Knowledge-Intensive Services

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 4 narrows its focus to knowledge-intensive services - services that are centered on information, such as health care, legal services, and technology consulting. Specific challenges that come with knowledge-intensive services are described. Four foundational activities of knowledge-intensive services are identified: service provider information processing, customer information processing, service provider-to-customer information transfer, and customer-to-service provider information transfer. Information processing and information transfer are both essential to creating value. Because of the highly customized aspect of knowledge-intensive services, close collaboration between co-productive efforts of service providers and customers is vital.

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