Answer: According to Jacobs, the five types of customer introduced variability are arrival variability, capability variability, effort variability, request variability, and subjective preference variability (2014).
These variabilities can be briefly described thus:
- Arrival Variability: All customers do not want the service at the same time or at times convenient for the company.
- Request Variability: Customer’s requirements can vary widely and a service provider needs to have a flexible operation system, which essentially means having more variety of equipment’s and employees with diverse skills.
- Capability Variability: Some customers perform tasks easily and others require hand-holding. Capability variability becomes important when customers are active participants in the production and delivery of a service.
- Effort Variability: When customers perform a role in a service delivery process, they differ in terms of the effort they put in performing the role.
- Subjective Preference Variability: Customers vary in their opinions about what it means to be treated well in a service environment. Companies treat customer-introduced variability in two ways (i) The company accommodates customer-introduced variability (ii) The company reduces customer-introduced variability.
Explanation: Similarly, companies can reduce customer-introduced variability without compromising service quality by creating complementary demand to smooth arrivals, and targeting customers on the basis of their requirements, capability, motivation and subjective preferences.
Companies can accommodate customer-introduced variability without raising its costs by hiring low cost labour, automating tasks and creating self-service.
