In “Innovation in Experiential Services - An Empirical View”, Professor Chris Voss and Dr Leonieke Zomerdijk from London Business School address how experiential service providers innovate. Experiential services focus on the experience of the customer when interacting with the organisation, rather than just the functional benefits following from the products and services delivered. The authors studied the design processes and principles of a range of experiential service providers, design agencies and consultancies in the UK and US. They observed that experiential services are often designed from the perspective of the customer journey rather than as a single product or transaction; the service is seen as a journey that spans a longer period of time and consists of multiple components and multiple touch points. The journey perspective implies that a customer experience is built over an extended period of time, starting before and ending after the actual sales experience or transaction.
Another finding from the research is that innovation takes place in five distinct design areas that influence the customer experience: the physical environment, the service employees, the service delivery process, fellow customers and back office support. It also reveals that many innovations are driven by detailed insights into customers. One of the difficulties in innovation in experiential services is predicting the outcome in financial terms, the report says. The authors found that although both product and process innovation were observed, significant innovation came from incremental process innovation.

The report can de downloaded from our download area or visit http://www.london.edu/otm/.

It was indeed an interesting meeting with Susanne Piët in Club 11. We discussed the similarities, or rather differences between virtual and real life experiences. And as Albert Boswijk mentioned in his report on that meeting on June 4th, Susanne stated that the key difference between the both kind of experiences is the presence or [...]

Today I want to present my views on what I like to call “Music2.0” – the next generation of the music industry that is being created as we speak. This new model is dramatically different: many old ways of doing things, many old relationships, and many outmoded traditions cannot and will not survive. I want to seduce you, the leaders of the independent music industry, to go down this new road with me, to take a leap, to leave some of your assumptions and your ‘religions’ aside, and to make bold moves – because this is required to turn this ship around. Scott Fitzgerald, the famous novelist, said: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function”. This will clearly be the music industry’s challenge going forward! Read on on Gerd Leonards weblog