Service design for coproduced service excellence

Wieslaw Urban

„The customer is always a coproducer” (Vargo’s & Lush’s (2004)

Service Dominant Logic)

↘ Value cocreation

↘ Shift work from the service provider to customers

↘ Codesign

↘ Source of innovations (codevelopment)

↘ Service process carried out collaboratively with the customer

(coproduction)

Faces of cocreation

Quality: conformance to requirements

To achieve quality in services two components are required

1. to follow behaviour patterns defined in advance by the service

provider

2. the service provider (staff) actions go beyond the defined

requirements – „coproduced service quality”

Quality concept

Coproduced service quality

the serviceprovider

the service provider fulfills recognised requirements

the customer

the service provider recognises requirements

......

......

individual service process

Service design literature: there is a need of shift to thinking about

quality of the offering by the service provider, which is not a strictly fixed

requirements pattern

↘ How to design service system being able to recognise promptly

service requirements and in consequence performing excellent

service?

↘ How to organize the service system that not loosing any

potential of value?

Service design

First we need to know what factors affect service requirement

recognition (coproduced service quality)?

1. Field research

↘ in-depth interviews basing on the CIT principles

↘ direct contact service staff were interviewed

↘ 11 factors listed; if yes: in-depth description of an incident

↘ 168 service representatives

2. Basing on identified factors to frame postulates for service design

How am I going to answer? (methods)

Factors Respondents who left

comments

Professional knowledge 138 82.1%

Consultancy 128 76.2%

Listening 127 75.6%

Communication 126 75.0%

Experience 121 72.0%

Creativeness and innovativeness 99 58.9%

Tangible assets 95 56.5%

Teaching 62 36.9%

Empathy 56 33.3%

Persuasion 52 31.0%

Learnability 44 26.2%

#1

In service design stage there is defined the flow of service process. But

there should be also defined how to recognise constantly an individual

service process flow in terms of coproduced service quality.

Implications for service design

#2

Knowledge assets have the primary importance, it should be specified

in the service design stage with reference to recognise customers

needs during each coproduction episode. As well as how to provide this

knowledge to service staff.

Implications for service design

#3

Service design should predict and supply conditions for unhindered

two-way communication between the service staff and the customer in

the service encounter

Implications for service design

#4

The factors being prepared for serving the coproduced service quality

component should be integrated into the built service climate

Implications for service design

#5

Service design still needs better tools and techniques supporting

preparation the service process for delivering quality in coproduced

component

Implications for service design

Thank you for your attention!