The Copenhagen Institute of Design has a nice definition of Service Design:

Service Design is an emerging field focused on the creation of well thought through experiences using a combination of intangible and tangible mediums. It provides numerous benefits to the end user experience when applied to sectors such as retail, banking, transportation, & healthcare. Service design as a practice generally results in the design of systems and processes aimed at providing a holistic service to the user. This cross-disciplinary practice combines numerous skills in design, management and process engineering. Services have existed and have been organised in various forms since time immemorial. However, consciously designed services that incorporate new business models are empathetic to user needs and attempt to create new socio-economic value in society. Service design is essential in an knowledge driven economy.

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The Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design recently organized the Service Design Symposium with quite an interesting lineup of speakers from IDEO, Live|Work and Orange Gobal. While many of these presentations will not be shared outside of the conference, Oliver King (Director of Engine Service Design), posted his presentation and you kind find his slides below.

 

 

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The Keynotes from Bill Moggridge (IDEO), Shelly Evenson (Carnegie Mellon University) and Bill Hollins (Design Council) can be found on the corresponding YouTube channel.

 

[via ChooseNick]

 

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The New York Times writes about latest research results on consumer behavior in the article “Some Blissful Ignorance Can Cure Chronic Buyer’s Remorse“. Named the “Blissful Ignorance Effect” it says that people who have more ambiguous information about a product expect to be happier with what they have bought than those who have more specific details.

In general, he says, people are “cognitive misers” — they do not want to do a lot of thinking and research. That is one reason that brands and slogans are attractive; they are a shortcut to information.

The good news, Professor Aronson says, is that we rarely regret a decision as much as we think we will. For example, he said, in buying a house, we might briefly experience buyer’s remorse, but 90 percent of the time, it eventually fades and we find ways to convince ourselves that the positive things about the house outweigh the negative.

Read the full article.

Why do I blog this? Understanding and incorporating these fine nuances in consumer behavior can make the difference between an indifferent and and an extraordinary customer experience.

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David Armano at Logic+Emotion posted a great visual explaining the different roles consumers can play in a social media landscape. (Here is the post).

People can be user, consumer, customer, producer, participants and community member. But at the centre is that understanding that we are human beings. David asks

So the geeks build the platforms and networks. The users use them. The users become participants. Participants form the networks and communities and participation in communities sucks up our time and attention.

Then where does that leave marketing?

Marketing comes in when the geeks build the platforms and networks: but not for themselves, but for someone else. When you build a platform that is not for “yourself”, it is necessary to understand your potential user, so that they can use it and become participants. One big question remains: How can I understand my customers so that I can build platforms that makes “users us them”?

One example: How would you build a social network for physicians? Either you are lucky and find a physician who is geek AND who needs a social networking platform or you need the “right” marketing people that help you understand your future users. Because questionnaires won’t do the job.

Read the full posts here.

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One essential task in new product and service development is to create superior value for the customer and exceed customer’s expectations. The question what creates value for a customer is a difficult one and can certainly not be answered easily. The framework presented in the paper “Customer Value Creation: A Practical Framework” written by J. Brock Smith and Mark Colgate seems like a valuable tool to answer these questions.

Creation of value for customers is a critical task for marketers, particularly when developing new products and services or starting new businesses. This paper presents a new conceptual framework for marketers to ponder when exploring ways to distinguish themselves, in the eyes of the customer, from others in the marketplace. This framework is built on the strengths of existing frameworks. Possible applications of the framework in designing marketing strategy, recognizing new product opportunities, and enhancing product concept specifications are discussed.

They have developed a framework that includes several dimensions of customer value that adopts a strategic orientation in that the focus is on identifying categories of value that could differentiate offerings and not on identifying all of the specific benefits and sacrifices that may be perceived by consumers or customers. The framework is applicable to consumer and business contexts, and goods as well as services.

The four types of value that have been identified are

Functional/instrumental
Functional/instrumental value is concerned with the extent to which a product (good or service) has desired characteristics, is useful, or performs a desired function.

Experiential/hedonic
Experiential/hedonic value is concerned with the extent to which a product creates appropriate experiences, feelings, and emotions for the customer.

Symbolic/expressive
Symbolic/expressive value is concerned with the extent to which customers attach or associate psychological meaning to a product.

Cost/sacrifice value
Consumers and customers also try to minimize the costs and other sacrifices that may be involved in the purchase, ownership, and use of a product. Cost/sacrifice value is concerned with these transaction costs.

In the next step they identify five sources of customer value information, products, interactions, environment, ownership/possession transfer and identify possible value aspects for each type and source of customer value. The result are four pages of value aspects.

I have been looking for such a comprehensive framework already for quite a while because such a framework is indeed helpful in identifying the value of new products and services in order to derive their chances of becoming a successful new product or service. And I completely agree with the authors conclusion:

The customer value creation strategy framework developed in this paper offers a useful tool for specifying and illustrating value creation strategies, illustrating brand and organization positioning, identifying opportunities for new value creation propositions, and suggesting enhancements to the value propositions of existing products.

Download the full article here.

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