• New online course will focus on boosting service quality and performance
  • Modules will help participants apply knowledge straight into their firm
  • The course will use the platform that hosts world's best online MBA
  • Tutors come from the UK's largest Operations Management group

Warwick Business School is launching an online Driving Service Performance executive programme for service leaders, managers and specialists, designers and consultants, to advance service strategy within their organisation.

High quality service delivery is often the key factor between success and failure for many industries and this course will help businesses establish the right processes to create distinctive and competitive services, with a view to generating high levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Using the platform that has established Warwick Business School’s Distance Learning MBA as the best online MBA in the world, according to the Financial Times, students will have access to videos, podcasts, articles, and research papers, with easy-to-use group chats, plus each module has two interactive webinars in which WBS tutors explore service management issues and case studies.

Download our Driving Service Performance course brochure

Course Director Rhian Silvestro (pictured), Associate Professor of Operations Management, said: “Service performance is critical to the realisation of organisational strategies, not only in service organisations, but also in manufacturing companies.

“How do we create a work environment which enables employees to go the extra mile for customers? When services do fail, how can we design recovery processes which will ensure customer satisfaction?

"These are some of the challenges which face service managers, in both commercial and public sector organisations, that will be explored during the Driving Service Performance programme.

“The course also looks at how service quality and customer satisfaction can be measured in order to drive service improvements, as well as methods of ensuring that complex networks of suppliers and customers are effectively managed.”

The online course covers four modules; Service Strategy, Measuring and Improving Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction, Strategies for Managing Service Networks and Driving Improvements through Service Recovery. They will each take six weeks to complete, with each module comprising of four online lessons.

WBS boasts the largest Operations Management faculty group in the UK, with its research appearing in world-class journals like Operations Research, Management Science and MIT Sloan Management Review, while Mark Johnson, who will be teaching on the course is Associate Editor of the Journal of Operations Management.

Dr Silvestro said: “Leveraging service performance means understanding the performance drivers and creating servicescapes, which are both conducive to employee satisfaction and loyalty, and meet or exceed the expectations of customers.

“This programme explores service improvement from a strategic perspective and is relevant to those who advise on the development of service strategies. By learning from examples of good practice, but also less successful practice, you will be encouraged to challenge your organisation’s assumptions about the way your service competes, and apply tools to develop and improve your service strategies.”

The programme is taught at postgraduate-level, and to ensure the gained knowledge is applied, assessments will focus on the module content, but also the active challenges participants face in their professional context to put learning in to practice. On completion of the programme, participants will receive a Postgraduate Award from the University of Warwick.

Driving Service Performance will commence in September 2020. For more information on the programme and to apply, click here.