Managing Customer and Service Excellence: Driving Superior Customer Relations - Q4

Participation Prerequisites

None

Course Content

Customer excellence is an emerging management concept increasingly finding its way into practice. Due to the reorganization of value chains and the blurring of industry boundaries, competitive pressure has never been higher than it is today. Customers have always been more demanding and willing to switch providers than they are today. And the demands on companies' ability to adapt to the new markets and changing customer requirements have never been as high as they are today. All these factors favor the change toward customer excellence.

However, customer excellence is not a topic suitable for every company or the masses. Customer excellence ensures that a company ranks among the top five to ten percent of companies in a market in terms of customer centricity.

Ultimately, customer excellence is a systematic management approach that encompasses a collection of concepts, methods and tools enabling a company to position itself as customer-centric and become a customer champion.  

More and more companies in the manufacturing industry are adopting this new approach. However, it is primarily service companies that generate over 70% of the gross domestic product of a developed economy, focusing on customer excellence under the term "service excellence." Therefore, a special focus of the course is on the service industry and the implementation of service excellence.

This course provides students with the models, concepts and tools they need to put the customer and service excellence approach into practice.

The following concepts, methods and tools are covered: customer centricity, customer experience management, customer and service excellence culture, designing outstanding customer experiences, strategic customer and service excellence, customer and service excellence controlling, and digital approaches to achieve customer and service excellence.

Intended Learning Outcomes and Competencies

Students will learn to:

1. know the importance and positive impact of customer and service excellence for market-leading companies
2. understand the close connection between customer excellence and service excellence
3. know the most popular models for customer and service excellence
4. understand the key differences between customer delight and customer satisfaction
5. familiarize themselves with the key dimensions and elements of customer and service excellence
6. gain insight into the application of digital approaches to achieve customer and service excellence
7. learn how to implement customer and service excellence in companies

Instruction Type

Presence

Form of Examination

Literature

Mandatory readings:

Gouthier, M.H.J. (2023). Managing service excellence: Introduction and overview of the contributions, in Gouthier, M.H.J. (Ed.). Market Leader Through Service Excellence, Nomos, 15-26.

Gouthier, M.H.J. (2023). Relevance and benefits of service excellence, in Gouthier, M.H.J. (Ed.). Market Leader Through Service Excellence, Nomos, 29-40.

Gouthier, M.H.J. (2023). The concept of service excellence according to ISO 23592:2021, in Gouthier, M.H.J. (Ed.). Market Leader Through Service Excellence, Nomos, 41-58.

Köninger, J. and Gouthier, M.H.J. (2023). Customer experience management: Insights and recommendations from CX leaders, in Gouthier, M.H.J. (Ed.). Market Leader Through Service Excellence, Nomos, 125-144.

Recommended readings:

Gouthier, M.H.J. (Ed.) (2023). Market Leader Through Service Excellence, Nomos, Baden-Baden.

Köninger, J. and Gouthier, M.H.J. (2024). Successful Implementation of Customer Experience Strategy: Determinants and Results, Journal of Service Management, 35(5), 605-629.

Simmons, W. and DeWitt, T. (2024). The Customer Excellence Enterprise: A Playbook for Creating Customers for Life, Wiley.

Further recommended literature will be uploaded on Moodle