Aligning Service Design and Standards

1
 Service Innovation
• Service innovation refer to innovation in services;
innovation in service processes; and innovation
in service firms, organizations, and industries.
• Service innovation is a new or considerably changed
service concept, client interaction channel, service
delivery system or technological concept that
individually, but most likely in combination, leads to
one or more new service functions that are new to
the firm and do change the service/good offered on
the market and do require structurally new
technological, human or organizational capabilities of
the service organization. 2
 Why it is Challenging
to Innovate, Design, and Develop Services?
• Innovating and designing services are very much
challenging due to the unique characteristics of service
offerings.
• There are a number of risks (oversimplification,
incompleteness, subjectivity, and biased interpretation)
inherent in attempting to describe services in words alone.
• All these risks and challenges become very apparent in the
innovation and service development process, when
organizations attempt to design complex services never
before experienced by customers or when they attempt to
change existing services. 3
 Important Considerations for Service Innovation
Service innovation is different from tangible product innovation
because of the inherent characteristics of services (intangibility,
inconsistency, inseparability, and inventory) and the challenges and
risk (oversimplification, incompleteness, subjectivity, and biased
interpretation) involved in the development and innovation of
service.
1. Involve Customers and Employees: Because services are produced,
consumed, and co-created in real time and often involve interaction
between and among employees and customers, it is critical that
innovation and new service development processes involve both
employees and customers throughout the process.
2. Employ Service Design Thinking and Techniques: It is also
important to use a systems or design mind-set, sometimes referred
to as “design thinking,” to be sure all elements are considered and
integrated. 4
 Design Thinking and Service Design
Design thinking is more about a mindset, a way of thinking.
• Design thinking is an approach to solve complex problems in
a user-centered way. It’s a hands-on approach, following a
structured process to come to innovate solutions.
• Service Design Thinking is a holistic, customer-centric
approach to using design principles, tools, processes and an
empathic understanding of customer needs to design
services that deliver a noticeable difference that customers
perceive provides a positive value proposition and/or ‘edge’
over competing service offerings. It is both creative and
practical way to improve and innovate existing service
offerings and to creatively and innovatively design new ones.
5
…Design Thinking and Service Design

By using an
elaborate set of
design tools,
design thinking
brings together
what is desirable
from a user’s
point of view,
technologically
feasible and
economically
viable. 6
 …Design Thinking and Service Design
Service design is the practical application of design thinking to the
development of services.
• Service design is an innovative process used to create services based on
the understanding of customer needs.
• Service design is a process in which the designer focuses on creating
optimal service experiences. This requires taking a holistic view
of all the related actors, their interactions, and supporting materials and
infrastructures.
• Service design is the activity of planning and organizing people,
infrastructure, communication and material components of a service in
order to improve its quality and the interaction between the service
provider and its customers. 
• Service design is focused on bringing service strategy and innovative
service ideas to life by aligning various internal and external
stakeholders around the creation of holistic service experiences for
customers, clients, employees, business partners, and/or citizens. 7
 Principles of Service Design Thinking
Stickdorn and Schneider (2010) proposes five service
design principles as central to service design thinking:
1. User-centered: Services should be experienced and
designed through the customer’s eyes.
2. Cocreative: All stakeholders should be included in
the service design process.
3. Sequencing: A service should be visualized as a
sequence of interrelated actions.
4. Evidencing: Intangible services should be visualized
in terms of physical artifacts.
5. Holistic: The entire environment of a service should
be considered. 8
 Types of Service Innovation
1. Service Offering Innovation (Service innovations that are tied to the offerings
themselves)
i. Major or radical innovations: New services for markets as yet undefined.
Example: Many innovations now and in the future will evolve from information,
computer, and Internet-based technologies.
ii. Start-up businesses: New services for a market already served by existing
products that meet the same generic needs. Example: Online banking for financial
transactions.
iii. New services for the currently served market: Attempts to offer existing
customers of the organization a service not previously available from the
company. Example: Airlines offering phone and Internet services during flights.
iv. Service line extensions: Augmentations of the existing service line. Example: A
university adding new courses or degrees.
v. Service improvements: Changes in features of services already offered. Example:
Added amenities in a hotel room.
vi. Style changes: Innovations that do not fundamentally change the service, only
change its appearance. Example: Redesigning a website.
2. Innovating around Customer Roles (Service innovations by redefining the customer’s
usage or co-creation role)
3. Innovation through Service Solutions (Innovative solutions to customers’ problems)
4. Service Innovation through Interconnected Products (‘Proteus Discover’ service
where pills with sensors track drug usage by patients)
 Service
Innovation
and
Development
Process

10
 …Service Innovation and Development Process
1. Business Strategy Development or Review: The first step in new service
development is to review the organization’s mission and vision. Because the
new service strategy and specific new service ideas must fit within the larger
strategic mission and vision of the organization.
2. New Service Strategy Development:
3. Idea Generation:
4. Service Concept Development and Evaluation:
5. Business Analysis:
6. Service Prototype Development and Testing:
7. Market Testing:
8. Commercialization: The service goes live and is introduced to the
marketplace.
9. Post-introduction Evaluation: At this point, the information gathered during
commercialization of the service can be reviewed and changes made to the
delivery process, staffing, or marketing mix variables on the basis of actual
market response to the offering. 11
 Service Blueprinting:
A Technique for Service Innovation and Design
• A service blueprint is a picture or map that portrays the
customer experience and the service system, so that the
different people involved in providing the service can
understand it objectively, regardless of their roles or their
individual points of view.
• A service blueprint visually displays the service by
simultaneously depicting the process of service delivery, the
points of customer contact, the roles of customers and
employees, and the visible elements of the service.
• Service blueprint provides a way to break a service down into
its logical components and to depict the steps or tasks in the
process, the means by which the tasks are executed, and the
evidence of service as the customer experiences it. 12
Components of Service Blueprints

13
 …Components of Service Blueprints
The key components of service blueprints are as follows:
1. Customer actions: The steps, choices, activities, and
interactions that the customer performs in the process of
purchasing, experiencing, and evaluating the service.
2. Onstage/visible contact employee actions: Activities
performs by contact employee that are visible to the
customer.
3. Backstage/invisible contact employee actions: Activities
performs by contact employee that occur behind the scenes
to support the onstage activities.
4. Support processes: The internal services, steps, and
interactions that take place to support the contact
employees in delivering the service.
14
Blueprint for Express Mail Delivery Service

15
Blueprint for Overnight Hotel Stay Service

16
 Customer-Defined Service Standard
Understanding customer requirements is the first step
in delivering high service quality. Once managers of
service businesses accurately understand what
customers expect, they face a second critical
challenge: using this knowledge to set service quality
standards and goals for the organization. The
following are the factors necessary for appropriate
service standards:
1. Standardization of Service Behaviors and Actions
2. Formal Service Targets and Goals
3. Customer-, Not Company-, Defined Standards 17
Physical Evidence and The Servicescape

18
 What is Physical Evidence?
• Physical evidence is the environment in which the
service is delivered and where the firm and
customer interact, and any tangible components
that facilitate performance or communication of the
service.
• Physical evidence is everything that a company
physically exhibits to the customers.
• Customers often rely on tangible cues, or physical
evidence, to evaluate the service before its purchase
and to assess their satisfaction with the service
during and after the experience.
 Elements of Physical Evidence
General elements of physical evidence include all aspects of
the organization’s physical facility (the servicescape) as well as
other forms of tangible communication.

20
 Role of Physical Evidence

A. Parasuraman and L.L. Berry (1991) identified six

specific roles of physical evidence:
1. Shaping First Impressions
2. Managing Trust
3. Facilitating Quality of Service
4. Changing the Image
5. Providing Sensory Stimuli: The aesthetics of the
service environment has the potential to stimulate
the senses.
6. Socializing Employees
21
 Guidelines for Developing a Physical
Evidence Strategy
1. Identify the strategic requirement of physical
evidence: The evidence strategy must be linked
clearly with the organization’s overall goals and
vision.
2. Decide the kind of physical evidence required
3. Clarify roles of employees and customers in the
servicescape
4. Identify and assess physical evidence opportunities
5. Update and modernize evidence
THE END

23