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While there are a few ways these materials may be sequenced, here we outline our preferred structure, with five modules. You may of course recombine these modules in a different order, depending on the goals of your course. We have provided an overview for each module, recommended which chapters in Best Face Forward should accompany each module, and suggested case studies that fit well with the module materials. Course Opportunities
Book Overview
Module 1: Introduction to Interfaces
Module 2: Intersection of Interfaces and Technology
Module 3: The Front Office Revolution
Module 4: Three Interface Archetypes
Module 5: Managing Interface Systems
Course Opportunities
This book may be used effectively in a number of different courses, because its focus relates directly to the following subjects:
- Service Management
- Service Marketing
- Building Customer Focus Organization
- Building Market Focus Organization
- IT or MIS (How Technology Interrelate with Customers)
- Strategy
- Marketing
- Additional areas: Automation, Customer service, Electronic commerce, Information age, Information technology, Process innovation, Retailing, Service management, Services, Technology & operations.
Book Overview
Now more than ever, success is based on how well firms manage interactions with customers. Short on appropriately skilled labor and flush with new intelligent technologies, visionary managers are not just outsourcing or sending work offshore for greater efficiency; they are recruiting machines into the workforce for greater effectiveness. Technology is taking over "front office" roles in customer relationship management-sparking a revolution in how firms serve customers and compete with rivals. In Best Face Forward, we argue that as this "front-office automation" revolution unfolds, competitive advantage will increasingly depend on deploying the right mix of interfaces with customers-human, automated, and hybrids of both-to surpass current levels of performance and service. Based on extensive research inside both start-up and established businesses, Best Face Forward proposes guiding principles and a practical auditing tool for determining how humans and machines can best collaborate in mediating critical customer interactions. Far from dehumanizing the workforce, the authors show how this revolution will create a "people-rich" workplace--one that combines the unique capabilities of humans and machines to create a better world for all of us. Best Face Forward is broken down into an Introduction and 8 chapters: - Introduction: an overview of the themes in the Book
- Interfaces As the New Frontier of Competitive Advantage (Chapter 1)
- The Interface Imperative (Chapter 2)
- The Front-Office Revolution (Chapter 3)
- What People Do Best (Chapter 4)
- What Machines Do Best (Chapter 5)
- Putting the Amalgam of People and Machines to Work (Chapter 6)
- Managing Interface Systems (Chapter 7)
- The Interface Audit (Chapter 8)
Module 1: Introduction to Interfaces
The first module explores the ways companies have touched customers in the past, how they’ve managed those interactions, and the implications of those interactions on the business. We analyze the new realities of business that have made the quality of customer interactions the next frontier of competitive advantage. And we argue that the most actionable approach to managing customer experience focuses on a company’s service interfaces, because those interfaces are how companies determine the quality of their interactions with customers. These chapters introduce concepts and language that will be useful throughout the course, including: - Automation
- Service interfaces
- Interface systems
- Front-office reengineering revolution
Chapters to accompany this module: Introduction & Chapter 1
Module 2: Intersection of Interfaces and Technology
The second module explains why the front-office revolution is unfolding now and examines the rapid growth of and sophistication in the use of technology-mediated interfaces. It introduces the four trends in technology evolution that result in new possibilities for the role technology can play in managing customer interactions for companies. The trends are: - The proliferation of smart devices
- The rising intelligence and interactivity of those devices
- Increasingly affective appeal of devices
- The synaptic connectivity that links such devices to other devices and networks
Chapter to accompany this module: Chapter 2 Case Study: Sony AIBO: The World’s First Entertainment Robot
Author: Youngme Moon
Product #: 9-502-010 (Boston: Harvard Business School, 2003)
Module 3: The Front-Office Revolution
The third module examines the front-office revolution that is totally changing how companies organize work, relate to customers and markets, and establishes competitive advantage. We contrast the reengineering revolution of the 1980s with the front-office reengineering revolution unfolding today. Front-office reengineering involves the radical redefinition of front-office labor in light of the contributions of machines and machine-driven processes. These new roles for machines result from the four trends outlined in module 2. By bringing people and machines together into their front lines, companies can radically improve efficiency (lower costs of delivering a customer interaction) and effectiveness (better quality of customer interaction). Chapter to accompany this module: Chapter 3 Case Study: ING Direct: Redefining Direct Banking
Author: Soumitra Dutta and Sameer Oundhakar
Product #: 302-184-1 (Fontainebleau, France: INSEAD, 2002) Case Study: Chemical Bank: The Pronto System
Author: John A. Quelch
Product #: 9-584-089 (Boston: Harvard Business School, 1984, revised 1988)
Module 4: Three Interface Archetypes The fourth module takes a closer look at the building blocks of interface systems, outlining the three interface archetypes – humans, machines and hybrids. First, we examine the traditional interface through which companies have delivered services throughout history – the pure human interface involving people in the interaction and relationship management functions of the front office. We then examine the automated interface that has begun to appear as more and more smart devices are tied to networks and become compelling interfaces for connecting customers and companies. Finally, we examine two versions of hybrid interfaces, people enabled by machines and machines enabled by people. Our intent here is to examine the ways in which humans and machines may collaborate in the front-line work force, and how the combinations of people and technology can prove powerful in compressing costs while increasing the quality of interactions. Chapters to accompany this module: Chapters 4, 5, & 6 Case Study: Nordstrom: Dissension in the Ranks? (A)
Author: Robert L. Simons and Hilary A. Weston
Product #: 9-191-002 (Boston: Harvard Business School, 1990) Case Study: Ritz-Carlton: Using Information Systems to Better Serve the Customer
Author: W. Earl Sasser, Jr., Thomas O. Jones and Norman Klein
Product #: 9-395-064 (Boston: Harvard Business School, 1999) Case Study: Rapid Rewards at Southwest Airlines
Author: Frances X. Frei
Product #: 9-602-065 (Boston: Harvard Business School, 2003) Case Study: Wyndham International: Fostering High-Touch with High-Tech
Author: Lynda M. Applegate and Gabrielle Piccoli
Product #: 9-803-092 (Boston: Harvard Business School, 2002) Case Study: Fairfield Inn (A)
Author: James L. Heskett and Kenneth Ray
Product #: 9-689-092 (Boston: Harvard Business School, 1989) Case Study: Fairfield Inn (B)
Author: James L. Heskett and Kenneth Ray
Product #: 9-692-005 (Boston: Harvard Business School, 1993) Case Study: First Direct (A)
Author: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Dickson L. Louie
Product #: 9-897-079 (Boston: Harvard Business School, 1997, revised 1998) Case Study: First Direct (B)
Author: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Carrie L. Ardito
Product #: 9-898-145 (Boston: Harvard Business School, 1998) Case Study: EasyJet: The Web’s Favorite Airline
Author: Brian Rogers and Nirmalya Kumar
Product #: GM 873 (Lausanne, Switzerland: International Institute for Management Development, 2000)
Module 5: Managing Interface Systems The fifth and final module examines practical aspects of making the interface systems work. We first examine a variety of interface systems and what makes some successful and others not. We focus in particular on one company – QVC – that’s orchestrated a world-class interface system using people and machines in a variety of innovative roles and created a truly breakthrough business as a result. We also provide an assessment tool for deploying interface systems and optimizing portfolios of interfaces already deployed. Chapters to accompany this module: Chapters 7 & 8 Case Study: TV-Home Shopping Wars: QVC and Its Competitors
Author: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Elizabeth B. Glass
Product #: 9-395-014 (Boston: Harvard Business School, 1994, revised 1995) Case Study: QVC, Inc.
Author: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Dickson L. Louie
Product #: 9-897-050 (Boston: Harvard Business School, 1996, revised 1997) Download this Course Syllabus 
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