The Changing Nature of Service Processes

Service process design is evolving with opportunities for new design configurations being supported and limitations diminishing. Tasks usually done by the service provider are now sometimes done by customers, resulting in customers having a bigger role in the service process through self-service and offering information to service providers to create a personalized service experience. This book examines how service processes should be designed to use expanding opportunities for customers and service providers to create value together. Frameworks and models are given for designing various kinds of service processes and knowledge-intensive services. The text also takes COVID-19 into account, offering examples of how services adapted during the pandemic. Technology-enabled innovations are also discussed, which provide flexibility in service process design and influence how service providers and customers co-produce services. Readers will learn about the important impacts these service innovations can have on benefit and cost trade-offs and synergies that determine value co-creation. Chapter 2 explores three trends that are influential in the service process design landscape: the fast pace of technology-enabled service innovation, the customer's expanded role, and service inventory's increasing use. The impact of these trends are typically linked through supporting technologies. Many examples of these trends and how they intersect are given, such as self-service technologies helping to expand the customer's role. Other examples that are examined include remote monitoring to build a database and mining social media. Service inventory is a newer concept; however, physical versions of it have existed for a while. Pre-producing according to forecasted customer demand can lead to costs of excess inventory.

• Customer experience
• Strategy
• Process design
• Service management
• Service innovation
• Service system design
• Process improvement