Providers Design Research Articles

The Design Challenges of Experiential Services

In many services, customer experience extends beyond functional benefits. High experiences may result from efficient service completion, or quality service outcomes, depending on the service objective. Building on the customer journey concept, which maps an experiential service to customer-provider interaction touchpoints, we analyze the service provider's design decisions: the touchpoints she chooses to control, and the price she charges. The optimal design is non-monotonic on the customer-provider interaction parameters; the interaction variability, especially for interdependent touchpoints, and/or the information asymmetry about the provider capability to o er high experiences. A provider employs different designs to signal capability. She may focus on fewer touchpoints, when high experiences are associated with high quality, yet costly service outcomes, or assume an expanded offering when consumers appreciate streamlined cost-efficient services. The price serves only as a secondary signaling mechanism. When capability implies very high experiences, the provider may choose uninformative designs.