Seven Contexts for Service System Design

Many of the most complex service systems being built and imagined today combine person-to-person encounters, technology-enhanced encounters, self-service, computational service s, multi-channel, multi-device, and location-based and context-aware services. This paper examines the characteristic concerns and methods for these seven different design contexts to propose a unifying view that spans them, especially when the service-system is “information-intensive.” A focus on the information required to perform the service, how the responsibility to provide this information is divided between the service provider and service consumer, and the patterns that govern information exchange yields a more abstract description of service encounters and outcomes. This makes it easier to see the systematic relationships among the contexts that can be exploited as design parameters or patterns, such as the substitutability of stored or contextual information for person-to-person interactions. A case study for the design of a “smart multi-channel bookstore” illustrates the use of the different design contexts as building blocks for service systems.

[1]  Lia Patrício,et al.  Designing Multi-Interface Service Experiences , 2008 .

[2]  Andrea Wiggins Information architecture: Data‐driven design: Using web analytics to validate heuristics system , 2008 .

[3]  Robert J. Glushko,et al.  Designing service systems by bridging the “front stage” and “back stage” , 2009, Inf. Syst. E Bus. Manag..

[4]  Sam Palmisano The Globally Integrated Enterprise , 2006 .

[5]  Uday S. Karmarkar,et al.  Managing in the Information Economy - Current Research Issues , 2007, Managing in the Information Economy.

[6]  Paul P. Maglio,et al.  Service systems, service scientists, SSME, and innovation , 2006, CACM.

[7]  Jeffrey Nichols,et al.  The Many Faces of Consistency in Cross-Platform Design: A Whitepaper , 2006 .

[8]  J. Schepers,et al.  Identifying Cross-Channel Dissynergies for Multichannel Service Providers , 2007 .

[9]  Dan Pilone,et al.  UML 2.0 in a nutshell , 2005 .

[10]  Hugh Dubberly,et al.  On modelingThe experience cycle , 2008, INTR.

[11]  R. Gulati,et al.  Get the right mix of bricks & clicks. , 2000, Harvard business review.

[12]  Rohit Verma,et al.  Understanding Consumer Choices and Preferences in Transaction-Based e-Services , 2003 .

[13]  A. Parasuraman,et al.  Communication and Control Processes in the Delivery of Service Quality , 1988, Journal of Marketing.

[14]  Toby Segaran,et al.  Programming Collective Intelligence , 2007 .

[15]  Francis G. McCabe,et al.  Reference Model for Service Oriented Architecture 1.0 , 2006 .

[16]  F. Frei,et al.  Breaking the trade-off between efficiency and service. , 2006, Harvard business review.

[17]  A. Parasuraman,et al.  Communication and Control Processes in the Delivery of Service Quality , 1988 .

[18]  C. Meyer,et al.  Understanding customer experience. , 2007, Harvard business review.

[19]  Daniel Minoli,et al.  Wireless Sensor Networks: Technology, Protocols, and Applications , 2007 .

[20]  Scott M. Davis,et al.  Building the Brand-Driven Business: Operationalize Your Brand to Drive Profitable Growth , 2002 .

[21]  James Teboul Service is Front Stage , 2006 .

[22]  Tânia Margarete Mezzomo Keinert,et al.  Reinventing government: how the entrepreneurial spirit is transforming the public sector , 1993 .

[23]  J. Hagel,et al.  The Real Value of Online Communities , 2000 .

[24]  Jean Vanderdonckt,et al.  Graceful degradation of user interfaces as a design method for multiplatform systems , 2004, IUI '04.

[25]  Mohammed Ghanbari,et al.  Heterogeneous Video Transcoding to Lower Spatio-Temporal Resolutions and Different Encoding Formats , 2000, IEEE Trans. Multim..

[26]  Uday M. Apte,et al.  Applying lean manufacturing principles to information intensive services , 2004, Int. J. Serv. Technol. Manag..

[27]  Mary Jo Bitner,et al.  Technology infusion in service encounters , 2000 .

[28]  Scott W. Kelley,et al.  Discretion and the Service Employee , 1993 .

[29]  Dan Morris,et al.  Instrumenting the Dynamic Web , 2007, J. Web Eng..

[30]  Michael A. Fontaine,et al.  Knowledge and Communities , 2000 .

[31]  Alistair Cockburn,et al.  Writing Effective Use Cases , 2000 .

[32]  Glen Allmendinger,et al.  Four strategies for the age of smart services. , 2005, Harvard business review.

[33]  Mary Jo Bitner,et al.  Service Blueprinting: A Practical Technique for Service Innovation , 2008 .

[34]  Uday M. Apte,et al.  Global Disaggregation of Information-Intensive Services , 1995 .

[35]  Karen Holtzblatt,et al.  Contextual design , 1997, INTR.

[36]  Donald F. Ferguson,et al.  Service-oriented architecture: Programming model and product architecture , 2005, IBM Syst. J..

[37]  Steve Benford,et al.  From interaction to trajectories: designing coherent journeys through user experiences , 2009, CHI.

[38]  Roy Want,et al.  An introduction to RFID technology , 2006, IEEE Pervasive Computing.

[39]  Georg Gartner,et al.  Applications of location–based services: a selected review , 2007, J. Locat. Based Serv..

[40]  F YOU MANAGE CREATING CUSTOMER VALUE Through Industrialized Intimacy , 1998 .

[41]  S E Koger,et al.  Service management. , 1993, College review.

[42]  Peter K. Mills,et al.  Perspectives on the Technology of Service Operations , 1982 .

[43]  Elliot Bendoly,et al.  Online/In-Store Integration and Customer Retention , 2005 .

[44]  A. Blinder Offshoring: The Next Industrial Revolution? , 2006 .

[45]  Jakob Nielsen,et al.  Usability engineering , 1997, The Computer Science and Engineering Handbook.

[46]  Richard Metters,et al.  Strategic supply chain choices for multi-channel Internet retailers , 2007 .

[47]  Gregory D. Abowd,et al.  A Conceptual Framework and a Toolkit for Supporting the Rapid Prototyping of Context-Aware Applications , 2001, Hum. Comput. Interact..

[48]  Michael Rohs,et al.  USING CAMERA-EQUIPPED MOBILE PHONES FOR INTERACTING WITH REAL-WORLD OBJECTS , 2004 .

[49]  Richard T. Watson,et al.  Data completeness: a key to effective net-based customer service systems , 2003, CACM.

[50]  Andrea Wiggins Data-Driven Design : Using Web Analytics to Validate Heuristics , 2007 .

[51]  Paul P. Maglio,et al.  Steps Toward a Science of Service Systems , 2007, Computer.

[52]  Stefano Chessa,et al.  Wireless sensor networks: A survey on the state of the art and the 802.15.4 and ZigBee standards , 2007, Comput. Commun..

[53]  C. Voss,et al.  Service Quality in Multichannel Services Employing Virtual Channels , 2006 .

[54]  Serge Mankovskii,et al.  Service Oriented Architecture , 2009, Encyclopedia of Database Systems.

[55]  Jonathan Grudin,et al.  The case against user interface consistency , 1989, CACM.

[56]  Jacquelyn S. Thomas,et al.  Challenges and Opportunities in Multichannel Customer Management , 2006 .

[57]  Hans-Georg Kemper,et al.  Combining RFID Technology and Business Intelligence for Supply Chain  Optimization Scenarios for Retail Logistics , 2008, Proceedings of the 41st Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2008).

[58]  Anne P. Massey,et al.  Online Services, Customer Characteristics and Usability Requirements , 2008, Proceedings of the 41st Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2008).

[59]  Robert J. Glushko,et al.  Document Engineering - Analyzing and Designing Documents for Business Informatics and Web Services , 2005 .

[60]  Conrad Lashley,et al.  Towards an understanding of employee empowerment in hospitality services , 1995 .

[61]  DubberlyHugh,et al.  On modelingThe experience cycle , 2008 .

[62]  Gary W. Loveman,et al.  Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work , 1994 .

[63]  John Riedl,et al.  E-Commerce Recommendation Applications , 2004, Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery.

[64]  Å. Grönlund Electronic Government: Design, Applications and Management , 2001 .

[65]  Ted S. Sindlinger,et al.  Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business , 2010 .

[66]  A. A. Ivanov,et al.  A Presentation for J4 , 1992 .

[67]  Silvana Trimi,et al.  Emerging trends in M-government , 2008, CACM.

[68]  R. Bharat Rao,et al.  Evolution of mobile location-based services , 2003, CACM.