Relationships between Service Providers and Their Impact on Customers
研究了服务提供者之间的关系如何通过改善服务协调直接提升顾客满意度和忠诚度，并帮助提供者与顾客建立更有效的关系。
Relationships between service providers and customers are important for achieving high levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty, service management scholars have shown. Building from existing theories, the author proposes that relationships between service providers are another important contributor to customer outcomes. When service processes are highly interdependent, uncertain, and time constrained, relationships between service providers are integral to the process of coordination and therefore are an important contributor to customer outcomes. In a study of postsurgical care in nine hospitals, the author finds that strong provider-provider relationships directly increase customer satisfaction and loyalty because the overall service experience is more effectively coordinated. Second, strong provider-provider relationships help service providers to develop more effective relationships with their customers, which further increases customer satisfaction and loyalty. Managers should therefore select, train, and reward service providers in a way that supports the formation of strong working relationships between them.