Gustav Medberg
Researcher and teacher at the Centre for Relationship Marketing and Service Management (CERS), Department of Marketing, Hanken School of Economics. Expert on service management and marketing.
Location Helsinki, Finland
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Thanks for the feedback, Verna!
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Great to see such variety of backgrounds and experiences, keep on posting!
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Thanks for all the nice reflections and feedback! Really interesting :) Any more thoughts? Please share!
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Great insight @LinhTu :)
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Thanks for your reflections, really nice! Any more thoughts or insights?
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Note, however, that sometimes the customer and staff co-create value together. Think of for example a visit to the hair dresser!
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Nice reflection, thanks!
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
I'm really glad to see that we have such a variety of learners with different sets of experiences and backgrounds in the course! Keep on posting!
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Thanks for your feedback!
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Gustav Medberg replied to Riikka Vilppula
In the two below articles on the topic (also recommend as further reading in a previous step on ROR) real world cases from the second author's own consulting career are used as input for theory development:
Grönroos, C. and Helle P. (2012), “Return on relationships: conceptual understanding and measurement of mutual gains from relational business...
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Great quote!
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We're glad to hear that you enjoyed the challenge, Richard!
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Well done, Terry! Great tip to future students, thanks!
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Gustav Medberg replied to Adam Kennedy
Nicely put, Adam!
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Welcome everybody, I'm glad to see so many professionals with different backgrounds and experiences! Keep on posting!
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Thanks for all the great feedback and comments! Any more thoughts on service cultures or the adoption of a service logic (even if you're a manufacturing company)?
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Thanks everybody for the feedback!
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Thanks for all your reflections! Any more thoughts?
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Great to hear your experiences about this part of the course! Any more thoughts? And don't forget to post your "blog post" somewhere for the world to see it :)
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Yes correct. This type of collaborative business relationships is most common in the B2B market. But companies can also collaborate in a similar way to provide an offering for the B2C market, as other learners have alluded to.
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Great examples, Jyrki!
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Thanks for sharing your experience!
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Any more definitions? As you all can see many of the definitions of marketing are extremely broad, and covers essentially everything from production to end-user consumption. And marketing is a broad subject, so nothing wrong with that. But what I personally like about Prof. Grönroos' definition is that it is very simple, straight-forward, and easy to remember...
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Any more thoughts anyone?
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Interesting reflections from all of you! Any more thoughts from other learners?
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@SaroshAnsari Thanks for you feedback. You are completely correct that this isn't a basic course in marketing, which I think we mention in the course description. And sometimes the lectures are quite theoretically dense. If anyone gets stuck, please let us know and we'll try to explain these concept, models, and theories in more practical terms, and give...
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Thanks for your question! Relationship costs are 'costs' beyond the price you as a customer might experience when doing business with a company. For example, if your bank fails to process a transaction you ordered (and payed for) you typically must spend time and energy to get this problem fixed. Or maybe you need to get a newer smartphone in order to use...
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
We're happy to see so many new learners in the course! There is still plenty of time to get started, learning at your own pace. Keep on posting!
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Nice recent example of the excellent service culture at Singapore Airlines: https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/my-s321-business-class-experience-onboard-singapore-airlines-restaurant-a380
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Gustav Medberg replied to Sadia Jabeen
@SadiaJabeen Yes you are right, for some reason the platform does not allow deleting posts. But this is fine, thank you very much!
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Gustav Medberg replied to Sadia Jabeen
@SadiaJabeen Welcome to the course! But please delete all your duplicate comments, posted with this profile and with your private profile. Thanks!
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Gustav Medberg replied to Sadia Jabeen
@SadiaJabeen Thanks for your interesting thoughts! But it seems like you have already posted this (see comment below), can you please delete your duplicate post?
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Gustav Medberg replied to Jyrki Rautamäki
Well put, Jyrki!
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You're absolutely right, Alina. Great example, very pedagogical!
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Thanks everybody! Any more final thoughts?
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Interesting, thanks for sharing Joanna!
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An example that comes to my mind is the Volkswagen Group's (VW, Audi, Skoda, Seat) rapid expansion in Sweden in the early 2000s. They created great products that were in high demand, and thus the sales increased a lot, but they didn't focus enough on the after sales market. Thus, a lot of VW and Audi owners (in particularly as they typically had higher...
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Great advices, everyone! Any more thoughts?
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Thanks we will look into it.
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You're welcome!
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Now, what Prof. Grönroos really means in the above video is that customers often take the outcome of a service (solution to their problem) for granted and don't get very excited about this (e.g. the plumber fixes your water leak). Instead, what typically make customers very satisfied is a better than expected service delivery process (e.g. plumber comes...
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A "hygiene factor" is commonly referred to in management and marketing research as something that must exist for satisfaction to arise (it can be satisfaction among employees or customers). But the hygiene factor itself cannot create satisfaction, but its absence easily creates dissatisfaction. In other words, a hygiene factor can been thought of as a sort of...
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Gustav Medberg replied to Yewande O
Nice example!
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Good point, Peter!
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
A warm welcome to all new course participants!
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Very interesting, thanks for sharing Peter!
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Nice reflections! I find service productivity really interesting for the reason that it is so important, yet there is almost no research/models/theories on the topic. We know so much about productivity in its traditional sense (think manufacturing) but in comparison very little about service productivity. Still, the service industry nowadays constitute 70-80 %...
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
For all of you who have participated in different training programs and team-building activities, how well did you think they worked? Do you think these programs can be improved? If so, how?
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Good ideas, James!
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@lasisij and everybody else: copy/paste from Internet articles without citing sources is not OK. Please share only your own thoughts/comments/ideas. Or the link to the Internet article directly if you think your fellow learners can benefit from this information. Thanks!
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Joanna, I think that is a nice illustration of how the remark 'Quality does not cost, but the lack of quality does' can be applied to a retail environment. I once worked in a large retail store, where everything was a mess and both the customers and the staff had difficulties finding all the products. I am sure the extra hours per week it would have taken to...
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Any more thoughts anyone?
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The topic of ROR is a bit complex, I definitely agree. But great that you still finished the week. This is the most difficult part of the course, and now it gets easier again next week, so hang in there :)
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
For those of you interested in real life application of ROR, and willing to dig a bit deeper into the literature on the topic, I recommend the two below articles (freely available as .pdf if you search with the references on Google Scholar):
Grönroos, C. and Helle P. (2012), “Return on relationships: conceptual understanding and measurement of mutual gains...
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Gustav Medberg replied to Peter Crawford
Peter, ROR is quite complex indeed! But in a nutshell, it is all about mutually beneficial collaboration between businesses (typically large industrial companies). You can try to think of it as trying to reap the benefits of a merger, without the hassle of a merger, if you understand what I mean? We are not advocating any kind of anti-competitive market...
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Gustav Medberg replied to SHEBY SAMUEL THOMAS
Yes ROR is a bit complex but try to hang in there. This is the most difficult module in the course, it gets easier again next week :)
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Gustav Medberg replied to Anita Roberts
Thanks for sharing your experience, Peter!
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Thanks for sharing your story, Mustafa! Your example captures the essence of Prof. Grönroos' claim. Some people intuitively think the opposite is true - i.e. that high quality service always costs more - but then they typically equate "high quality" with "luxury services", or very exclusive services, which is not what the Prof. means.
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Nice summary, George!
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Tariq, if you think about it, the consumer nearly always influences the service delivery. Try to recall your own role in a recent service delivery, and you will probably realise that you indeed co-created/co-produced that service experience!
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Welcome everybody, I'm glad to see so many professionals with different backgrounds and experiences! Keep on posting!
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Great reflections and feedback everybody, thanks! I myself find the concept of marketing as 'promise management' very interesting and compelling. It captures the essence of what business is all about. And promise management is also easy to understand and apply for any practitioner, independent of line of business or industry.
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Nicely put, Hellin!
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Thanks everybody for sharing! Any more thoughts?
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Gustav Medberg replied to Gustav Medberg
However, we do offer this open access resource for those who want to read more about some of the topics discussed in the course. It is a book published a few years ago by the Centre for Relationship Marketing and Service Management (CERS) at Hanken School of Economics. ...
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Gustav Medberg replied to Gustav Medberg
Hi Matthew! Unfortunately I cannot help you with access to Christian's suggested readings. His book can be bought in most places where academic literature is sold and his articles downloaded from most university libraries. We understand of course that it is not possible for most participants to access these materials. Hence, none of the readings are necessary...
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Thank you all for the feedback and comments! Additional thoughts or ideas?
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
A warm welcome to all the new participants in the course! Don't forget to take the opportunity to discuss all the interesting topics that lie ahead with your fellow learners. You all have so much experience to share!
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Thanks for your interesting reflections! Any more thoughts?
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Great to see such variety of backgrounds and experiences, keep on posting!
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Thanks for your reflections! A few of you have mentioned that the ROR model is very theoretical (like an ideal to strive for) and hard to achieve in real business life. And you definitely got a point! In most cases, it would be difficult to achieve. But it is also important to remember that this type of collaboration, despite its challenges and problems, can...
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Thanks for the feedback, Jackline!
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Gustav Medberg replied to Matthew Kern
Good point, Matthew! The trust issue is difficult in these types of collaborations. And the reason why many business relationships fail to develop into long-term engagements.
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Yes, Matthew, that is correct!
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Good point! Whether or not value is always co-created depends on how you define co-creation. Is co-creation when you as a customer interact with the firm and its staff (or intelligent systems) directly, or is co-creation simply when you interact indirectly with the company through use of its products? Professor Grönroos tends to argue that customers...
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Thanks for the comments and feedback everyone! Any more thoughts?
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Very well put, Henri!
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Gustav Medberg replied to Hanh Pham
Super interesting case! I recommend everybody who are fans of Coca Cola (or Pepsi) to google "Cola Wars". Much has been written about the crazy marketing war in the 80s between these two soft drink giants. For a start, check out this article:...
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Good question! Service productivity is a bit trickier to measure in non-profit/public organizations than in for-profit corporations. It mainly has to do with difficulties of finding relevant metrics that work and make sense. This in turn has to do with the fact that non-profits often have quite vague or abstract aims compared to an ordinary company (where the...
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Nice reflections by all of you! Any more thoughts?
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Sounds good, thanks for sharing!
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Thanks for the questions, Abraham! I will try to answer them:
1. Yes, Prof. Grönroos means competitors (=alternative products/services).
2. Essentially, yes, that is exactly what Prof. Grönroos means. In short, if a supplier provides better quality/service than its competitors, customers have no reason to switch supplier.
3. Prof. Grönroos means that...
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Thanks for the feedback, Ruben! ROR is quite complex indeed, but in a nutshell, it is all about mutually beneficial collaboration between businesses (typically large industrial companies as Simo mentioned below). You can try to think of it as trying to reap the benefits of a merger, without the hassle of a merger, if you understand what I mean?
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The fact that high quality service (note, not the same as luxury service) can actually decrease operating costs for the firm, and relationship costs for the customer, is something that surprises many. Because we intuitively equate high quality with high costs. But low quality service is generally less efficent and creates a lot of problems that are typically...
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Thanks for the feedback, Ruben! ROR is quite complex indeed, and the trickiest concept/model presented in this course. But in a nutshell, it is all about mutually beneficial collaboration between businesses. Kind of like trying to reap the benefits of a merger, without the hassle of a merger, if you understand what I mean?
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Great work! As you all have shown, there are many definitions of marketing out there, some narrower and some broader. They range from viewing marketing as an isolated and rather simple business function to viewing marketing as a strategic mindset or philosophy permeating the entire organisation. Any more definitions?
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Thanks for your thoughts, Zara! I guess what Professor Grönroos means by stating that customers create value for themselves is simply that we often use products in isolation from the companies that created them. And that is when the "real" value(-in-use) of the product emerges. Think for example of an iPhone, tremendous work by Apple has gone into the...
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Thanks for your input, Peter!
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Nice point, Henrik! Thanks for sharing your experience!
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Interesting reflections from all of you! Any more thoughts from other learners?
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Gustav Medberg replied to Huong Luong Thi Minh
Good point! Think for example if you buy a car from a dealership, the service before buying and during ownership is really important.
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
A warm welcome to all the newcomers to the course! Don't forget to take the opportunity to discuss all the interesting topics that lie ahead with your fellow learners. You all have so much experience to share!
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
I'm really glad to see that we have such a variety of learners with different sets of experiences in the course! Keep on posting!
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Gustav Medberg made a comment
Great to see such variety of backgrounds and experiences, keep on posting!
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Thank you very much for the feedback, Oskar!
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Thanks for the question, Savdey. The latter model mainly aims to illustrate how learning plays an important role in service productivity, and is thus a bit simplified for pedagogical purposes in regards to the other factors and processes that influence service productivity. That's why capacity utilisation is not seen anymore. It would of course still be a...
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Gustav Medberg replied to Jerker Törnqvist
Thanks for the feedback, Jerker. We appreciate it!
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Spot on, Aubrey!
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Thanks for the feedback, Jens! We're really glad you enjoyed the course!
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Great reflection, Louis! And thanks for the feedback, we appreciate it!
