It is believed that it will serve a pioneering role in co‐ordinated existing and developing coherent approaches to communication support.

Fearing that their voice and SMS business will be substituted by IP‐based services from internet companies, mobile operators are developing various IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) based technologies to enable richer communication services. They reason that since the new rich communication services – such as enhanced presence, group communication and seamless switching between devices and media types within the same communication session – provide secure and more reliable services than those offered by internet companies – Skype, Whatsapp and Google+, for instance – consumers will readily appreciate their services and consequently use them. This paper seeks to address these issues.

To validate these claims, this study analyzes the results of a conjoint survey among 82 respondents in The Netherlands, France and Spain. Are users really willing to adopt these rich communication services and, if so, do issues like reliability, privacy and security impact their decision?

The results indicate that while users are most interested in “group communication” features of rich communication services, they appreciate other services like “switching devices”, “switching media during communication sessions” and “file‐sharing”. Still, for all services, reliability, security and interoperability (i.e. switching between devices) are valued as important requirements.

These findings contribute to the debate on platform competition, as these rich communication services are provided on the basis of the IMS platform, while competing services are offered via an internet base platform.

This paper contributes to the discussion in the mobile telecommunications domain on whether and how operators can counter the threat from internet players that look to take over their voice and SMS business. Theoretically, this paper will contribute both to understanding why users intend to adopt advanced mobile services and creating insight into the consumer‐related factors that drive the war between competing service platforms.

This paper aims to develop a service‐oriented distributed multi‐robot system based on manufacturing message specification (MMS) and new‐generation distributed object technology – web services for realizing remotely monitoring and controlling multiple heterogeneous robots in the internet environment.

The study presents robot communication model and distributed multi‐robot monitoring and control software structure based on MMS and web services. In particular, monitoring and control software design of MMS concepts in web services environment using Unified Modeling Language model is discussed in detail. In addition, to verify the validity of the proposed design method, a multi‐robot prototype system for robot flexible assemble cell has been achieved. Its Server software is implemented in C++ with Visual Studio.NET being the development environment and Client software is programmed in Java with Borland JBuilder 9 being the development tool.

Finds that the communication structure following MMS can make the multi‐robot monitoring and control system have perfect robustness, interoperability and reconfigurability. Besides, web services technology can conveniently realize MMS services, also can successfully resolve the remote multi‐robot monitoring and control problem among cross‐network, cross‐platform and heterogeneous systems.

Provides an easy and low‐cost method for realizing heterogeneous multi‐robot remote driving. The web‐based distribution of the presented system is critical in enabling capabilities such as e‐manufacturing, e‐diagnostics and e‐maintenance.

The proposed system can be seamlessly integrated into other automated manufacturing systems or management systems in plug‐and‐play fashion. The combination of MMS and web services is in favor of real manufacturing equipments being embedded in the network, so the presented systematic methodology can be a useful reference for constructing web‐based reconfigurable manufacturing systems.

Provides robot communication model based on MMS and web services and presents service‐oriented distributed remote multi‐robot monitoring and control software architecture.

This study aims to examine the relationship between service providers' communication style and customer satisfaction and how service criticality and nature moderate this relationship.

The methodology included systematic sampling of consumers of professional services.

Although a service provider's communication style significantly relates to customer satisfaction, the relationship is moderated by service criticality and service nature. To enhance customer satisfaction, communication characterized by high affiliation is more important in high‐ than in low‐critical situations. Low dominance in communication is more important in low‐critical situations, but the level of dominance is unimportant in high‐critical situations. On the other hand, high affiliation is more important for credence services, but the level of affiliation is unimportant for experience services. Low dominance is more important for experience services, and high dominance is more important for credence services.

The findings imply that service firm managers need to train their employees to consider the criticalness and the nature of the service being sold and then how to adjust their communication style accordingly. Because the research reported here focuses on professional services, future research needs to determine the effects of communication style on customer satisfaction for other types of services.

In conclusion, the findings generally support the theoretical orientations of the social interaction model and script theory in that there is a positive relationship between customers' satisfaction with service providers' communication style and with the service rendered. However, service criticality and the service nature need to be considered when deciding on the optimum service employee communication style.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the motivation for the 1999 paper “The impact of communication effectiveness and service quality on relationship commitment in consumer, professional services”. In doing so, it is argued that today, the importance and relevance of effective interpersonal communications to managing client relationship have never been greater. Further, this paper updates developments in this area, and importantly, offers directions for future research.

This paper reflects on the motivation and rationale of the original paper and brings to bear relevant developments in the services marketing literature in the past 15-20 years.

As the professional services sector continues to grow in all economies, the credence properties and asymmetrical nature of information flow between provider and client means that the pivotal role of effective interpersonal communications in developing and nurturing client relations continues to grow in importance. Subsequent research has examined communications style; the impact of communications in a business-to-business professional services context and linked it to client psychological comfort, co-production and value co-creation, client engagement, client experience management and empowerment.

For professional service practitioners, the findings serve as a reminder that clients, especially first-time clients, have difficulty in evaluating the outcome quality and value-for-fee paid even after purchase and consumption of the service. Hence, it serves as a reminder that interpersonal communication has a pivotal role to play in influencing client perceptions of both outcome (“what” was produced) and process quality (“how” it was produced), that is their total experience.

The original paper was cited numerous times and generated broader thinking on the role of effective interpersonal communications in a number of areas of services marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to describe specific features of a Victorian (Australia) state-wide hub and spoke model of speech pathology provision established for adults with complex communication needs (CCN). Two case studies highlighting successful examples of services developed to enhance community inclusion will be described and the challenges discussed.

The route to community inclusion is described through a case study illustration of one communication accessible community site and one disability service study. The disability service research involved focus groups, survey and interview data and demonstrated the efficacy and sustainability of a support worker training model.

Sustainable change in the community and in disability services can occur through partnerships, training, and long-term commitment. Support workers who can facilitate interactions for people who have cognitive and communicative disabilities are an essential component of building the capacity of communities to include people with CCN. Collaboration between community members, specialised supports and people with disabilities enhances active community participation.

This innovative, state-wide model has the capacity to be replicated elsewhere. On-going speech pathology services are integral to support adults with CCN providing both short-term individualised services, sustainable staff training and community engagement.

The following is an introductory profile of the fastest growing firms over the three-year period of the study listed by corporate reputation ranking order. The business activities in which the firms are engaged are outlined to provide background information for the reader.

At present no frameworks exist for services marketers to incorporate social media (SM) within marketing communications planning. The majority of integrated marketing communications (IMC) frameworks were developed prior to the development of the widespread use of digital and SM for information seeking, sales and service. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this issue for services marketers specifically as they differ from FMCG, industrial and durable marketers in terms of marketing messages, branding, media and channels. Furthermore, as they are less reliant on outsourced sale channels they have more potential than other industries to integrate social and digital media to build awareness, brands and sales.

Depth interviews were conducted with eight senior services marketing executives to identify the impact of SM on marketing communications planning, implementation and measurement.

The findings revealed that the unique characteristics of SM (such as interactivity and individualisation, integration of communication and distribution channels, immediacy and information collection) impact traditional marketing communications frameworks. These impacts manifested in 12 modifications specific to services and SM to traditional generic IMC frameworks encompassed by the themes of reach, service channel, word-of-mouth advocacy, consumer generated messages, listening and behavioural measurement.

The rapidly evolving nature of SM means senior services marketers need to educate organisational stakeholders regarding implementation issues, which may be a barrier to effective integration of SM within marketing communications.

With digital marketing communications budgets reaching 30 per cent within some organisations, it is timely to put forward a marketing communication decision-making framework that first incorporates SM and second is suitable for services marketers.

The inherent characteristics of professional services (i.e. high in credence properties, customized and featuring information asymmetry) often cause difficulties for clients to confidently evaluate technical outcomes before, during or even after service delivery. This results in considerable client psychological discomfort. This study aims to blend a revised social interaction model and uncertainty reduction theory to investigate the role that service provider’s interpersonal communication style plays in establishing client psychological comfort and satisfaction in a health-care context.

The study draws on cross-sectional data collected from 355 hospital patients following visiting a physician plus an experimental design in an Eastern culture (Thailand).

The study reveals three key findings. First, an affiliative communication style is positively associated with psychological comfort, but not so a dominant communications style. When both styles are presented, the high-affiliative style overshadows the low-dominant style and creates the highest psychological comfort. Second, clients’ perceptions of professional’s affiliative and dominant styles influence psychological comfort differentially under varying conditions of clients’ cognitive social capital, collectivist value-orientation but not service criticality. Third, a competing model suggests psychological comfort acts as a partial mediator between affiliative communication style and satisfaction.

To generalize the findings, further studies might be conducted in other professional services and in individualist Western cultures.

The findings have important managerial implications for the appropriate use of communication style to build psychological comfort and engage clients of professional services firms.

The findings shed light on the important role of an everyday social function – interpersonal communications and how this impacts client psychological comfort and satisfaction.

This is one of the few studies in a services context that examines the impact of professionals’ communications style. Moreover, it examines the impact of cultural value-orientation, cognitive social capital, service criticality in moderating the communications style – client psychological comfort relationship.

Most previous research in the domain of relationship marketing has focused on the antecedents of loyalty and commitment in industrial markets, distribution channels or consumer goods. This study, however, models the antecedents of clients’ relationship commitment in the context of a professional service, high in credence qualities (where customers have difficulty in confidently evaluating service quality, even purchase and consumption) ‐ i.e. personal financial planning services. The impact of four key explanatory variables (communication effectiveness, technical quality, functional quality and trust) are examined. The results support the hypothesized model and show communication effectiveness to be a key driver of all antecedent variables, and the single most powerful determinant of relationship commitment.