Optimising the internal value chain: Principles and practices

The employee–customer interface in hedonic services requires high quality interactions at key touch points to ensure experiences are positively remembered. We propose an approach that combines service blueprinting with internal marketing to achieve these experiences. While internal marketing suggests using marketing techniques for hiring, retaining and motivating employees, the literature in this field has been largely independent of each employee's contribution to the internal value chain. Service blueprinting is a useful approach which makes explicit the value creation processes used in service production. No study has thus far connected the blueprint (which identifies functions to be performed) to internal marketing (which specifies the mechanisms for hiring, retaining and motivating the people performing the functions). This paper proposes a service value chain optimisation framework to enhance employee–customer interactions in hedonic services using these two research streams.