A service family design and business development methodology with a home service case study

Abstract

Developing a unique competitive advantage is essential for a company to survive in the market. Service innovation is an analytic technique that can help determine ways to add value to existing products or services with an aim to maintain a high level of customer satisfaction. Currently, only a handful of methods simultaneously integrated service design, service quality measurement, service family planning, and business development strategy. A systematic approach is presented with a home service case study. Service innovation can be firstly achieved with numerous new service concepts based on SERVQUAL metrics. This method then analyzes performance and productivity of these services with data envelopment analysis. Therefore, efficient service concepts with high level of customer satisfaction are selected as candidates for further development. For different market segments, this method clusters these efficient service concepts from a service family perspective. This generates a win-win situation for both customers and service providers.