A Customer-oriented Manager for B2B Services

10Unlocking Human Potential

10.1. Associating the client

Today, customers are recognized as having an active role in their consumption, in their relationships with suppliers and service providers, and more broadly in the economy. The customer no longer just has to choose, buy and consume, but is also an actor through co-production, co-creation or co-design. The line between production and consumption is becoming blurred, as is the distinction between producer and consumer. The neologism prosumer has even been created to describe this new reality (Ritzer and Jurgenson 2010). These developments have been widely discussed in the B2C field. While customer activism refers to a specific reality in B2C, it remains a fact that the very nature of the service implies customer participation regardless of the field of application.

10.1.1. Principles of client participation in the service

10.1.1.1. Reality

Customers’ participation in the service is a direct consequence of its production process. The customer is an element of the service model and is the co-producer of the service¹. This is the essential specificity of service management: customers are not mere consumers of the service, and they are also its producer. The discovery of this reality of a customer as an “economic agent participating” in the production of the service is very old and goes back to the very first efforts to understand services². Participation refers to the information that clients must give or receive, the actions ...