Learning Objectives

After reading through this chapter you will be able to:

• Understand who the customer is, and appreciate the customer's needs, perceptions and what gives satisfaction

• Determine the stakeholders to the event and identify the challenges they present

• Undertake an analysis of what you can provide and what is expected by the stakeholders and customers

• Create competitive advantage using quality of service provision.

Introduction

This chapter pulls together some of the concepts in the earlier chapters and offers techniques regarding how to manage the interface between the needs of the customers, the impact of the stakeholders and the goals of the organization. It is within the analysis stage of the event operations management model, since it is not possible to start the planning stage until all the influences upon the event have been analysed. The chapter considers who our diverse customers are, the dimensions of customer satisfaction, resource utilization, and how by using the right resources it is possible to satisfy the needs of the customers and the varied stakeholders, keep within the strategic objectives of the organization and make a profit.

Wild (2002) notes that operations management is concerned with the achievement of both satisfactory customer service and resource utilization. He suggests that both of these objectives cannot always be maximized, and hence a satisfactory performance must be achieved on both and sub-optimization avoided. It is this conflict that often provides the challenge to event managers.

Who is the Customer?

In Chapter 2 we established that the customer...