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The aim of this paper is to explore and empirically investigate the characteristics and contingencies of service delivery system design.

Informed by the service strategy triad, a single embedded case study was designed to explore empirical data on four target markets, four service concepts, and on the design characteristics of the corresponding four service delivery systems. Data were collected in a market‐leading organisation in the business‐to‐business sector within the power industry. The service delivery systems comprise processes that sell electricity contracts and processes that bill against those contracts.

First, the findings indicate what design characteristics are contingent upon the degree of customisation of the service concept. The authors show how this contingency has implications for the extents of employee skills, employee discretion, task routineness, automation, and for front office (FO)‐back office (BO) configurations. Second, the authors challenge the consensus that low customer‐contact processes are designed for the purpose of efficiency. Third, the findings contradict Metters and Vargas who state that it is not possible to have different FO‐BO configurations in a single organisation.

While there are major interactions between the four service delivery systems supporting each individual service concept, this paper does not examine the trade‐offs between the various possible designs of these service delivery systems.

The paper emphasises the importance of considering the complexity of the service offering, the customer relationship strategy, and of taking a process‐orientation to address service delivery system design.

This paper extends current understanding of service delivery system design characteristics and contingencies. The authors show how design characteristics are contingent on the service concept. Research propositions are formulated to emphasise this contingency. Additionally, we report findings which challenge existing FO‐BO design theory.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework of customer expectation management and a reference model of service experience design which are regarded as the basic foundation to model the processes of service experience design for service operation strategies simulating and testing by employing a system dynamics approach.

System dynamics is the key approach which includes causal loop diagrams and stock and flow diagrams used to build the reference model of experience design. Simulations of the processes of service experience design have also been implemented by Vensim^®.

It is found that the proposed reference model involving customer expectation management can successfully capture the key elements of the service experience design within service operation strategies. The system dynamics approach can effectively enable a macro viewpoint of service experience design for service operation strategies and policies.

With the proposed reference model of service experience design and the system dynamics modeling approach, service providers cannot only comprehensively examine the processes of service experience design in detail but also accomplish the strategies testing and simulating. Hence, service providers can make correct decisions to achieve the business goals via the simulation results beforehand.

This paper contributes to analyze and combine the idea of customer expectation management with service experience design and give rise to a unique reference model of service experience design that is shown to be valuable to service operation strategies testing and simulating based on the system dynamics perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to challenge service researchers to design for service inclusion, with an overall goal of achieving inclusion by 2050. The authors present service inclusion as an egalitarian system that provides customers with fair access to a service, fair treatment during a service and fair opportunity to exit a service.

Building on transformative service research, a transformative, human-centered approach to service design is proposed to foster service inclusion and to provide a platform for managerial action. This conceptual study explores the history of service exclusion and examines contemporary demographic trends that suggest the possibility of worsening service exclusion for consumers worldwide.

Service inclusion represents a paradigm shift to higher levels of understanding of service systems and their fundamental role in human well-being. The authors argue that focused design for service inclusion is necessary to make service systems more egalitarian.

The authors propose four pillars of service inclusion: enabling opportunity, offering choice, relieving suffering and fostering happiness.

Service organizations are encouraged to design their offerings in a manner that promotes inclusion and permits customers to realize value.

This comprehensive research agenda challenges service scholars to use design to create inclusive service systems worldwide by the year 2050. The authors establish the moral imperative of design for service inclusion.

This paper explores how service design can contribute to the evolution of health service systems, moving them toward people-centered, integrated and technology-enabled care; the paper develops a research agenda to leverage service design research for healthcare transformation.

This conceptual study starts by analyzing healthcare challenges in terms of demographic trends and economic constraints, along with the problems of lack of people-centricity, dispersion of care and slowness in incorporating emerging technologies. Then, it examines the theoretical underpinnings of service design to develop a framework for exploring how a human-centered, transformative and service systems approach can contribute to addressing healthcare challenges, with illustrative cases of service design research in healthcare being given.

The proposed framework explores how a human-centered service design approach can leverage the potential of technology and advance healthcare systems toward people-centered care; how a transformative service design approach can go beyond explanatory research of healthcare phenomena to develop innovative solutions for healthcare change and wellbeing; and how a service systems perspective can address the complexity of healthcare systems, hence moving toward integrated care.

This paper systematizes and develops a framework for how service design can contribute to healthcare transformation. It identifies key healthcare application areas for future service design research and pathways for advancing service design in healthcare by using new interdisciplinary bridges, methodological developments and theoretical foundations.

There is significant potential for adding value by involving customer in the design process and delivery of logistic services. In order to add value to the overall logistic system, the purpose of this paper is to apply an integrated systems approach for the design of forward and reverse logistics services in order to build a self-organising service that can maximise efficiencies and in particular reduce reverse logistics costs.

Two exploratory case studies were conducted in the logistics systems of housing repair and maintenance sector in the UK. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews, observations, and documented evidence.

The findings of the cross-case analysis suggests that systems approach expressed as the Vanguard Method (Seddon, 2008) has a direct impact on enhancing forward logistics performance and reducing reverse product flows by nourishing three dimensions for learning from demand-driven analysis; capturing customer clean information, demand predictability and categorisation, and failure demand analysis.

Findings from exploratory case studies cannot be easily generalised. Hence, further case studies are needed to enrich the findings, and to facilitate their industrial applications. Further, the paper explores the utilisation of the Vanguard Method only in the area of housing repairs and maintenance logistics services. It would be valuable for future studies to further investigate the utilisation of the Vanguard Method in other logistics services settings.

The paper demonstrates an important dynamics of how logistics services can incorporate customer demands into the logistics design process.

This research explores how to design service delivery systems to facilitate a customer experience that enables the realisation of prevention-oriented goals.

Case-based research is undertaken to inform the design of service delivery systems for prevention-oriented consumption goals. Data from multiple informants, from both the provider and customer perspective, in two in-depth case studies, provide empirical insights.

Drawing on customer and provider perspectives, a model of service design for prevention-oriented goals is presented. The model is informed through the identification of service delivery system characteristics (facility layout, staff service orientation, facility appearance and staff presence/appearance) and perceived experience quality dimensions (control, duration, privacy and reliability impressions) that contribute to the fulfilment of prevention-oriented consumption goals.

The research affirms that it is critical for organisations to comprehend the goals they want their service delivery systems to enable in the customer experience. Specific attention should be given to the design of facility layout, staff-service orientation, facility appearance, staff presence/appearance to positively impact perceived quality dimensions and to facilitate the realisation of customer prevention goals.

The main research contribution lies in the articulation of the design characteristics of the service delivery system that enables a customer experience supporting the fulfilment of prevention goals. The empirical study draws on both customer and organisational perspectives to identify prevention-oriented goals, and corresponding experience quality dimensions, to inform service delivery system design.

This study proposes to discuss an up‐to‐date framework for service design as a means‐end tool for modeling, designing, and developing the service systems (e‐service) which can fulfil (semi‐)automated value co‐production between the service providers and the customers in a service. In order to achieve the goal of service innovation, this study raises concerns regarding how an innovative e‐service can be a systematic service process according to the proposed service design framework. However, the framework takes into account a novel service classification and individual criteria.

This study addresses an intelligent service design using design science. According to the proposed framework, the service systems (e‐services) are implemented by simulation. In this study, either service classification or the counterparts of service performance measures emerged from the ecological symbiosis perspective through analytic and synthetic methods. The proposed service design framework defines two dimensions – continuity of co‐production and mutual adaptability – characterized by the process of exchanging service/benefit and building relationship (i.e. partnership) involved within a service. The framework indicated how the interactions and the service/benefit exchange between the service provider and the consumer can work in a service process. The aim is to build a partnership by the service participants due to mutual adaptability in adapting to the counterpart of service (i.e. the service provider or the customer).

Comparing with traditional service classification and service design, a more positive niche in systematic service innovation was established than before. According to the synthetic methodology, this study classifies the six categories of service based on ecological symbiosis perspectives. Examining individual service performance is derived from a set of criteria of species performance measures in ecological mutualism including proximate response, evolved dependence, and ultimate response. The service systems comply with the characteristics and criteria in the framework to demonstrate the sets of methodology for innovative service design.

This study has yielded findings on both managerial insight on service innovation and the impact of service system design.

The value of the framework is demonstrated through the diverse service systems. For example, digital content, interior design, or mobile phone design is characterized by service participants who embody knowledge‐intensive attributes when engaged in their service process. In order to further complete a novel framework for service design, the question of evaluation that arises concerns the extent of ensuring the necessary service performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of different antecedent factors (contingencies) on the design of a service recovery system (SRS).

A conceptual model was framed and a series of hypotheses generated and tested using data from 158 practicing managers using a multivariate general linear modeling technique.

The analyses indicated that firms, by and large, mainly considered environmental factors in the SRS design. Additional evidence suggests that managers do consider other contingencies but may do so in a fragmented manner. The results presented herein indicate that firms design back-office aspects of SRS in response to external factors (i.e. the environmental contingency). In contrast, the front-office components appear to have more diverse antecedents but are strongly influenced by the firm’s recovery orientation. The specific recovery practices appear to be implemented per industry standards. In sum, evidence indicates that there are diverse driving factors to total SRS design.

Limitations are based primarily on the methodology as data were obtained from a single person who represented the entire SRS. Care was taken in the study design in order not to compromise the validity of the findings.

The results indicated that managers responsible for system design need to be holistic in SRS design to more tightly link decisions across multiple contingencies so as to more fully integrate total service system design. This is potentially accomplished through the inclusion of aspects of all relevant contingencies when designing recovery systems.

This paper’s main contribution is that it employs established theory to develop and test a model to show that firms consider multiple contingencies while designing SRS. It contributes to the emerging body of work on SRS design by providing insights that can be considered as driving forces behind the design of SRS.

The aim of this paper is to investigate how the distinction between contact and non‐contact activities influences the design of service delivery systems and to identify key design decisions for structuring front office and back office work.

Building on current literature, the paper identifies three design decisions and associated performance trade‐offs. The design decisions regard the degree of customer contact in the process, the decoupling of activities and the grouping of employees. The design decisions and the trade‐offs are empirically validated in five case studies of 15 service delivery systems in the financial services sector.

Distinguishing between the three design decisions is more suitable for describing today's practices than traditional front office – back office thinking. For each design decision a trade‐off was observed consisting of several design considerations. However, the trade‐offs do not involve the weighing of one set of performance objectives against another, as the design choices contribute to the same objectives, yet in different ways.

This study concentrated on a limited number of cases in the financial services sector. The contents of the trade‐offs should be tested on a larger scale and in different industries. In order to develop design guidelines, future research should also examine the impact of contingency factors, such as the service being delivered and strategic priorities.

The three design decisions and the trade‐offs improve understanding of the impact of customer contact on a service organisation and provide support for designing service delivery systems in practice.

Few empirical studies have been conducted to explore the mechanisms and drivers of service exchange and value co‐creation. In particular, no study has compared a service system design informed by service‐dominant logic (SDL) with a service system design informed by goods‐dominant logic (GDL). The purpose of this paper is to address this knowledge gap. The research question is: does a service‐dominant system design result in a more favourable customer experience than a goods‐dominant service system?

An experiment was carried out on a group of habitual bus travellers. The subjects were asked to plan a specific journey using two online journey planning systems. Two hypotheses were tested: first, an SDL informed service system will evoke a better overall customer experience than a GDL informed service system. Second, this better customer experience arises out of seven service system design characteristics. Both objective and subjective data were gathered to compare the customers' experiences of using the two service systems.

The results show that a service‐dominant service system outperforms a goods‐dominant service system in terms of both objective and subjective criteria. Moreover, the experiment elucidates the subjects' perceived importance of the characteristics of a service‐dominant service system. Analysis of the subjects' perception of the two service systems reveals that certain characteristics set the service‐dominant service system more distinctly apart from the goods‐dominant one.

The paper contributes by extending the empirical foundation for service‐dominant logic, providing new knowledge on value co‐creation and design characteristics of service systems, and identifying the most important service system characteristics perceived by the customer.