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  • April 2008
  • Module Note

Improvement with Customer-Operators

By: Frances X. Frei and Dennis Campbell
  • Format:Print
  • | Pages:18
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Abstract

Taught as the third module in a Harvard Business School course on Managing Service Operations: Understanding the Customer Operating Role (606-092). Explores how firms can systematically leverage their customer-operators in the organizational improvement process is investigated in the third module. This opportunity is addressed in two ways, (1) by surfacing and evolving the assumptions about customer-operators that are often built into service models, and (2) by utilizing the operational insight of customers. Both focal points build on firms' traditional use of employees to improve operations.

Keywords

Service Operations; Performance Improvement; Customer Focus and Relationships; Framework; Employees; Business Model; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Design

Citation

Frei, Frances X., and Dennis Campbell. "Improvement with Customer-Operators." Harvard Business School Module Note 608-135, April 2008.
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About The Authors

Frances X. Frei

Technology and Operations Management
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Dennis Campbell

Accounting and Management
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More from the Authors
  • Taylor Guitars: Making Employee Ownership Work The Taylor Way By: Dennis Campbell, Petros Kusmu and Stacy Straaberg
  • Leaders Can Move Fast and Fix Things By: Frances X. Frei and Anne Morriss
  • Haidilao: Changing your Future with your Own Hands By: Yuan Zou and Dennis Campbell
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