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This study aims to develop an empathetic and user-centric customer support service design model. Though service design has been a critical research focus for several decades, few studies focus on customer support services. As customer support gains importance as a source of competitive advantage in the present era, this paper aims to contribute to industry and academia by exploring the service design model.

The study adopted a theories-in-use approach to elucidate mental models based on the industry’s best practices. In-depth interviews with 62 professionals led to critical insights into customer service design development, supported by service-dominant logic and theory of mind principles.

The ensuing insights led to a model that connects the antecedents and outcomes of empathetic and user-centric customer service design. The precursors include people, processes and technology, while the results are user experience, service trust and service advocacy. The model also emphasises the significance of the user’s journey and the user service review in the overall service design.

The model developed through this study addresses the critical gap concerning the lack of service design research in customer support services. The key insights from this study contribute to the ongoing research endeavours towards transitioning customer support services from an operational unit to a strategic value-creating function. Future scholars may investigate the applicability of the empathetic user service design across cultures and industries. The new model must be customised using real-time data and analytics across user journey stages.

The empathetic and user-centric design can elevate the customer service function as a significant contributor to the overall customer experience, loyalty and positive word of mouth. Practitioners can adopt the new model to provide superior customer service experiences. This original research was developed through crucial insights from interviews with senior industry professionals.

This research is the original work developed through the key insights from the interview with senior industry professionals.

The aim of this chapter is to help library administrators understand the concept of Service Design, and to maintain that any consideration of the future of library spaces should begin with a service design focused approach.

The chapter is a combination of general review, literature review, case study, and conceptual paper. It focuses on describing the basics of the concept, highlighting essential resources for further understanding, highlighting service design specifically applied in libraries, and providing one case study of an academic library undergoing a master planning project utilizing the lens of Service Design. The chapter will conclude by emphasizing the importance of attaining an appropriate understanding and buy-in for the Service Design process by library administrators and staff in order for its effective implementation.

Practical implications to employing Service Design to library spaces are endless, and span that gamut from making smart decisions based on user input and evidence, to creating spaces and services that are relevant to library users. Employing a Service Design approach to library building projects helps administrators position themselves to advocate for needed technology and funding in the highly competitive resource arena. The ideas gleaned from this chapter can be applied in any library: academic, public, special, or school. The results will be different, because every library has a unique group of users, but the processes employed are the same.

Library literature related to Service Design is slim but slowly emerging. This chapter fills a gap in literature geared specifically to administrators as well as building design and redesign projects.

This research aims to conceptualize and validate the mall service design as a multidimensional construct and then test a conceptual framework by investigating the impact of mall service design on customer mall experience and its subsequent outcomes, that is, intention to revisit and desire to stay in mega shopping malls.

The survey data of 455 shopping visitors in Pakistan were collected using a mall intercept technique and tested through structural equation modeling in AMOS.

The study reveals that service design significantly impacts customer experience and subsequent outcomes. Customer mall experience mediates the relationships between mall service design and the intention to revisit and desire to stay at malls.

Data from a collectivist culture country (Pakistan) were collected. To explore the impact of service design on customer mall experience, researchers should conduct similar studies in individualistic societies like Europe and North America. Additionally, the authors recommend assessing the effect of each dimension of service design on customer experience separately.

The research provides policy guidelines for the owners and operators of mega shopping malls in developing experience-oriented retailing strategies based on service design.

The research conceptualizes and validates the mall service design as a multidimensional construct using the service theater model and empirically tests its relationship with the customer mall experience.

The increasing financial burden and complexity of health-care services, exacerbated by factors such as an ageing population and the rise of chronic conditions, necessitate comprehensive and integrated care approaches. While co-created service design has proven valuable in transforming some service industries, its application to the health-care industry is not well understood. This study aims to examine how health consumers are involved in health-care service co-creation.

The study searched 11 electronic databases for peer-reviewed articles published between 2010 and 2019. Additionally, hand searches of reference lists from included studies, Google^© citation searches and searches for grey literature were conducted. The Whittemore and Knafl integrative framework guided the systematic review, and Callahan’s 6 Ws framework was used to extract data from the included articles, facilitating comparisons.

The authors identified 21 articles, mainly from the UK, North America and Australia. Despite the need for more research, findings reveal limited and geographically narrow empirical studies with restricted theory and method applications. From these findings, the authors constructed a conceptual model to enhance nuanced understanding.

This study offers four contributions. First, it introduces the Health Service Design Transformation Model for Comprehensive Consumer Co-Creation, illustrating health consumers’ multifaceted roles in shaping services. Second, consumer vulnerabilities in co-creating services are identified, linked to diverse consumer groups, power dynamics and decision complexity. Third, this study suggests broadening participant inclusion may enhance consumer-centricity, inclusivity and innovation in service design. Finally, the research agenda explores consumer experiences, organizational dynamics, value outcomes and co-creation theory for health-care service advancement.

This paper aims to develop and apply a service design method that allows for stronger recognition and integration of human activities into the front-end stages of the service design process.

Following a discussion of different service design perspectives and activity theory, the paper develops a method called activity-set mapping (ActS). ActS is applied to an exploratory service design project to demonstrate its use.

Three broad perspectives on service design are suggested: (1) the dyadic interaction, (2) the systemic interaction and (3) the customer activity perspectives. The ActS method draws on the latter perspective and focuses on the study of human activity sets. The application of ActS shows that the method can help identify and visualize sets of activities.

The ActS method opens new avenues for service design by zooming in on the micro level and capturing the set of activities linked to a desired goal achievement. However, the method is limited to activities reported by research participants and may exclude unconscious activities. Further research is needed to validate and refine the method.

The ActS method will help service designers explore activities in which humans engage to achieve a desired goal/end state.

The concept of “human activity set” is new to service research and opens analytical opportunities for service design. The ActS method contributes a visualization tool for identifying activity sets and uncovering the benefits, sacrifices and frequency of activities.

This study aims to theorise and empirically investigate how vulnerable users suffering from cognitive impairments can be involved in service design.

The data were collected through an ongoing field study following the processes of designing new forms of dementia care. The data consist of document studies, observations and interviews with actors involved in the service design process.

The findings demonstrate how the involvement of vulnerable users with cognitive impairment in service design requires the ability to manoeuvre users' “fractured reflexivity”. The design process was found to be constrained and enabled by three interrelated features: cognitive aspects, social aspects and representativeness.

This paper provides insight into concrete ways of involving vulnerable user groups in service design. The introduced concept – fractured reflexivity – may create awareness of how the involvement of users with cognitive impairment can be difficult but is also valuable, providing a means to rethink what may enable involvement and how to manage the constraints.

Although design processes rely on reflexivity, there is limited research addressing how reflexivity capacity differs among actors. The authors contribute by exploring how fractured reflexivity may aid the analysis and understandings of intertwined issues related to the involvement of users with cognitive impairment. Therefore, this study initiates research on how service design entails enactments of different modes of reflexivity. The paper concludes with directions for future research avenues on service design and reflexivity modes.

This paper aims to develop a framework of QFD (quality function deployment)‐based logistics service design to integrate the HOQ (house of quality) technique and modular logic to help in designing logistics services with high quality and a large service variety.

Based on a literature review, a conceptual research framework is built integrating the QFD method and modular logic together. A case study is used to illustrate a real application in logistics service design of the third‐party logistics (3PL) provider.

The results show that QFD and modularity used simultaneously as design principles can ensure service design quality at three layers (service, process, activity) in the modular logistics service platform.

This paper provides multi‐disciplinary insights for both industry and academics on how QFD/HOQ and modular logic can be integrated to systematically translate customer requirements into logistics service designs.

The framework proposed is directed to show how, at the operational level, the service providers can transform customer requirements to customer value with modular services and develop new service modules more quickly for new customers that have not been served before.

The resulting framework combining QFD philosophy and modular logic, particularly integrating three‐level HOQs paralleled with three layers in the modular service platform, adds knowledge in the research on service design, operations management and marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for understanding service design and how service design relates to central concepts within service marketing.

For companies, service design is growing in importance and has become a crucial capability to survive in the service-dominant economy. Service design increases the capacity to improve not only service experiences but also organizational design. On this premise, the authors propose a conceptual framework.

By relating service design to research efforts within service marketing, dual value creation can be enhanced. As such, the conceptual framework portrays service design as an enhancer of customer experience and organizational performance.

To the authors knowledge, service design has not been discussed in the service marketing literature. Thus, this is the first attempt to see service design in light of well-established service marketing models such as SERVQUAL and an updated version of the Service-profit-chain.

Service design is a multidisciplinary approach that is key to service innovation, as it brings new service ideas to life. In this context, the development of new service design methods and models for creating new service futures is an important stream of service design research. Such developments can benefit from a systematized research methodology that builds on existing knowledge and robustly evaluates the suitability of research contributions. To address this challenge, the purpose of this paper is to present design science research (DSR), an established methodology from the information systems field, and examine how it can be useful for service design research by supporting the development of new artifacts, such as service design constructs, methods and models.

This paper presents DSR and related literature and shows how DSR can support service design research through a step-by-step approach. A methodology to develop prescriptive-driven solutions for classes of problems, DSR can support service design research in developing rigorous and relevant research. One illustrative example of a service design research effort using the DSR approach is presented.

Building on DSR’s robust methodological background, this paper discusses how DSR can support service design research, namely, through the development of new methods and models, and how DSR can be adapted to leverage service design research participatory, iterative, human-centric and creative approach.

This paper provides an overview of DSR and proposes it as a methodology to conduct service design research, offering step-by-step guidance on the application of DSR in service design research and discussing how it can be adapted according to the specific characteristics of service design research and drive future research.

The present study sets out to understand how a manufacturing company in the maritime industry utilized creative design principles and developed service design routines to advance digital servitization (i.e. the transition to offering smart product-service-software systems–PSS) and realize subsequent positive growth outcomes.

We build upon a longitudinal single case of a marine solution provider. Using an action research approach, we collected data through in-depth interviews and informal conversations involving senior managers, project members and customer representatives over a three and a half-year period. In addition, secondary data such as documentary data, service design tools and visualization were utilized.

The inductive analysis highlights the underlining role of four service-design routines that drive creativity and an innovative approach to digital servitization transformation. More specifically, we identify (a) user insights through creative customer data acquisition, (b) smart PSS collaboration through co-creation across departments, (c) smart PSS ideation through creative forms of collaboration and (d) effective smart PSS delivery and commercialization through creative concept design as the drivers of the case company digital servitization transformation.

We encourage senior managers within large manufacturing companies to promote the development of service design routines as these promote the transformation process from being a product-centric to service-centric firm. The four service design routines are built on a set of service design sub-activities providing concrete actions that can be applied by senior managers to successfully develop and deliver smart PSS offerings and achieve growth outcomes.

This study contributes by integrating digital servitization and service design literatures. We illustrate how manufacturing firms can drive a transition to digital servitization through service design activities and routines development for smart PSS strategy implementation.