Giving Voice to Service Design in the Management Boardroom: Strengthening the Connection between Service Design and Management

Abstract

Service design is an interdisciplinary field with significant potential to improve serviceinnovation, but it is still not a well-established practice in most organizations and themanagement implications of service design are still not well understood. Better integration ofdesign and management perspectives is needed for a wider diffusion of service design. Thispaper explores how Multilevel Service Design (MSD), an interdisciplinary service designapproach, can better connect management concepts and tools with design concepts andtools. A case study of redesigning a banks mortgage service is presented, using MSDCustomer Value Constellation and the Service System Architecture models. The case studyillustrates how this approach can help service designers and managers navigate betweenservice concept and service system design levels, and better understand the interconnectionsbetween the design of the service at the frontstage and the design of support processes andtechnologies.