Reflect on the Role of Robotics and Intelligent Systems in Retail Services: Relationship And Retail Marketing, MU, Singapore

QUESTION:

This part of the assignment requires you to form groups of up to 2-3 people in your workshop/tutorial class and develop a service blueprint for a service company of your choice (The lecturer makes the final decision on groupings and organisation choice). Each group has to submit a service organisation profile of the chosen service organisation to their tutor in Session 2 workshop (See Appendix A for Service Organisation Profile).

For the chosen service organisation, students have to create and include a service blueprint for the retail organisation and reflect on their customer journey with the introduction (current or potential) of robotics. The blueprint will be developed through an in-class activity discussion of their customer
journey. The service blueprint is a flowchart that provides a service organisation with the means of managing and controlling individual parts of the service delivery system; identifying weak points and opportunities for improving or enhancing the efficiency and productivity of the system, and preventing service failures. Students have to include a key summary of key implications and recommendations developed based on the blueprint to be included in a section in the reflective essay.

The key components of a service blueprint are:

• Customer actions – a line of external interaction – Line of interaction
• Frontstage/ Visible customer contact employee action – Line of visibility

Reflective Essay

• This part of the assignment requires members of the group to reflect on particular retail experiences and trends. Choose a retailer has to have a major service component. A reflective journal is a personalised account of how their learning in this unit can be applied to any service and retail interactions they may encounter in the future, and outside the classroom.
• The questions to reflect upon are:
  1. Referencing what you’ve learned in this course and supporting academic literature, please outline the importance and trends in the implementation of robotics and intelligent service systems in retail services.
  2. Reflect on the role of robotics and intelligent systems in retail services on how it impacts the customer journey and ethical implications for various stakeholders. You can use your service blueprint and supporting material to analyse the customer journey.
  3. Based on the service blueprint, provide some key insights you derived and recommendations for the retail service company.