A MODEL FOR PROTOTYPE TESTING OF SERVICE DELIVERY PROCESSES.

In theory, the processes of developing new products and new services should be similar. Both go through stages of idea generation, concept development, detailed design, implementation planning, launch, and post-launch checkup (Bitran and Pedrosa 1998; Kuczmarski 1992, p. 163 ). However, in practice new service development is not as advanced as new product development, in that service design is less rigorous (Fisk, Brown, and Bitner 1993; Shostack 1984). One reason is that prototype testing is more difficult to apply to new service design because service are intangible, heterogeneous, and perishable (Zeithaml et al. 1985). This makes common product prototype testing methods (e.g., laboratory, expert, or consumer testing) problematic. This paper develops a model for prototype testing of service delivery process designs. The model has three major features: It uses a Monte Carlo computer-simulated blueprint of service delivery design as the prototype. Monte Carlo simulation is used as it incorporates many sources of simultaneous variation (e.g., random occurrences and events) to produce a range of probable outcomes (Vose 1997, p. 11). This is an effective method for service delivery modeling because it captures the effects of heterogeneity, which is prevalent in high labor content services (Zeithaml et al. 1988). It takes a stakeholder-oriented view of the service delivery process; that is, the organization's stakeholders (e.g., customers, employees, and managers) determine the required "outputs" of the process. These outputs are operationalized into desired specifications of the process. Stakeholders define the "zone" of acceptable performance for each requirement, which is similar to the concept of customers defining zones of tolerance (Parasuraman, Berry, and Zeithaml 1993). The relative importance of these requirements is used to trade-off conflicting requirements. It uses a Taguchi quality loss approach (Taguchi and Clausing 1987) to assess service delivery... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]