Customer Oriented Service Business (5 cr)

Objective

This course equips the student with professional understanding of the new paradigm in the services economy - focusing on understanding customers and delivering customer experiences which provide differentiating power for the company. Customer orientation affects most aspects of business management, business models, service operations and processes, marketing, and business (service) innovation. The student learns practices and acquires the tools for analysing and developing customer experiences.

Content

The course discusses the management of a successful service business based on placing customers at the core of business strategies and their implementation. Understanding customers and the development of offering, aimed at meeting customer expectations and creating positive service experience, result in deeper and longer business-to-consumer and business-to-business relationships. The course stresses the need for continuous service improvement and business model innovation. Differentiation and profitability of services can be improved by monitoring, rethinking and innovating business processes, from the point of view of customer experience.

The course comprises the following topics:
1. Customer experience - key concepts, tools and measurement of customer-oriented business
2. Towards a customer-focused organisation - customers at the heart of company culture, decision making, processes and practices
3. Customer experience management and utilisation of insights. Engaging employees to customer experience transformation

Evaluation scale

0-5

Assessment criteria, satisfactory (1)

The student's performance (lecture involvement, discussion, written assignments) meets with at least three of the six criteria below.

• The student shows an understanding of the relevant course content in relation to the contents of the articles, lectures and discussion.
• Student texts/presentations demonstrate an understanding of the article/lecture content and an ability to select, interpret and justify key messages in a justified manner.
• The student understands interconnections between the proposed concepts and current business practice, and demonstrates abilities of reflection, evaluation and discussion.
•The student shows professional initiative, active participation and responsibility in both individual and team work.
• Students demonstrate abilities to collect valid knowledge from outside the course sources by using scholarly search tools, by questioning current business practice and by practicing source critique.
•Students' assignments are written in line with academic writing practice and instructions for Master’s Thesis, using the Harvard Referencing system, with both in-text references and a list of referenced. The texts are written in coherent, fluent English.

Assessment criteria, good (3)

The student's performance meets most of the above criteria, with three or more of them being good or very good.

Assessment criteria, excellent (5)

The student's performance meets all six criteria above and will also demonstrate excellent skills in at least three of them.

Assessment criteria, approved/failed

The student's performance (lecture involvement, discussion, written assignments) meets with at least three of the six criteria below.

• The student shows an understanding of the relevant course content in relation to the contents of the articles, lectures and discussion.
• Student texts/presentations demonstrate an understanding of the article/lecture content and an ability to select, interpret and justify key messages in a justified manner.
• The student understands interconnections between the proposed concepts and current business practice, and demonstrates abilities of reflection, evaluation and discussion.
•The student shows professional initiative, active participation and responsibility in both individual and team work.
• Students demonstrate abilities to collect valid knowledge from outside the course sources by using scholarly search tools, by questioning current business practice and by practicing source critique.
•Students' assignments are written in line with academic writing practice and instructions for Master’s Thesis, using the Harvard Referencing system, with both in-text references and a list of referenced. The texts are written in coherent, fluent English.