Service is the essence of business in the twenty-first century, and contributors this quarter probe how best to manage this reality. Success requires a thorough understanding of customer needs and the choreography of customer interactions. It taps into multidisciplinary expertise and exploits a panorama of media and touch-points. Articles identify service design priorities, web strategies, research techniques, and the return on service design investments. Engaging case studies concern a car dealership, a mobile phone company, a sales pitch for annuities, and the New Zealand department of Inland Revenue.

Articles

It’s All About Service
Thomas Walton

Service Design: An Appraisal 
Roberto M. Saco and Alexis P. Goncalves

From Small Ideas to Radical Service Innovation
Mark Jones and Fran Samalionis

Inland Revenue New Zealand: Service Design in a Regulatory Context
Karyn McLean, Jim Scully, and Leslie Tergas

Would You Like Service with That?
Chris Bedford and Anson Lee

Service Design via the Global Web: Global Companies Serving Local Markets
Brian Gillespie

Designed by KTF: A Telecoms Case Study
Won-Sik Lee and Bo-Young Kim

Designing Human-Centered Services
Michael D. Eckersley

The Retirement Boomerang: A New Vocabulary of Financial Services
Andrew Mackenzie

 

Bottom-line Experiences: Measuring the Value of Design in Service
Lavrans Lovlie, Chris Downs, and Ben Reason