Includes index. Hunt, B., & Ivergard, T. (2015). Designing service excellence: People and technology. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

Service: definitions and attributes -- Service and moments of truth -- Service management, service systems, and service excellence -- People and service: customers -- People, technology, and usability: an ergonomic perspective -- Leading organizations and employees toward service excellence -- Leading organizations as if people matter: humanist approaches -- Service in and by public sector organizations -- Public sector culture and values: delivering public -- Designing a service dream: excellence from merging public and private service -- Service and technology in retailing: history, concepts, and concerns -- The future of service excellence through people and technology

Designing Service Excellence: People and Technology provides practical information on the design, management, and organization of many different types of service industries, such as hotels, restaurants, banks and financial institutions, retail, and the public sector. The authors investigate the customers' experience and judgement on service quality, which ultimately determines the success or failure of the service. They then consider people, usability, and technology in the automation of high-quality service. This research-driven book identifies service-in a variety of forms-as an area of business and management where rapid change is taking place. The authors examine how service has become a balance between people and technology and explore this relationship as one of the key drivers of change. They discuss how social, cultural, and technological developments influence the ways in which customers contact, negotiate, and purchase services from their chosen service providers. These same development are also driving communications between customers relating to the services they buy and are willing to recommend to others (or otherwise). Intermingled, these features of our current-day lives have changed the nature of service provision and service use.