Microsoft Word Volume 2 Service and Service Quality Final docx

Service as Processes 
Subsequent to IHIP, many new definitions that emphasise services as processes, and addressing the 
interactions between provider and customer and the role of the customer as co-producer appear. 
Grönroos (2006) defines service as ‘a process consisting of a series of more or less intangible 
activities, that normally, but not necessarily, take place in interactions between the customer and 
service employees and/or physical resources or goods and/or systems of the service provider, which 
are provided as solutions to customer problems.’ According to Grönroos (2006, p.319) ‘services 

---

Business Service Management White Paper - Volume 2 
Page 9 of 46 
emerge in “open” processes where customers participate as co-producers and hence can be directly 
influenced by the progress of these processes;’ while, traditionally, ‘physical goods are produced in 
“closed” production processes where the customer only perceives the goods as outcomes of the 
process.’ This means that the consumption and production of services are at least partly simultaneous 
processes and that the customer at least partly enters the production sphere, and the service provider at 
least partly enters the consumption sphere (Grönroos, 2006). This perspective on service is not only 
wide-spread in Service Marketing; it is also the dominant perspective in Service Operations literature. 
Teboul (2006) differentiates between processes in the front-stage (service) where the interaction with 
the customer takes place, and processes in the back-stage (production). An organization is more a 
service organization when the relative share of the processes in the front-stage compared to the back-
stage increases. A slightly different perspective comes from Sampson and Froehle (2006), who 
emphasize the role of customer inputs by stating that customers act as suppliers in a service production 
process. They see this as different from other forms of customer involvement such as selecting and 
consuming the output.