Master of Management Studies (M.M.S) Services Management Syllabus - Mumbai University 2026

Course objectives

• 1 To provide foundational knowledge and strategic understanding of service management principles.
• 2 To equip students with practical skills in designing and delivering quality service experiences.
• 3 To develop analytical capabilities for managing service operations, performance metrics, and customer satisfaction.
• 4 To foster understanding of service quality frameworks, customer relationship management, and complaint handling.
• 5 To cultivate strategic insights into contemporary trends, technology integration, and innovations in service management.

Course outcomes

• CO1: Understand the various aspects of service at all customer touch points to enrich the lives of customers.
• CO2: Apply the various concepts and frameworks in the course to leverage service as a source of competitive advantage
• CO3: Analyze service quality, various metrics, and service design to leverage information flows and enhance customer value
• CO4: Evaluate value provided, customer behaviour, gaps in competitor offerings to create new, innovative services
• CO5: Devise a comprehensive service plan considering the company and competitive situation to complement marketing strategy

Unit 1 CO1, CO2 · 3 hours

Service management – introduction; Taguchi’s Robust Design Methodology and service outcomes; customer service requests and unexpected service variability; robust people/robust process matrix

Unit 2 CO1, CO2 · 2 hours

Customer Relations- core purpose – enrich lives of customers; customer needs v/s desire; map customer touchpoints – pre-purchase, purchase, post-purchase; role of staff in exceeding customer expectations

Unit 3 CO1, CO2, CO3 · 5 hours

Service Quality – managing the customer mix; Customer to Customer Interactions (CCI), Customer to Employee Interactions (CEI); Hoffman and Bateson’s (2011) Servuction Model – visible and invisible factors influencing service experience, Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry’s SERVQUAL model

Unit 4 CO2, CO3, CO4 · 2 hours

Service Metrics - Net Promoter Score (NPS), leveraging the power of customer recommendations; Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) – Historic and future lifetime values; Acquisition Customer Lifetime Value, Existing Customer Lifetime Value

Unit 5 CO2, CO3, CO4 · 3 hours

Service Systems design – service as a source of competitive advantage; role of technology in changing nature of service processes; leveraging information flows from service provider to customer and vice versa; role of Augmented Reality, AI in helping customers make specific transactions

Unit 6 CO2, CO3, CO4 · 3 hours

Service Operations – queue management- reduce/eliminate waiting times; using technology to eliminate waiting times, virtual queuing, internet ordering, using AI to enhance waiting experience; increased brand engagement, subliminal messaging during wait times

Unit 7 CO3, CO4 · 3 hours

Value Co-creation in service process – dimensions of customer benefits – price, speed of delivery, service quality, frictionless services and social media, trade-offs – online security and vulnerability; design service process to meet emotional and psychological customer needs

Unit 8 CO2. CO3, CO4 · 3 hours

Customer Behaviour in Service Operations – organization culture and employee behaviour; customer reviews on social media as insights into customer behaviour, instrumental controls to induce desired behaviour – self-service; normative approach – social approval/disapproval, pride/belongingness, shame/rejection, creating customer communities

Unit 9 CO3, CO4, CO5 · 3 hours

Creating New Services – external and internal perspectives on firm capabilities and customer interactions; criteria for creating new services – type of service desired, management of customer expectations; categories of new services – Firm’s operational expertise and customer needs matrix; service as a platform for innovation, types of service innovations – changing role of customers, change processes, fill an unsatisfied need, dis- aggregate the value chain, create new business models

Unit 10 CO3, CO4, CO5 · 3 hours

Consolidation of Fragmented Service industries – benefits of size, shared assets reduce costs, high bargaining power with

Textbooks

• 1 Service Marketing – People, technology, strategy. 8e. Christopher Lovelock, Jochem Wirtz, Jayanta Chatterjee. Pearson Indian Subcontinent Edition
• 2 Services marketing – Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm. 7e. Valarie A. Zeithaml, Mary Jo Bitner et al. McGraw Hill

Reference Books

• 1 From Designing Service Processes to Unlock Value. 3e. Joy M. Field. Business Expert Press
• 2 Winning on Purpose- The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers. Fred Reichheld. Bain & Company. Harvard Business review Press. Boston. MA
• 3 Highly Effective Marketing Analytics. A Practical Guide to Improving Marketing ROI with Analytics. Mu Hu. Business Expert Press