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inter-disciplinary character that allows including various perspectives into the design process,
such as strategic management and service marketing, but also operations management, psychology,
sociology, architecture, information systems, anthropology and many more. Nevertheless, a strong
focus always remains on design disciplines, such as product, interaction or communication design.
The design of a service includes the design of all relevant touchpoints throughout the customer
journey as well as involved organizational processes. Service design can not only be applied in
B-C situations, but also in B-B circumstances, organization-internal services and with increasing
economic signifi cance also to design C-C service systems.
Although there are various attempts to defi ne service design, there is not yet a commonly
accepted defi nition. However, the one from Moritz (2005) is one of the most-cited: 'Service
Design helps to innovate (create new) or improve (existing) services to make them more useful,
usable, desirable for clients and effi cient as well as effective for organizations. It is a new holistic,
multi-disciplinary, integrative fi eld.' In the fi eld of product or industrial design the value of a
strategic design process including early concept tests, user feedback and iterative improvement of
concepts is widely accepted. Before a product is brought to market it passes through several
iterations of concept tests and prototypes to identify failures and thereby reduce the risk to fl op
on the market. This is not yet common practice for the development or improvement of services.
Although some fundamental tools such as service blueprinting date back to service marketing
literature from the 1980s (Shostack 1982, 1984), only recently service design with its distinctive
process, tools and terminology gains momentum in practice and academia.
Service design is an approach which uses concepts, theories, methods and tools of various
disciplines. Although the boundaries between disciplines blur in the context of service design,
there are some important differences between the two main disciplines driving service design:
service marketing and design. Kimbell (2010) identifi es 'some important differences, shaped in
part by the infl uences of the social sciences within marketing and by the educational backgrounds
of many service designers in art and design schools' (2010: 51).
Table 24.1
outlines this briefl y.
Table 24.1
Service design in the context of marketing and design
Marketing
Design
Marketing is about organizations creating
and building relationships with customers to
co-create value.
Design aims to put stakeholders at the centre of
designing services and preferably co-design with them.
Marketing scholars and practitioners have
developed tools and concepts including
blueprints, service evidence and a focus on
the service encounter.
Designers use these tools and develop others that often
focus on individual users' experiences as a way into
designing services.
Marketers define who the customers of a
service are or could be and the broad detail
of the kinds of relationship an organisation
might have with them.
Designers give shape and form to these ideas, and
can enrich and challenge assumptions by making
visualizations.
Marketing researchers study customers to
develop insights into their practices and
values.
Designers can use insights as the starting point for
design and add a focus to the aesthetics of service
experiences.
Marketing has a view of new service
development that is shaped by problem-
solving.
Design professionals have an understanding of an
iterative design process that involves exploring
possibilities and being open to serendipity and surprise.
Source
: Kimbell (2010): 50-1
