Achieving Service Excellence

CHAPTER 2

Strategic Differentiation

2.1 Introduction

For a profit-seeking service enterprise, strategic differentiation means offering to the customers differentiable and innovative service packages, thereby being able to command premium prices to expand sales revenue, sustain revenue growth and maintain enterprise health over time.

Service offerings consist of core and supplemental elements. The core elements define the major features to deliver key benefits to users (see Figure 2.1). Typically, these elements may be protected via patents and/ or corporate know-how. Creative ideas should be centered on the development of these core service elements in order to secure the long-lasting monopoly rights allowable. These core elements are typically ...