If the customer isn't happy, no one's happy
Leonard L. Berry, Distinguished Professor of Marketing and M.B. Zale Chair in Retailing and Marketing Leadership
In a field of constantly developing techniques and through the employment of resources such as the Internet, the business world is increasingly more competitive as companies vie for customers' time, attention and money. Distinguished Professor of Marketing and M.B. Zale Chair Leonard L. Berry has devoted his established career to services marketing and approaching business from the customers' perspective.
The healthcare industry is Berry's current focus. He immersed himself in a six-month research sabbatical in 2001 and 2002 at the Mayo Clinic to study healthcare service hands on. His most recent publication, "Patients' Perspectives on Ideal Physician Behaviors," co-authored with fellow marketing professor Janet Turner Parish, former Mays faculty member Neeli M. Bendapudi and physicians Keith A. Frey and William L. Rayburn, surveyed 192 Mayo Clinic patients about their experiences with their doctors. The researchers found patients want their doctors to be confident, empathetic, humane, personal, forthright, respectful and thorough.
His research into the healthcare industry dives into formerly uncharted waters in an area often overlooked when considering business services. Medical service is different and more personal than many other services. Patients have to place a great trust in their doctors, he says, because medicine is so complex and technical. He maintains, however, that the study of and improvement in service in the healthcare industry is vital to its success as a business.
"I want to use my background and skills I've gained in my career as a services researcher to develop new models for improving the quality and effectiveness of healthcare service and reducing its cost," he says.
A second research stream is service innovation. Berry hopes to learn how to improve the kinds of services that are marketed, along with their quality, to enhance business performance and quality of life.
In his recent publication for MIT Sloan Management Review, "Creating New Markets through Service Innovation," along with co-authors and fellow marketing professors Venkatesh Shankar, Parish, Susan Cadwallader, and doctoral student Thomas Dotzel, Berry introduces the concept of market-creating service innovations, which he believes companies must develop to set them apart and ahead of the competition.
They analyzed case studies of successful businesses such as Starbucks, Google and Barnes & Noble. Based on those case studies, they determined nine drivers of successful service innovations, including creating a scalable business model, managing the customers' experiences and continuous operational innovation.
In Berry's most current work in service innovation, he is collaborating with two colleagues to better understand what he terms "hybrid innovations," which refer to innovations that are part service and part manufactured product.
Another focus for Berry has spanned his entire career: services marketing in all facets. "Services marketing will be with me as long as I continue to do research," he says.
He has completed data collection with colleagues concerning the influence of a new hospital building on the work-related perceptions and attitudes of nurses. The research question is how does the facility in which people are doing extremely intense service work affect them as they go about doing that work?
All of Berry's research ultimately focuses on making life better for customers and those who serve customers. The quality of service and the customer's experience when receiving service is the key to customer satisfaction and ultimate success, he says.
Berry is the founder of the Center for Retailing Studies, a former national president of the American Marketing Association, and has published 12 books and more than 100 articles in prestigious journals such as Journal of Marketing and Harvard Business Review. Berry, who received the 2006 Academy of Marketing Science Outstanding Teacher Award, isn't thinking about slowing down.
"I don't think about retirement at all," he asserts. "I truly enjoy my work. I feel what I am doing is important. I'm fortunate to be in good health. As long as I feel excited to go to work in the morning, I'll just keep going."
Return to faculty research home
