Notes on group fitness regimes and music as organisational technology

Photo license:  Flickr image by cooyutsing at http://www.flickr.com/photos/25802865@N08/6853984341/    

Introduction

The purpose of this article is to discuss literature about music in relation to organisational activities, and especially in relation to group fitness class businesses. It arose out of my interest in the Les Mills group fitness business, and a funded project on Music and Work. This article is a general introduction to the use of music in fitness. It mainly mainly discusses the cultural meaning of the group fitness 'dance'. 

Music as technology

It is often said that we now live in an ‘experience’ economy. Businesses of all kinds try and find ways to ‘add value’ to products and services through enhancing ‘experience’ factors (Ashforth & Tomiuk, 2000; Minor et al., 2004). Accompanying this interest in exploiting the profit-making potential of enhanced experience has been a raft of organizational processes that support the cultural/aesthetic properties of the organization. Several writers have attempted to critically engage with the implications of the service and cultural milieu for ordering or ‘manufacturing’ the subjectivities of workers and consumers. Music, like that in a group fitness class, can be seen as an organizational discourse or ‘text’ used in the activity of organizing people.

Music pervades organizational aesthetics and life: communication technology is musical with cell phones’ intrusive ring-tones, work-place elevator musak anaesthetizes with its deliberate blandness and non-ness (Lanza, 1994), shopping malls advertise their strangeness with odd disembodied music to encourage a sense of being lost in time and space (Kowinski, 1985), and in fashion retail outlets to help customers imagine themselves enjoying wearing a dress (De Nora & Belcher, 2000). Coffee (Starbucks CD range), and even furniture comes with its own range of mood-music now (Freedom Furniture, 2002).

Music is also used inside organizations to induct employees or subjects through organizational song (Nissley et al., 2003), or through the highly ordering 2-2 beat of the military march (Hockney, 2002), and has been used deliberately in factories to facilitate the production process by merging the body’s movements with the rhythms of the music (Korczynski & Jones, 2004).

Clearly music in say, a Les Mills group fitness class,  is being used to evoke, coordinate and entrain emotional states in service environments (e.g. Minor et al., 2004). Even further than  emotional and physical experiences, spiritual experiences are also being encouraged (Belk et al., 1989; Casey, 2002). We feel strongly about music and its ability to enhance our lives, but to companies music is an  aesthetic design element to be manipulated to enhance ambiance and experience and increase company profits (Bitner, 1992).

Agents interact with and use the musical material. Music is an aesthetic prosthetic technology according to De Nora (2000): a material that can extend what the body can do. Work involves labour — the activity of the body, intellect or emotion to add value in the business process. Music may extend the capabilities of the mind, the body and/or emotion to add value to products and services. Service, which by its nature is intangible, simultaneous, reciprocal and perishable, is a natural companion for music in the service production process. Service is facilitated by the sounds of music. 


Dancing in time to the labour process

Unlike music, dance cannot be disembodied. We may watch someone else dance, but you can only dance when you dance. Dance in group fitness is the performance of the ‘musical consumer’: dance pulls the music in, moves it through the body, and then it is turned out in a cultural display. Dance displays are historically and culturally situated; gender relations are reproduced and accentuated; conflict and emotion is expressed and controlled; young people mate through dance; gods are worshipped and cosmology expressed; rituals of power and control are produced and reproduced; and cultures are fused and intertwined (Jonas, 1992; Buonaventura, 2003). Dance can be a safety valve, a process of social control, self-generational, educational, a form of initiation, competitive, ritualized dramatic theatre, and a challenge to established power, showing alternative possible realities (Spencer, 1985). Through dance, cultures enact life, and music fuels the show.

Music and dance in the context of a group fitness class is an organising technology. Music is not value-free and musicians have always used the language of music to manipulate perceptions of time and space. The language of this creation is sophisticated and for timing involves rhythm — pulses, beats and rests (Holst, 1963). Musically proficient people (not only musicians, but producers, marketers, choreographers, designers and other symbolic analysts) can use music — for instance, its genre or place of origin — to evoke in the listener moods and experiences. In short, time and space is organized through music.

Liquidity in time and space echoes with liquidities in gender and racial identity (Butler, 1993). The exercise-dance is a dance that expresses fluid gender identity through androgyny and camp. Camp is a common theatrical device in modern rock music (Rodger, 2004): women become men; white women become black women; white women become black men; and men become women. Participants stomp — using the body as a percussive instrument, pretend to be John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever as they disco dance down the Step box, surf to the Bee Gees, box like Mohammed Ali, or pretend to be a voodoo priest shaking his totem stick. Racial identities (stereotypes?) are also played with through doing different aspects of different dances like flamenco, cha-cha, stomp, hip hop, disco, soul and gospel. In the imagination one travels to a Latin American Mardi Gras, the ghettos of Harlem, nightclubs in 1970s America, or stomp in a West End stage production. The actions of the dance are about transience through space - walking, climbing, surfing, running, dancing, flying through space, scooting, skiing, even riding horses. The pleasures of travel and movement itself are evoked: travelling in a car, in a plane, in a bus, a train, stopping off in an airport and at all the major destination places in between. Music evokes exotic other places — tourist experiences in other words (Connell & Gibson, 2003). Some songs evoke ‘blasting off’ in a rocket, travelling between planets in outer space, and even flying like superman. In short, you can take a trip and never leave the room. Yet, these movements all take place in a very confined space.

The activity almost always takes place inside. The step exercise routine is based on walking up a hill and, as with outdoor walking (Edensor, 2000), the movements of the body symbolise process and expansion of the self. Walking can be a spiritual practice, and is used in the fitness-to-music session to help participants achieve a meditative rhythmic state (Slavin, 2003). Constantly moving feet give the impression of movement, but spatially the activity happens almost on-the-spot. This is in direct contrast to the other gym activity most participated in by men, circuit training, which has considerable mobility and spatial conquering involved (Crossley, 2004). Group fitness is mainly participated in by women.

Gyms as cultures

There has been considerable literature written about gym cultures and the aesthetic discourses around physically perfect, fit bodies that gyms convey, encourage and sustain (Sassatelli, 1999;Wacquant, 1995; Lloyd, 1996; Crossley, 2004; Monaghan, 1999; Frew & McGillivray, 2005). Gyms are social and technical environments with specific discourses around the body that encourage “an ongoing activity of enhancing bodily aesthetics” (Monaghan, 1999: 267), where participants attempt to stabilize their self-identity through attention to the body, changing its ‘plastic’ form (Thompson & Hirschman, 1999).

Generally speaking this discourse is a technical/scientific one, where the body is seen as machine. People are building cyborg bodies (Haraway, 1991) as they work on themselves to lose weight, strengthen, tone, and enhance themselves. The exercise regime is often filled with patter from instructors about the body as machine – its capabilities, its inside workings, how to make it run more efficiently through nutrition. The body is the machine being ‘fixed’. If you look good, you’ll feel good. Or alternatively, if there is no chance of that, if you feel good, then you’ll think you look good. By changing the body the intent is that the Self will be transformed. What is currently wrong - esteem, confidence, relationships, sexual fulfilment - will be set right through physical renewal.

Conclusion

Dance is an expression of culture, and so what culture is expressed in the aerobics-dance? In an organizational context the group fitness session is an organizational dance where the consumer and the instructors dance and so embody and produce the labour that has the value in the commercial exchange. There is a creation of fantasy and desire. There is the manufacturing of a ritual of 'escape' from everyday life. There is an obsession with looking and being looked at. There is an affirmation of admiring looking as a virtue.

Nothing wrong with all this. But if this is a cultural dance, and it is, what does it say about our culture?

References and Further Reading

Ashforth, B., & Tomiuk, M. (2000). Emotional labour and authenticity: Views from service agents. In S. Fineman (Ed.), Emotion in organizations (pp. 184 — 203). London: Sage.
Rodger, G. (2004). Drag, camp and gender subversion in the music and videos of Annie Lennox. Popular Music, 23(1), 17 — 29.

Belk, R. W., Wallendorf, M., & Sherry, J. F. (1989). The sacred and the profane in consumption behaviour: Theodicy on the odyssey. Journal of Consumer Research, 16(June), 1 — 38.

Bitner, M. J. (1992). Servicescapes: The impact of physical surroundings on customers and employees. Journal of Marketing, 56(2), 57 — 76.
Buonaventura, W. (2003). Something in the way she moves. Cambridge: Da Capo Press.

Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity (1999 ed.). New York: Routledge.
Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of ‘sex’. New York: Routledge.
Casey, C. (2002). Critical analysis of organizations: Theory, practice, revitalization. London: Sage.
Cohen, S., & Taylor, L. (1992). Escape attempts: The theory and practice of resistance to everyday life. London: Routledge.
Connell, J., & Gibson, C. (2003). Sound tracks: Popular music, identity and place. London: Routledge.
Crossley, N. (2004). The circuit trainer's habitus: Reflexive body techniques and the sociality of the workout. Body and Society, 10(1), 37 — 69.
De Nora, T. (2000). Music in everyday life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
De Nora, T., & Belcher, S. (2000). When you're trying something on you picture yourself in a place where they are playing this kind of music: Musically sponsored agency in the British clothing retail sector. Sociological Review, 48(1), 80 — 101.

Edensor, T. (2000). Walking in the British countryside: Reflexivity, embodied practices and ways to escape. Body and Society, 6(3), 81 —106.
Fitzsimmons, J., & Fitzsimmons, M. (2006). Service management: Operations, strategy, information technology (5th ed.). Sydney: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Frew, M., & McGillivray, D. (2005). Health clubs and body politics: Aesthetics and the quest for physical capital. Leisure Studies, 24(2), 161 — 175.
Gluck, P. (1993). The use of music in sports performance. Contemporary Thought, 2, 22 — 53.

Haraway, D. (1991). A cyborg manifesto. In Simians, cyborgs and women: The reinvention of nature (pp. 149—181). New York: Routledge.
Hockney, J. (2002). 'Head down, Bergen on, mind in neutral': The infantry body. Journal of Political and Military Sociology, 30(1), 148 — 171.
Holst, I. (1963). An ABC of music. London: Oxford University Press.

Jonas, G. (1992). Dancing: The pleasure, power and art of movement. New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc.
Korczynski, M., & Jones, K. (2004, 1 — 3 September). Instrumental music: The social origins and meaning of tannoyed music in factories. Paper presented at the Work, Employment and Society, Manchester, United Kingdom.
Kowinski, W. S. (1985). The malling of America: An inside look at the great consumer paradise: William Morrow.
Lanza, J. (1994). Elevator music: A surreal history of musak, easy-listening, and other moodsong. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Monaghan, L. (1999). Creating 'the perfect body': A variable project. Body and Society, 5(2), 267 — 290.
Minor, M., Wagner, T., Brewerton, F. J., & Hausman, A. (2004). Rock on! An elementary model of customer satisfaction with musical performances. Journal of Services Marketing, 118(1), 7 —18.

Nissley, N., Taylor, S., & Butler, O. (2003). The power of organizational song: An organizational discourse and aesthetic expression of organizational culture. In A. Carr & P. Hancock (Eds.), Art and aesthetics at work (pp. 93 — 114). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Sassatelli, R. (1999). Interaction order and beyond: A field analysis of body culture within fitness gyms. Body and Society, 5(2), 227-248.
Seitz, P. (2005). Starbucks perking in music business as it expands its CD-burning outlets. Financial News, Investor's Business Daily Retrieved 16 March, 2005, from http://biz.yahoo.com/ibd/050216/tech01_1.html
Slavin, S. (2003). Walking as spiritual practice: The pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Body & Society, 9(3), 1 — 18.
Spencer, P. (Ed.). (1985). Society and dance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thompson, C., & Hirschman, E. (1999). An existential analysis of the embodied self in postmodern culture. Consumption, Markets and Culture, 2(4), 337 — 464.
Wacquant, L. (1995). Review article: Why men desire muscles. Body and Society, 1(1), 163 —179.
Wasserman, V., Rafaeli, A., & Kluger, A. (2000). Aesthetic symbols as emotional cues. In S. Fineman (Ed.), Emotion in organizations (pp. 140 — 165). London: Sage.

Exploring Service Issues Creatively - Poster on Queuing

The poster below was compiled by students in my undergraduate managing services class. The purpose of the activity was to  raise awareness of the amount of queuing that occurs in everyday life, and so the amount of time spent in queues (and only physical queues are represented in this poster). One of the basic issues service managers deal with is the queue, which is a bottleneck in the service process. 

People find waiting very frustrating. On the other hand, a queue can also signal the desirability of a commodity, and so sometimes managers deliberately increase waiting time to signify to the consumer the desirability of a service (e.g. a queue at a nightclub). 

The poster features student's queuing experiences in traffic (Auckland!), retail, sporting events and concerts, museums, mini-put golf, airports, food, government services and other situations.  

Exploring Customer Service Issues Creatively - Comic Strip

Below is a cartoon drawn by two students in one of my service management classes. These students kindly gave permission for their  work to be published (I used it in a journal article which can be found here) and so please if you want to use of it, make sure you attribute it correctly to Katy and Sammi and make sure you say where you got it from (this blog) or cite the reference below as it is published in a journal. 

The cartoon is a response to an assignment to create a multi-media artifact that explores the tensions service employees feel between managers and customers, both agents of control over their behaviour at work.  

Katy and Sammi have very cleverly depicted a very keen 'BS' employee (denoted by the cap she is wearing) working in your typical fast food restaurant.  A series of demanding and tiresome customers are depicted, and although managers are absent (as they often are in front-line service work) there are a number of ways that managers are controlling the interaction (especially through the limited menu-board). The cartoon, by using a comic format, exaggerates some of the idiosyncrasies of customers, and management, and so makes it more obvious where points of tension are. 

Reference


Ralph Bathurst, Janet Sayers, Nanette Monin (2008). Finding beauty in the banal: An exploration of service work in the artful classroom. Journal of Management & Organization: Vol. 14, Re-conceiving the Artful in Management Development and Education, pp. 521-534.

Les Mills International - Service Case Study Part 2

Continued from Part 1  - Les Mills International - Service Case Study Part 1

The Les Mills System: the Nuts and Bolts

There are several parts to Les Mills fitness, including Les Mills Gyms, Les Mills NZ and Les Mills International. The Les Mills International system is complex and dynamic and this article merely provides some features of their system in order to help a student understand service systems generally, and especially aspects of service systems that are common to all. It is an educational resource, and may not be completely accurate as businesses are in constant flux. This article focuses on Les Mills International, but aspects of their systems are in all branches of their business. 

Education and organisational learning systems

Instruction and teaching are central to what Les Mills does. For each new release, they have about 3 months trialing and then teaching fitness classes in order to produce 'world-class’ fitness classes. The create video classes and distribute them through their system and release them in mass events such as those you can see on Youtube, and shown in Part 1 of this article of a BODYSTEP® release. The training includes producing modules to train teachers, instructor training and management training in GFM (Group Fitness Management). For extension, reading see an article about training and group fitness instructors here. 

Relationship with Owner of the Club and Marketing

Like all successful franchise service operations, Les Mills has tight control over its image and processes. They "write the rules on studio design, recruitment of staff, measurement of performance, marketing, and staff training" according to Phillip Mills (Go Global talk, 2005). By doing so they instill their brand through the behavior and conduct of their staff, including the vision and values that underpin their organisational culture. They produce a wide range of promotional material, and are constantly developing and thinking about ways to build 'community' for their customers, as a community, as Phillip explains in the video above, is a strong motivating factor to join and stay involved in fitness and health initiatives. For managers and instructors resources, they need to promote, manage and run classes are all available online. They can access adverts, guerrilla marketing material, as well as order popular décor items, decorative posters, clothing and so on. "Our branding is in people’s faces" said Phillip Millsin his Go Global talk.

Music as technology

Licensed music is what gives LM its competitive edge according to Phillip Mills, “With the cooperation of the NZ music industry” (although I have to say NZ music didn't feature much in the sessions I attended). In 2005 LM was the only company worldwide to have rights to distribute the top forty music tracks. "We can distribute just about anything”, and they "pay millions of dollars in royalties". Along with the music is the choreography which is centrally important to the ways that people interact with the music. Tia De Nora has written a scholarly book that includes research with group fitness participants on the ways they use music in fitness sessions (De Nora, 2000). 

Going Global

Les Mills keep calling themselves a small NZ company, although it is hard to understand how they can still call themselves that, except it is part of their origin story and culture. They were limited by capital constraints and so opted initially for an independent owner-distributor model. They considered growth through other models as there are bigger margins to be made in owning the whole business, but they couldn't afford it. In their first growth spurt internationally they did 'take over' a couple of organisations.

Their business model uses licenses. Clubs pay LM agents a monthly fee per programme, and agents are paid on a sliding scale. Percentages are also divided up according to sales of training, music merchandising, and equipment and other tangibles. One lesson learned by LM is not to undercharge for their service. They offer high-end programmes and need to charge a premium for them.

For LM agents are crucial to success. Initially LM recruited the 'best' agents in each country they expanded into and “Networked, networked, networked”. According to Phillip Mills, most agents in this initial growth phase were great but there were a few were "dodgy" ones. LM made mistakes but they learnt from those mistakes. One issue was that they learnt existing retailers did not make great agents as they could be protective and competitive. Best local agents had the commitment and local knowledge.

However, sometimes local agents did not have had the same commitment to quality or buy-in that is expected of a LM agent, and so it was sometimes necessary to remove agents. An agreement process was essential - service contracts needed to be developed and adhered to.

So, for instance, commercial contracts needed to include:

1. performance minimums (fees that they charge; the number of clubs covered); 
2. exclusivity in a product category (to eradicate copy-cat problems; enforceable restraints of trade; engage expert international legal advice);
3. obligation to sell to all reputable companies (minimum number of dedicated sales staff; dedicated sales manager);
4. Standard procedures around quality;
5. Reporting requirements (benchmarking; monitoring compliance)

In general, according to Phillip Mills, “He who drafts wins” (the agreements that is). It was essential to politely enforce all agreements, and if waivers were given they had to be in writing. 

Living the Brand

As inferred earlier, LM requires a strong adherence to Brand values, an adherence that people that work for LM seem to fully comply with. The LM package is 'world-class', and so LM invested in the top creative agencies in NZ for sales and pitch documents. All LM representatives, affiliates and employees must represent this world-class brand. As Phillip Mills puts it, it is required that you put your “skin in the game”. Commitment comes from the investment, both in terms of dollars, but also in physical and emotional commitment.

Fitness instructors, for example, represent the brand, but they also deliver the experience. They are the most visible customer service representative for participants. It is the instructor that participants 'look up to' both literally (they are almost always on an elevated stage) and figuratively (as a model of a fit person to aspire to in looks and fitness). Instructors co-produce (see Note 1 below about what this means) with participants the group fitness experience - everyone in the class is enlisted into the same enterprise. 

LM has a strong, perhaps even alarming, brand commitment - "they would die for the cause" said Phillip at the Go Global event. Nevertheless, people buy into LM and they have an almost evangelical fervor about them. Becoming a LM licensee requires one to undergo a life-changing event. In terms of achieving this commitment to the brand LM has employed a variety of techniques: e.g. 'Life-changing staff training' using tools like theater, motivational psychology,  personal development, team building, and cultural rituals in order to create passion, enthusiasm and the commitment of staff. “We became a virus” says Phillip and took over hearts and minds of staff. "We took their attention". Its not all hard work: they also focus on having fun, delivering great conferences, and creating great teams. They also use celebrity endorsements and have a very strong NZ flavour in their brand. See the video below of their own haka performed in Stockholm in 2010 'gifted' to their participants. This is also an example of using a cultural ritual to enhance the community, a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technique. More information on this is available here. 

Best Practice

How does a top fitness business stay at the top? By comparing itself to the best and learning from industries that are perceived to be the best in the world, even if they have ostensibly nothing to do with the fitness industry itself. In the video below Philip describes what he was learning during a recent study tour in the U.S.

Other Issues

LM continuously offers its licensees techniques to help them grow their businesses. For instance, the recent announcement of the Clubcount system. This announcement says: "CLUBCOUNT™ is new web-based software that will keep track of your numbers for you. This means you will have numerous ways to report on, and evaluate, your success in Group Fitness. All you need to do is take a quick headcount for each class, grab a few moments to enter the class attendance into the software and CLUBCOUNT™ will take care of the rest..." CLUBCOUNT™ enables clubs to understand Group Fitness attendance trends over time, create timetables based on proper information, and identify top instructor performers (instructors become minor celebrities).  

Another recent innovation has been their 'Globesity' initiative, which has been launched with the publication of a book and is LM's sustainability initiative. The following video explains how this works: 

 

Other Links of Interest about Les Mills

Les Mills was recently nominated for a NZ International Business Award.

Les Mills on Facebook

Notes

Note 1: Service work production processes are different from those in manufacturing, and so the labour process itself is different. In service work, the consumer and the producer are involved in a reciprocal and instantaneous exchange of production at the same time as consumption occurs. Labour is produced with the customer – they are co-producers of its meaning or, in another way of putting it, the customer is a partial employee (Halbesleben & Buckley, 2004). The value of the labor is in its synchronicity. 

Other References


De Nora, T. (2000). Music in everyday life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Halbesleben, J., & Buckley, R. M. (2004). Managing customers as employees of the firm: New challenges for human resource management. Personnel Review, 33(3), 351-372.

Personal notes from Phillip Mills talk on Thrive TV (http://www.thrivetv.com, now no longer operating). The presentation was given as part of the Go Global Conference held in Auckland in 2005.

Service People - McDonald's

Below you can see a slideshow presentation about McDonald's, a USA originating fast-food company. The focus is on staff issues - HRM and in particular the way they use recruitment in their values-based service strategy. 

McDonald's is the focus of intense interest, of business people, academics and activists. McDonald's is practically worshiped in franchise and service professional circles. McDonald's have provided the template for service growth that is followed by many other services, including other food retail services like Starbucks, and seemingly unrelated services who have adopted the limited menu option format including professional services like optometrists (OPSM) and hairdressing (Justcuts). 

Note there has also been a great deal written about McDonald's in critical scholarship because McDonald's has been of tremendous significance, not only as an influence on business models and growth strategy but also as a cultural and social phenomenon. McDonalds is even credited with the spread of the worst and the best of 'American  culture' (whatever that is) more generally. McDonald's responds to the criticism - or 'relationship dialogue' - with society in a variety of ways.

The following is a video advertising McDonald's focus on job-readiness and employment for young people.

References

Gunther, Marc (May 17, 2006). 'Yoga … Soy … McDonald’s?' Fortune.
Lord, Simon (2002a). McDonald's: The myth and the magic. Retrieved from the Internet, November 25, 2002, http://franchise.co.nz/

Ritzer, G. (2004). The McDonaldization of society. Sage, London.

Sweeny, Mark (April 20, 2006) 'Fast food giant says no to 'McJobs', Fortune. 

Vignali, C. (2001). McDonald’s: “Think global, act local” – the marketing mix. British Food Journal, 103 (2), 97 – 111.

Strategic Human Resource Management - Breakers Basketball

Sports are classic service organizations, delivering an intangible experience-product. I recently published, with a colleague, a research article in the New Zealand Journal of Human Resource Management which investigated the Breakers basketball organisation's HRM strategy. The article uses concepts like co-creation, strategic co-creation of values and story-telling methodology to unpick how the Breakers use stories to help manage their values-based culture. You can find the full paper here.

Abstract: Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) is often described as the alignment of internal human resources to external threats and opportunities. Values-driven goals have been increasingly interwoven into SHRM practices. If there is a disconnect between values-driven SHRM and staff enactment of values then strategic goal achievement is less likely. Research is underdeveloped as to how values-based SHRM is implemented at the micro-process level; the level at which people within the organisation engage with SHRM. Research examining the successful implementation of values-based approaches assists understanding of best-practice. The research question is, ‘How has a successful values-based SHRM approach been enacted? We investigated values-driven SHRM in the New Zealand SKYCITY Breakers’ basketball franchise, using a narrative methodology. The preliminary stage of the study involved content analysis of secondary sources and interviews, which highlighted the Breakers are a 'storytelling' organisation. The second main stage involved narrative analysis of 250 shared stories identified from 16 in-depth interviews with organisational members. Findings are that the Breakers use a monomyth story-sharing process to embed value-driven behaviour. The key contribution is to show how values-based SHRM is embedded by the organisation’s monomyth story-telling process. Practice-based implications are discussed. 

Service Work - Chaplin's Modern Times

One of the most important film texts about work is Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece ‘Modern Times’ (1936). Many recognize the iconic image of Chaplin, caught in the cogs of the machines of the factory, which symbolizes a central message of his film; organic human life as processed and crushed by technological progress. Fewer people realize, however, that Chaplin included in his film an inspired critique on service work, as well as factory work, which still resonates today.

Modern Times is often interpreted as being an allegorical statement about the effect of automation on the individual. The film is a political critique of industrialism but it is also a personal allegorical statement regarding Chaplin’s situation vis-à-vis developments in the film industry. At the time of the distribution of Modern Times, ‘the talkies’ – movies with soundtracks – had been in production for ten years. Chaplin’s most successful invention, the character of the Little Tramp as a silent film figure and so could not survive the era of sound. Looking at the image above, of The Little Tramp being ground through the wheels of the factory, is to see Charlie Chaplin himself being ground through the cogs of a film projector.

I have written a couple of papers on Charlie Chaplin now as I have been fascinated by him as a silent comedian; a comedian who communicates without words, and so has universal appeal that transcends cultural and international boundaries. He was also a man with deeply held political beliefs. One paper is in a book on service work. Read the book! but if you can't then a previous version delivered at a conference is available here. 

An encyclopedia entry I wrote about Chaplin is here (Chapter 272) which is in the Encyclopedia of Creativity. 

References

Bolton, S. C., & Boyd, C. (2003). Trolley dolly or skilled emotion manager? Moving on from Hochschild's Managed Heart. Work, Employment and Society, 17(2), 289-308.

Chaplin, C. (1964). My auto-biography. London: The Bodley Head.

Collinson, D. L. (2002). Managing humor. Journal of Management Studies, 39(3), 269 — 288.

Fineman, S. (Ed.). (2000). Emotion in organizations. London: Sage.

Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. London: Penguin.

Hochschild, A. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Keat, R., Whiteley, N., & Abercrombie, A. (Eds.). (1994). The authority of the consumer. London: Routledge.

Madden, D. (1968). Harlequin's stick. Charlie's cane. Film Quarterly, 22(1), 10—26.

Sayers, J. and Monin, N. (2008). 'Chaplin’s Modern Times: Service work, authenticity, and nonsense at the Red Moon Cafe'. In Marek Korcynski & Cameron McDonald.(eds.) Service work: Critical perspectives. London: Routledge, pp. 11-30.

Sewell, G., & Wilkinson, B. (1992). ‘Someone to watch over me’: Surveillance, discipline, and the Just-in-Time labour process. Sociology, 26(2), 271 — 289.

Van Maanen, J. (1991). The smile factory: Work at Disneyland. In P. J. Frost, L. Moore, C. C. Lundberg & J. Martin (Eds.), Reframing organizational culture (pp. 58—76). London: Sage.

Witz, A., Warhurst, C., & Nickson, D. (2003). The labour of aesthetics and the aesthetics of organization. Organization, 10(1), 33—54.

Service People - Effects of Mergers in the Tertiary Polytechnic Sector

Organizational change is experienced in a subjective way. When a merger or acquisition happens, as is currently happening on a large scale in the Polytechnic sector in New Zealand, the human impact is huge. Many staff struggle to cope with the change.

Vikki Roadley is both an experienced polytechnic senior manager and a student at Massey University studying leadership for her Masters. Whilst she was researching polytech staff's stories of mergers, she also did an art project as part of her methodology. Photographs of the mannequin-head sculptures she created were included in an Appendices to her research report. In 2019 the School of Management enabled us to engage a professional photographer to take good quality images of Vikki's sculptures and these were published in the journal Organisational Aesthetics along with an explanation of how they came about and some text explaining their significance.  The sculptures communicate in a visceral way the personal costs of mergers. In a forthcoming paper, we explore stories the participants told about mergers they had experienced. Our intention is to help staff re-story their stories of change so they are more hopeful. You can see all of the awesome sculptures here.

Bottleneck Problem - Deep Creek Brewery

Deep Creek Brewery and Process Flow from Janet Sayers on Vimeo.

A bottleneck is an impediment to process flow. The above short film is by Minesh Pillay and is a response to an assignment to look at a bottleneck issue in a service business. The film was accompanied by a brief essay which identified the bottleneck problem (caused by a structural feature in the bar) discussed in relation to relevant service concepts. The film provides a lovely insight into a new bar in Browns Bay which has been very popular since it opened.  The film features the owner/manager and the bar manager speaking about the bottleneck problem which is caused by a structural feature in the bar area, and the ways they deal with the problem, as well as some footage of staff working around the structural challenge. Thanks so much to Minesh, Jarred Mclacahlan and Tom for their permission to publish Minesh's film. You can also get a very good impression of the vibrancy of the venue and I do recommend you go there for the beer, the food and the great atmosphere :o) I particular enjoy the  branding referencing to landmarks from Browns Bay itself where the bar is located and  I lived for many years  - Deep Creek Road and Deep Creek itself. Best of luck to Jarred and all the staff involved in this venture.  

Script - Equip Retail

This post is an essay by Natalie Mitchell, a student in an undergraduate class 'Managing Services' on scripting at Equip, a retail outlet selling mainly jewelry. Thanks to Natalie for permission to publish her essay on this blog. Natalie's essay provides a good example of writing that uses her own experience in combination with service management theory to  provide some reflections on a service management topic.   

The essay topic was:   

"Scripting is an important technique for managing service people and the processes they deliver. Using an organisation with which you are familiar critically discuss how scripting is used, and its advantages and disadvantages". Approx 2000 words. Use at least four journal references. 

Scripting is "the precise specification of actions to be taken by service staff, in particular situations" (Clark & Johnston, 2008, p. 251) and is an essential technique for managing in today’s globalized service environment. In a constantly changing competitive environment the use of scripting in mass service organisations ultimately provides consistency, efficiency and security for customers and employees alike (Clark & Johnston, 2008). This essay will first briefly outline the nature of scripting. Second, this essay will examine the organisation ‘Equip’ and investigate how scripting is used. Using real examples of scripting at Equip it is possible to analyse the disadvantages and advantages of this technique. Overall, this essay will argue that scripting is definitely a vital technique for managing service people and processes. However it has to be approached in a manner that does not offset the autonomy of employees and customers to an extent where the service experience is unpleasant. 

The term, ‘script’ is a "commonly used tool to design and manage the encounter between frontline service employees and customers" (Victorino, Verma & Wardell, 2008, p. 36). Scripting is often discussed in the context of understanding the service encounter as a performance, much like in the theatre, and so the script provides the lines and actions that employees (as actors) should play when they interact with a customer (Harris et al. 2003).  Scripting is also defined as a "design tool used to exert a degree of control over employee-customer interactions that may take place where there is no direct supervision or oversight" (Tansik & Smith, 1991, p.36). The use of scripting in service organisations aims to ensure a consistent level of service quality by creating procedures that assist employees in their daily tasks (Clark & Johnston, 2008). These procedures are typically a "predetermined set of specific words, phrases, and gestures, as well as other expectations for the employee to use during each step of the service process" (Victorino et al, p. 6). 

Equip, an Australian-owned organisation, is chain of affordable jewellery stores, targeting females of all ages. EquipYourself Online claim "join our fast growing team ... working in a fun, young team environment’. Many organisations, Equip included, not only hire young workers that can relate to their predominantly young customers, but also hire young people as they are assumed to be more compliant. Scholosser (2002) suggests the word ‘young’ used in the context of a service workforce often indicates an underlying belief that younger staff will be more flexible and conform to specific organisational procedures. This certainly appeared to be the case in the store where I worked, from the period of November 2010 till May 2011.  Equip's employee ages ranged from 17-23, with the store manager being 23. With such a young workforce employees may be more likely to respond to control mechanisms like scripts. 

There are ‘six steps’ to Equip's encounter script which guides the daily operations of its staff. First an employee must greet the customer with an initial smile or verbal welcome within the first thirty seconds upon entering the store. The employee must then initiate conversation with an opening line by asking a question that requires an interactive answer and not a simple 'yes' or 'no' reply. The third step determines the customer's wants and needs. The employee is required to ask whether they wear gold or silver, or ask "what in particular are you looking for today?" The employee must then suggest an ‘add on’: for example the matching bracelet to the necklace they have chosen. The employee should  then encourage the customer to touch the additional piece of jewellery to persuade the customer it is the right thing to do. Touching merchandise increases the likelihood of sales (Underhill, 2008). The fifth step is directly linked to the fourth: the employee must be able to handle any possible objections. This step is explained in more detail below. The final stage of the encounter is closing the sale which involves putting the item(s) through the PlatyPOS transaction system, placing the item in an Equip bag, and fare-welling the customer with a statement that will welcome them back again, such as ‘See you later!’ 

Equip further incorporates scripting for employees by guiding their interactions with customers when   answering the telephone. From my personal experience the phone has to be answered in a specific way with an initial warm welcome, stating the organisation and store location, and who is speaking. In addition to scripting answering the phone, scripting in Equip also extend to telling  employees where they are to be positioned in store, and what to expect and say in each of the areas they are responsible for. During the busiest time of the shopping season, primarily the Christmas period, an employee will stand at the front of the store and ask every customer possible that is leaving to open their bag to be checked. It is the organisation’s policy that the customer has a right to decline a bag check and that the employee must not physically touch the customer’s bag. 

Equip is successful in that they have avoided heavy amounts of scripting in a rather customised service delivery. Although guidelines are specific employees may deviate from the scripted ‘six steps’ if needed in order to please and meet the customers’ expectations. This stance towards scripting is encouraged by  management. Thus, scripting is not approached in a way that offsets the autonomy of employees and customers to the extent where the service experience is unpleasant. This plays to Equips advantage as customers tend to take a dim view of heavy scripting. Employees themselves take pride in their ability to create a positive, smooth delivery service, meeting and exceeding customer’s expectations and using their discretion when needed to respond to customers mood, body language and requirements (Chase & Dasu, 2001). 

Scripting is incorporated into Equips’ operations due to the vast advantages for their employees, customers and the organisation as a whole. With a clear set of rules and guidelines in place, employees are able to work more effectively as they have a clear understanding of their responsibilities and role (Johnston & Clark, 2008). Consequently a consistent, smooth work flow is generally established (Dilworth, 1986). This creates an environment with minimal stress and a "sense of security to behaviour" (Johnston & Clark, 2008, p. 251) for both the customer and the employee. Employees at Equip benefit from scripting as they can rely on the content of the ‘six steps’ in a service encounter to know exactly what to say, and in what manner they should approach each customer. Thus scripting is ideal for those employees who do not necessarily find it natural to strike up a conversation with an unknown customer. The employee's overall anxiety is reduced.   In turn, this set of scripting guidelines followed by Equip employees means customers can relax because they understand the rules by which the encounter will be played out, especially if they are repeat customers. Customers typically expect an opening line after the initial ‘warm welcome’ during the service encounter. Thus, customers anticipate the type of question that will be asked and this reduces the overall pressure they may feel as there "exists a good understanding of what will happen and what is required of the customer at each stage" (Johnston & Clark, 2008, p. 253). As Chase and Dasu (2001, p. 84) state "ultimately, only one thing matters in a service encounter—the customer’s perceptions of what occurred". 

Further, according to Tansik and Smith’s (2000) ‘functions for using scripting’, a main advantage of this technique is being able to accurately diagnose customers’ needs and wants. This is achieved through the ‘six steps’ that employees perform during the encounter stage. After greeting the customer and using an opening line that encourages he/she to ‘open’ up to the employee the employee will then ask about what in particular they are looking for. Equip needs this information in order to operationalize their brand values: they state this purpose in strong language: "…our complete devotion to help customers find that sought after latest accessory is what will continue to make the Equip brand so successful" (Equip Online, 2010). Understanding the customer   means that Equip can maximise their profits and growth. Thus by providing a step in the script that asks customers what they want and need, they provide a service for the customer, but also ensure Equip is enacting their brand purpose. 

Nevertheless it must be acknowledged that there can be a tension between 'service' and 'sales', and it can be difficult to get the balance right between serving the customer and making sure their needs and wants are met, and on-selling to them in a way that they do not find overly aggressive and pushy. Scripting, in the form of the ‘six steps’ used by Equip is clearly a way to control both the employee and the customer. Control is a major purpose of scripting (Tansik & Smith, 2000). Equip employees who base their interactions on the ‘six steps’ are advantaged if they use the steps along with an upbeat personality to encourage and subconsciously manipulate customers into purchasing jewelry item(s) the customer believes they ‘need’. Using an opening line such as "what a nice dress you have, where did you get it from?" ideally aims to initiate a positive relationship between the employee and customer. Therefore, this increases the chance that the customer will ‘add on’ to the jewelry they have already chosen, or make the customer more inclined to purchase at all. Employees’ that successfully achieve target objections, which means having  more than 45% multi sales, are rewarded with material goods, such as movie tickets and body wash. This practice encourages employees to add-on sales. However, employees can only succeed with multi sales if they create a positive and enjoyable service experience for the customer, and if their interactions do not feel false and inauthentic (Ashforth & Tomiuk, 2000). Employees can use the script to enhance the customer's experience and this adds value for them, which increases the profit that Equip can make, and can lead to rewards for the employee. Although some people  may see the script as requiring 'hard selling' for employees it can be very rewarding to use the script, coupled with knowledge of 'what looks good with what', to enhance the appearance of the customer, and generate sales. 

Another positive aspect of the way that employees can use a script to their advantage is through using Step Five well; the step involving service recovery. Step Five requires the employee to handle any objections effectively. For an example from my own personal experience, a customer wanted an exchange for the same handbag in another colour. The Equip store where I worked did not have the colour she wanted in stock, and only Equip at another outlet did. She refused to drive to the other store to do the exchange as asked by the employee. The employee handled the objection by phoning the other store to ask if they could transfer the handbag to our Equip store. This suited the customer and this assistance actually exceeded her expectations. Thus, by positively engaging the customer through service recovery the customer, who was more than happy to exchange the item, then also purchased additional items. Therefore, by enacting Step Five well, Equip benefited as this ultimately lead to multiple items being sold. This process helped retain the customer, and so overall the process may provide a higher customer lifetime value resulting in an overall growth in profits (Samson & Daft, 2005). 

Although Equip is growing in profit and claim that their brand’s success is due to their devotion to "help customers find that sought after latest accessory" (Equip Online, 2010) the use of scripting to achieve this is not entirely flawless, and does have its drawbacks if not approached in an appropriate manner. Again, from  my personal experience, mystery shopping, which is regularly used to assess quality at Equip, can backfire and actually cause poor performance. Mystery shoppers might assess an Equip store every 2 months to ‘monitor employees’ adherence to organisational scripts (Scharf, 2003). In one case where a mystery shop was conducted the result sheet was faxed to our Equip store. The report detailed how one identifiable employee had not met the six steps precisely. The mystery shopper had recorded that the employee did not greet them in the first 30 seconds of the store and used an opening line that could not be answered. The employee consequently failed the test with comments of too much deviation from the ‘six steps’. This resulted in the employee adopting a heavier approach to scripting, as she conformed exactly to the criteria of the ‘six steps’. Consequently, the employee’s multi sales dropped below the target of 45%. According to Johnston and Clark (2008) this is likely due to customers’ perception of ‘robot-like behaviour’. Greeting a customer within 30 seconds and initiating the six steps may be viewed as too interrogative, and viewed as ‘going through the motions’ of service delivery without any real sincerity (Lawrence & Weber, 2010). 

Another factor than may  create unintended negative consequences is Equips’ performance objective criteria which sometimes require employees to meet 45% multi sales. Each employee is sometimes given targets for each day depending on the hours they will work. During the busy shopping day periods these are appropriate targets. However, during quiet periods requirements to meet 45% multi sales can act as an organisational pressure for employees, resulting in unnecessary stress, and potentially requiring a more forceful service delivery and therefore a more unpleasant service experience for the customer (and the employee), and a feeling of constant competition between employees to ‘get a sale’. This can lead to poor morale and high staff attrition rates.  

Overall, this essay confirms that scripting is a vital technique for managing service people and processes. By briefly outlining the nature of scripting it is evident that it is indeed used in Equips’ management strategy. The use of specific guidelines for the ‘six steps’, telephone communication and employee positioning within the store portray how this technique is incorporated into Equips’ daily operations. Equip use scripting to create a clear understanding of roles, resulting in a consistent and efficient work flow, and overall reduced stress for  both customer and employee. This organisation further benefits from the technique through accurately diagnosing customers’ needs and wants and controlling the customer to an extent. Employees can reap rewards for high productivity and customers can experience a pleasurable service delivery, meaning  Equip  can maximise their profits. It is evident that scripting, used moderately and with common sense, is useful, especially  if managers  allow employees to deviate if necessary in order to maximise customer satisfaction. Generally, at Equip in my experience, scripting does not offset the autonomy of either the customer or employee to the extent where the service experience is unpleasant. Sensible approaches to scripting can be beneficial and Equip is an example of a successful organisation that has benefited from the use of scripting. 

References

Ashforth, B. & Tomiuk, M. (2000). Emotional labour and authenticity: Views from service agents. In S. Fineman (ed.) Emotion in organizations, London: Sage: pp. 184 — 203.

Chase, R. B. & Dasu, S. (2001) Want to perfect your company’s service? Use behavioral science, Harvard Business Review, June, pp 79-84.

Dilworth, J. B. (1986) Production and operations management, (3rd ed.). New York: Random House 

EquipYourself Online. (2011) Work at Equip. Retrieved September 21, 2011, from http://www.equipyourself.com.au/equip_careers/positions.php

Harris, R., Harris, K., and Baron, S. (2003). Theatrical service experiences: Dramatic script development with employees. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 14 (2): 184-199.

Johnston, R. & Clark, G. (2008) Service operations management: Improving service delivery (3rd ed.). Essex: Pearson 

Lawrence, A. & Weber, J. (2010) Business and society: Stakeholders, ethics, public policy. New York: McGraw- Hill 

Samson, D. A. & Daft, R. L. (2005) Management (2nd ed.). Southbank, Victoria: Thomson. 

Scharf, A. (2003). 'Scripted talk'. From “Welcome to McDonalds” to “Paper or plastic?”: Employers control the speech of service workers. Dollars and sense: The Magazine of Economic Justice. Retrieved on September 20, 2011, from http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2003/0903scharf.html

Scholosser, E. (2002). Fast food nation: The dark side of the all-American meal.  New York: Houghton Mifflin. 

Tansik, D. A. & Smith, L. S (2000) Dimensions of job scripting in service organisations, International Journal of Service Industry Management, 2 (1): 35-49.

Victorino, L. Verma, R. & Wardell, D. G. (2008) Service scripting: A customer’s perspective of quality and performance. Cornell Hospitality Report, 20 (8), 1-17. 

Underhill, P. (2008). The science of shopping. Why we buy. Simon and Schuster: New York. 

Upside Down Service Pyramid

Inverted (or Upside Down) Service Pyramid 

In service management, it is common to hear talk of the upside-down or inverted service pyramid. The idea of the inverted service pyramid is that the traditional way of drawing organizational structure is inverted so that customers are at the top and the CEO and senior management are at the bottom of the organisational hierarchy. This is a very powerful way of illustrating the primary importance of service logic. This inversion symbolically represents the service ethic, or the service logic or the priorities service organisations should use and communicate to staff regarding their value system and culture. Supervisors, managers and even the CEO's primary role is to support front-line employees to deliver services to the customer. This is also a useful diagram to illustrate the principle of service leadership. 

Traditional organisational structure and inverted service pyramid

Customer Processing - KFC

by Fitirani Sari. Thanks to Fitriani for permission to publish her work on this blog.  

Executive summary 

The purpose of this report is to analyze management problems and business issues within the Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) Restaurant Chain and to recommend methods for improvement and achievement of the best possible business solution for the company (Babbar, 2002). 

KFC is one of the biggest fast-food chain restaurants in the world, primarily selling its unique, original recipe fried chicken. Due to competition in the fast-food industry, KFC needs to constantly update its service and meet customer expectations to maintain its place as a leader in the industry. On the other hand, KFC continually receives many complaints, mostly related to its service and food safety issues. These challenges could potentially alienate customers and affect the company’s image. 

This report discusses several critical issues in the fast-food process: service quality (Parasuraman, et al., 1988), food safety control,  increased competition in the market, and innovation in the fast-food industry. 

The report suggests that KFC can improve its service by adopting new technology to ensure its fast-food service is fast, differentiate its service from fast-food competitors, and engage with customers’ needs to improve and innovate in its service provision and so be a leader in the fast-food industry. 

Introduction 

News flash: KFC Vegan option added to menu!

This report's purpose is to carry out an analysis and provide advice as to how the business can be improved. 

As one of the biggest fast-food chains in the world, KFC dictates the standard for its products and services to its restaurants all over the world. This standard applies to all its franchises, but challenges still occur. KFC  faces many issues in terms of quality, service, resources, and management. KFC needs to resolve and continuously improve service if it wants to remain a top player in the fast-food chain industry. 

As an iconic service brand, KFC needs to be perceived as a service leader (rather than a qualifier or a loser).   Using service logic is therefore imperative for KFC as this will enable them to think innovatively. Service logic (Grönroos, 2000) begins with understanding what value is being delivered to customers and this means understanding  KFC's customers' end-to-end experiences. Simply, service value for customers occurs when they feel better after the service has been experienced than they did before they had the service (Grönroos, 2008). For KFC customers, several key moments (moments of truth) in the service experience are critical: these are waiting, ordering, and the quality of the food (which includes getting what was ordered). A complicating factor for KFC is that feelings (of satisfaction) are predetermined by the nature of their customers. KFC customers tend to make larger orders - family packs and/or party orders. Consequently, large orders are fairly common, as opposed to a fast-food outlet like McDonald's which handles more small individual orders. However, KFC customers may expect their meal to arrive as fast as it does at McDonald's, but the size of orders makes this challenging for KFC. 

A 'large event' requiring a large order is used to advertise KFC in a recent advertising campaign on TV and in the Youtube clip below. This shows that these larger orders are being targeted by KFC, and as one can imagine, fulfilling an order for this type of event so that all the food arrives hot in a timely way and without waiting is challenging.  

In order to co-create service value for customers, service providers need to adopt a service logic in building their facilities or services (Grönroos, 2008). This report will evaluate the issues KFC faces in service quality, food safety, and queuing systems, suggest recommendations for these situations, and suggest how to improve its service in order for it to remain a competitive and sustainable business.

Discussion 

KFC background 

Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) is a fast-food restaurant chain, which primarily sells well-known fried chicken with a 'secret spice' recipe. It was founded in Louisville, Kentucky, United States by Colonel Harland Sanders in 1952. Sanders started serving his fried chicken at his gas station in Kentucky in 1930. He then found a way to reduce the cooking time for his fried chicken by using a pressure fryer. Soon after he created the well-known 'original recipe' fried chicken that, as is well known from their advertising, is made with eleven different ingredients. 

When a new route was built that bypassed his town of Corbin, Sanders sold his properties and began to sell his chicken to restaurants, receiving a share of the profits from each piece of chicken sold. He gained a new partner to the fried chicken business in Utah in 1952. Together, the Colonel and his partner opened the first Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet (Nii, 2007). By the early 1960s, Kentucky Fried Chicken was sold in over 600 franchised outlets in the United States and Canada.

Sanders sold the entire KFC business operation in 1964 to Louisville business people for USD $2mill, equal to USD $14,987,124 in today’s money (KFC, 2011). The chain was sold in 1986 to PepsiCo, which made it part of its Tricon Global Restaurants division, which in turn was sold in 1997, and renamed Yum! Brands (KFC, 2011). (Check for later sales)

KFC was present in 110 countries and territories around the world by 2011. It had in excess of 5,200 outlets in the United States and more than 15,000 outlets in other parts of the world (KFC, 2011). KFC have operated in NZ since 1971 and have over 97 stores in the country.  

Due to the intense competition in the fast-food industry today, KFC needs to focus on continuous improvement of their service. Throughout its development, KFC has always focused on their product - chicken and other food items. It may appear that this focus on the product means they have not been so attentive to issues around service process and facilities. Customers complain regularly about all KFC service, and like with any service industry these complaints should be welcomed. However, they should also be listened to and acted upon. KFC needs to listen to complaints so they can see the frustration customers are feeling and what they should focus on to improve their service.  People like KFC chicken. But they complain about their service as can be seen in social media and websites. For instance, go here for a typical list from a complaint and compliment website, and search fro KFC.

For a service winner in a service industry complaints can have a big impact on the business. KFC does have service problems which might stop customers from buying their product. Thus, KFC has to find methods to meet their customer service expectations which are not currently being met (Heskett et al., 1994). 

Perhaps the most critical or major issue for KFC's is being able to deal with change. In a very competitive industry, a fast-food company needs to be constantly reflecting on their external realities. Overall KFC's focus must be on surviving and flourishing in the global fast-food industry. 

Service quality 

As stressed above, KFC's biggest issue is its service, not its product. Even though KFC has procedures for all eventualities, issues still occur because employees might not always follow these procedures. Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985) linked customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions with service quality, saying that the success of organizations is highly related to perceived quality. Organizations providing superior service also experience high levels of customer satisfaction and positive rumor (Gilbert, Veloutsou, Goode & Moutinho, 2004; Gilbert & Veloutsou, 2006). Several studies address the issue of service quality and customer satisfaction in fast-food restaurants (Gilbert et al., 2004; Qin & Prybutok, 2008) reinforcing the applicability of general service quality measures to the fast-food industry. 

By using Parasutaman et al's (1985) SERVQUAL scale we can see the service quality of KFC from customers’ perspectives. The quality of service is determined by tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy (Gronroos, 2007). In service quality, tangible factors are related to the facilities, equipment and the appearance of the service provider. Reliability here means the accuracy of the service; that is, not making mistakes and delivering what has been promised in the setup time. Responsiveness means that the service provider is being helpful to the customers, and notifies customers when the service will be provided. Assurance is defined as an employee’s behavior, making customers feel secure, and that employees are always polite and have the information to assist customers’ requirements. Empathy means that employees understand customers’ problems and act based on customers’ interests, and give personal attention (Gronroos, 2007). 

Reviewing quality factors as identified above, and the lists of complaints available online about KFC, it appears that the service process could be improved. The commonest complaint about KFC ordering process is about accuracy. Employees often process incorrect orders and even sometimes misplace customer orders. Another common customer complaint is the waiting time for orders to be processed is too long. Customer expectations here are set by other fast-food restaurants like McDonald's and Burger King. Another common complaint is about long queues. Although KFC has drive-through options, during peak hours (lunchtime and dinner time), customers still experience long queues, both inside the store and at the drive-through. Although people enjoy the taste of KFC and it remains a popular chicken product, having a 'goods' focus to the detriment of the service process means that other important attributes of a fast-food restaurant not been dealt with satisfactorily. These factors include service response time, accuracy, and a range of other factors like cleanliness and the quality of prior service are also important factors (Qin, Prybutok & Zhao, 2010). 

Based on these issues, KFC’s problems might be understood as reliability and assurance. KFC is experiencing a service delivery gap, wherein quality specifications are not met by performance in the service production and delivery process (Gronroos, 2007). The cause of this gap can come from management and supervision, employee perspective of the procedure and a lack of technological/operational support (Gronroos, 2007). Another gap that KFC is experiencing is a perceived quality gap, in which the customers feel disappointed because the service that KFC gave is not the same as the expected service (Gronroos, 2007). The result of this could be negatively confirmed quality (bad quality) and quality problems, bad word-of-mouth and negative impacts of corporate, or local, image. All of these can lead to lost business. One thing that KFC should improve is their service recovery process so that this negative word-of-mouth can be changed to positive-word-of mouth (Spreng, Harrell, 1995).  

Service logic

Service logic from a customer perspective is when customers generate value for themselves when using resources offered by a service provider. On the other hand, from a service provider perspective, when they make interactive services, service providers create a chance to co-create value together with customers (Gronroos, 2008). KFC should employ service logic to add value creation to its customers. By employing service logic, the business should focus on building the service based on customers’ needs where they can have more freedom to choose their own product or service. Customers would like to customize their purchases and create their own service value and service providers could help the customers in the process. The form of service logic in the KFC could be self-kiosks service with nutritional details so then the customers could select their own menu and pay without influence from the employees and KFC could add value with adding nutritional information on the application. This would have the added value of helping customers to understand the healthier options KFC makes available. 

To improve the service 

When it comes to improving service fast food companies should employ new technologies, as the fast-food industry has gained a lot in terms of efficiency and customer support by applying simple ideas in technology. In fast-food restaurants reducing queue waiting time is essential. By making processes faster there is a direct improvement in customer satisfaction due to shorter waiting lines. Fast-food restaurants are now routinely using ordering channels, such as online and mobile ordering services. 

E-Commerce 

The adoption of the drive-through system by the fast-food industry was one of the main technological advances in the sector. Drive-through options helped reduce waiting times in the store and helped improve service efficiency. KFC has employed this system, yet there is still queuing in the drive-through line and inside the store. This means that KFC needs to employ other systems in order to reduce these queues; for example, takeaway and delivery services. Many fast-food restaurants apply e-commerce and m-commerce in their sales systems. KFC has delivery services in NZ now. By ordering online, however, customers can choose in their own time rather than waiting in a line to make an order, especially when in a group of people where it is harder to reach a consensus. Moreover, the advantage of online ordering is that people have access to the menu online, which makes it simple to choose from the several options normally available to customers. Whether or not these new ordering systems are reducing queues at the restaurants is unknown, but online complaints about waiting still abound. 

M-Commerce 

As Smartphones are becoming more widely used, people now do many things through their Smartphones. Smartphones have replaced the use of the computer for some people who not only browse on their phone but also buy using their Smartphone applications. Many businesses now build their shopping application platforms to attract the growing number of Smartphone users. For example, Domino’s Pizza has Domino’s mobile platforms. The company has announced £10m of sales in the UK in eight months period in 2011 via its iPhone application and almost fifteen percent of its total digital sales were made through Smartphones (Domino’s, 2012). KFC should adopt this m-commerce style as well in order to gain more customers and improve their service, giving its customers more purchase options. (Update this section)

Self-service kiosks 

The newest technology being used in the service industry are self-service kiosks, where customers control the entire process of purchasing, starting from choosing the menu to carrying out their own payment without any assistance from a staff member. Self-service kiosks are now not just used for ordering and payment, but can also display nutritional and other promotional campaigns. These kiosks are more common in Quick Service situations and are used mostly as a remedy for queues. McDonald's has already replaced cashiers with self-service kiosks. Branches in Texas USA trailed nutritional kiosks that have a 'build a meal' application to help customers review the menus and nutritional details in their selected menus (Kelso, 2010) to improve the customer service experience. KFC should employ similar technology and compete with other fast-food restaurants to win customers. Moreover, by adopting self-service counters, companies can reduce the cost of labour and eliminate human error. Many factors can affect a human cashier, with errors tending to increase during busy times (Hoeft-Wessel, 2010). 

Differentiate the service 

Other than adopting the new technologies mentioned above, KFC could provide better service to influence the waiting experience such as by providing TV and magazines so that customers could watch or read when waiting. Or KFC could provide a playground for children so they can play while their parents are waiting in line and/or eating. KFC is already very successful at differentiating its products from its competition with KFC's famous original fried chicken. To attract its customers, KFC should differentiate its service as well. This could be the way to market their brand and also give back to customers by providing better service. 

Long-term 

KFC employs a mix of low cost and differentiation leadership strategy (Peng, 2009), as it can count on its brand name and original taste and recipes to be unique, while at the same time it competes on price using the benefits of cost savings from economies of scale. One of their main goals is to take advantage of potential growth in new territories, to establish a strong position and to develop their image. Crucial factors are to continue cost savings through R&D, innovation and to adopt new technology to enhance efficiency. These methods will reduce costs and increase margins in the industry. 

KFC also needs to focus on health issues, as it has a fast-food image and is generally considered to produce unhealthy food. The current generation is, on the whole, more health-conscious than previous generations. Many people consider a healthy menu to be very important and more of a determinant to choice than price. Companies already implemented in the market are adapting their menus to make them healthier. Thus, KFC needs to find something healthier to put on the menu. 

KFC has, in the past, always concentrated on its product. To maintain its leadership in the industry KFC needs to focus on what customers want and follow market changes, as well as continue to improve their service as well as their products. In the age of social media, KFC also needs to follow the trends to engage with social media users. This is not just important for marketing, but for listening to and learning what customers want and need. With this, they can be a step ahead of their competitors in the industry. 

Conclusions

Competition has become increasingly intense in the fast-food industry. Fast food restaurants are expected to be fast and accurate in delivering orders. Complaints are common and include mistakes like packing orders incorrectly and also the ubiquitous problem of customers waiting in line. KFC has focused on their tasty product but they need to focus more on service. Complaints should be listened to and made the focus of operational improvements. Many complaints from customers indicate KFC often delivers poor service despite having detailed service process procedures.

KFC should apply a service logic to their operations.  KFC has 'drive-through' but the service world is changing very fast. Competition is very high in the fast-food industry. Competitors are building their service to keep up with customers’ needs. KFC needs to do at least the same, and preferably better than their fast-food competition.   

Recommendations

To improve the service 

KFC should use service technology to improve its service such as employing e-commerce practices in their service - for example, online ordering. Another way to improve the service is through employing m-commerce, which is now a trend for service-based business due to the growth of mobile phone technology. 

To increase service accuracy and solve the queuing problem KFC could adopt new queuing systems that separate the ordering queue and the waiting queue and provide self-service kiosks, which would minimize human error. These self-service kiosks could have an additional function which provides nutritional screens that show the calories in meals being ordered. This will allow the customers to choose and review the meal that they will buy. 

To understand its customers KFC should try to be more interactive in engaging with customers through social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. 

Long-term: 

KFC should place greater focus on product innovation. It should learn about customers preferences and create new menus. Therefore, the role of R&D is essential to remain a leader in the field. The R&D department needs to differentiate KFC products from other similar products and create a competitive advantage. For example, it should consider aiming for healthier products as people now tend to be more conscious about their health. 

KFC should use service logic, which focuses on customer needs in order to create a better service experience and improved quality

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