In a prior article for MIT Sloan Management Review (“Making Routine Customer Experiences Fun”) we introduced a classification for services industries — routine services, negative services and positive services — based on customer perceptions. That article focused on industries in the “routine” category. We started our research on “negative” services by looking for industries involved in correcting failures or repairing people and things. We examined the 1992, 1997 and 2002 U.S. Economic Census C4 data to investigate the extent of this fragmentation.
We used the latest C4 numbers to rank-order of potentially negative service industries. As expected, many categories — hospitals, home and garden equipment repair, physician offices, dentist offices, automotive repair and auto body repair — showed less than a 10% C4 concentration. Oil change, funeral services, pest control and glass replacement showed levels of concentration between 20 and 30%; tax preparation and household appliance repair had very high levels of concentration — above 60%. However, a detailed examination of the health care category revealed a broad range: 72% for kidney dialysis centers, 39% for medical laboratories, 27% for ambulance services and 10% for diagnostic imaging centers.
In determining whether to categorize services as routine or negative, we looked at the extent to which the customer diagnoses the situation and evaluates and chooses the service provider. Some industries, such as kidney dialysis, were considered borderline;... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
Become a premium subscriber today to read this and all MIT Sloan Managmeent Review articles.
Buy this article. Purchase one or more copies of this article in PDF form.
Become a premium subscriber today to read this article and the entire archive of MIT SMR articles.
Upgrade your existing subscription to premium
Sign in if you are a premium subscriber.
Do you subscribe the MIT Sloan Management Review in print? Enter the email address and password you used when ordering. Don't remember? Lookup your subscription account information
- Register for free access to recent articles and the current issue of MIT Sloan Management Review.
- Subscribe and read articles from the past three years online.
- Premium subscription give you access to the entire archive of articles.
