Service management in housing refurbishment: a theoretical approach

It is unusual to find that housing refurbishment projects have been undertaken with a clear focus on customer orientation directed towards the tenants, or owners of cooperative flats or condominiums. Only recently have researchers in construction management begun to look closer at the relationship between contractors and customers. To assess the scope for customer orientation in the refurbishment industry, current thinking in service management is reviewed here in an attempt to identify principles with implications for housing refurbishment. There is a consensus among service management investigators that services are intangible; other often mentioned characteristics are heterogeneity, perishability, and the inseparability of production and consumption. Except for inseparability these characteristics are valid for refurbishment. Nevertheless, features such as the long turn-round time, the number of participants, the complexity and the uncertainty, distinguish housing refurbishment from most services. There is strong empirical support for the claim that customer satisfaction increases customer loyalty and gives the service producer a positive reputation, ultimately increasing profitability. It is concluded that this insight can be interpreted operationally for housing refurbishment projects, bearing in mind that the tenant or the owner of a cooperative flat is the customer's customer.