Journal Article Review: Service Operations Management Insights

This report is a journal review of an article focusing on service operations management, specifically examining customer acquisition through loyalty and reward programs. The review delves into the context of the research, highlighting the role of referral reward programs (RRPs) in attracting and engaging customers, and explores how customer acquisition modes influence customer-organization relationships. It presents a critical appraisal of the research methodology and findings, including the impact of customer satisfaction, switching costs, and different types of loyalty on customer behavior. The application section discusses the practical implications of the study for business development, emphasizing the importance of RRPs in customer acquisition strategies. The review concludes with an assessment of the study's limitations and contributions to the field, emphasizing the insights gained regarding customer perceptions and behaviors in the context of service management. The review highlights the key drivers of customer loyalty, the differences between customers acquired through RRPs versus other methods, and the importance of considering attitudinal and behavioral aspects of customer relationships.

Running Head: SOCIOLOGY
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Sociology
Service Operations Management - Journal Review
(Student Details: )
10/6/2019

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Contents
Journal Article Review...............................................................................................................2
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Context.......................................................................................................................................2
Critical appraisal........................................................................................................................3
Application.................................................................................................................................3
Conclusions................................................................................................................................4
References..................................................................................................................................5

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Journal Article Review
Introduction
This journal is based on reviewing an article on the topic of ‘Service operations
management’. In this context, the chosen reading for writing this journal article review has
been written by (Ramaseshan et al., 2017). It is worth knowing that it is an article review of
customer acquisition through loyalty and rewards programs. In addition to that, the authors of
the article have presented enhanced loyalty drivers of millennial consumers gained from
referred reward programs (Ramaseshan et al., 2017). In order to review this article, steps such
as defining context, critical appraisal, application of the chosen concepts and lastly
summarizing the reading will be demonstrated in this review paper.
Context
In the context of service operations management, this research study has extended prior
research on RRPs (Ramaseshan et al., 2017). Here, the meaning of RRP is referral reward
programs which are usually used by the world businesses for attracting and engaging
customers in order to tell the quality of offered products and services by the chosen group.
This study has mainly examined if as well as how the mode of customer acquisition typically
moderates the relations amid customers and organization (Schneider & Bowen, 2010). In this
context, the chosen paper has included several modes of consumer acquisition include non-
RRP acquired new customers and RRP-acquired customers. Apart from this, it has been
noted that article has talked about how customer satisfaction is being achieved through
loyalty programs such as attitudinal loyalty as well as behavioural loyalty. Besides, the
reading has mainly highlighted the need and usefulness of RRPs while attaining customers’
attention and trust from the future business development perspective. It can be said that
presently RRP is a key loyalty driver of acquiring customers or retaining existing customers
effectively in the era of competitive edge. In this way, by talking about switching costs,
customer satisfaction and different loyalties, this research study has successfully provided
useful info about customer acquisition in this competitive business world (Johnston et al.,
2012).

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Critical appraisal
This research paper has purposefully designed to explore the area of service operations
management. While talking about several aspects of customer satisfaction, the authors have
demonstrated an in-depth understanding of customer acquisition (Ramaseshan et al., 2017).
As we know that research design or research methodology is the main element in any
research. Hence, the research methodology used by the chosen paper is survey and secondary
research which is quite useful for capturing customers’ satisfaction with chosen products or
services (Kumar et al., 2010). The positive side of the research also includes the practical
implications of the research. It has been found that effects of customer satisfaction on
attitudinal loyalty are considerable. In addition to that, discussion about total spends and
cross-buying made this reading useful for future researchers. The work presented in this
paper is very useful as it revealed that impacts of attitudinal loyalty on total spend, cross-
buying as well as recommendations are usually stronger for RRP-gained consumers as
compared to non-RRP-gained new consumers (Kumar & Reinartz, 2016). Moreover, effects
of switching costs on customer loyalty for RRP-acquired customers have been found out.
Apart from this, if we talk about impact of perceived switching costs then, this research has
found a lower impact on attitudinal loyalty for RRP based customers as compared to those of
non-RRP based novel customers.
In addition to that, the chosen study on service operations management is the first empirical
study that has explored the key differences amid RRP-acquired customers and that of non-
RRP-acquired new customers (Ramaseshan et al., 2017). Apart from this, the findings of the
research have successfully explored the impacts of satisfaction as well as perceived switching
costs which is an important factor for ensuring sustainable future of any business. The study
is worth appraising as it has also the effects of attitudinal loyalty over behavioural loyalty
which shows that the study has assessed every possible aspect of customer acquisition in the
context of service operations management (Schneider & Bowen, 2010).
Application
In this context, this research study on service operations management is having several
practical implications as there is number of applications of this study in the field of
sustainable business development. In this context, key findings of this study offered managers
an enhanced understanding of how RRP-acquired customers actually differ from non-RRP-

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acquired new customers (Kandampully et al., 2015). From the perspective of applying the
knowledge with regard to customer satisfaction, as well as attitudinal and behavioural loyalty,
this study is very useful. In addition to that, the research paper is clearly allowing effective
management of RRPs in real-time business management and service management as well
(Kandampully et al., 2015). The study can be effectively applied for customer acquisition
which is a procedure of acquiring novel customers or business clients. In this way, the
findings of this research study are applicable for creating a sustainable, systematic customer
acquisition strategy that may evolve with novel RRP related changes and trends in near future
(Garnefled et al., 2013). Based on this research study, an organization can easily:
 Acquire awareness of their brand’s products and services
 Take a decision for becoming a paying customer of their business
 Add novel products or services to their consideration pool (Alexander, 2013).
Conclusions
In whole, while talking about key aspects of a journal article review, this study has also found
some limitations of the chosen study. It has been found that the chosen study provided several
opportunities for further research which is not quite appreciable. Apart from this, the review
paper has observed that attitudinal as well as purchase data for the study has been collected
from customers of one RRP, in one bank and in one country only. In this way, this research
study is clearly limiting the generalizability of the key service management findings. In a
nutshell, despite some limitations, the chosen study has made so many valuable contributions
to the relevant literature in relation to RRP-gained customer perceptions, attitudes, values,
and behaviours. In this way, the main contributions of this study will definitely inspire future
researches in this field.

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References
Alexander, K., 2013. Facilities management: theory and practice. UK: Routledge.
Garnefled, I., Eggert, A., Helm, S. & Tax, s., 2013. Growing existing customers’ revenue
streams through customer referral programs. Journal of marketing, 77(4), pp.17-32.
Johnston, , Clark, G. & Shulver, , 2012. Service operations management: improving service
delivery (e-book). Pearson.
Kandampully, J., Zhang, T. & Bilgihan, A., 2015. Customer loyalty: a review and future
directions with a special focus on the hospitality industry. International journal of
contemporary hospitality management, 27(3), pp.379-414.
Kumar, V., Petersen, J. & Leone, R., 2010. Driving profitability by encouraging customer
referrals: who, when, and how. Journal of marketing, 74(5), pp.1-17.
Kumar, V. & Reinartz, W., 2016. Creating enduring customer value. journal of marketing,
80(6), pp.36-68.
Ramaseshan, B., Wirtz, J. & Georgi, D., 2017. The enhanced loyalty drivers of customers
acquired through referral reward programs. Journal of service management, 28(4), pp.687-
706.
Schneider, B. & Bowen, D., 2010. Winning the service game: handbook of service science.
Boston: Springer.