Abstract
Customer care is a critical aspect of service provision. A customer-centric approach to the design of services depends on knowledge of customers' preferences and expectations for customer care. In this paper; we present a study on customers' near future expectations for customer care within selected service sectors. As part of a future scenario process; 151 participants contributed their perspectives on customer care for banking; telecom; and logistic services. The study findings highlight expectations concerning service value and service experience; and shed light on preferences for self-service vs. manual care. Furthermore; we find that; though the participants expressed a marked preference for service providers that add a positive experiential aspect to their customer care; the studied service sectors were not closely associated with experiential customer care. Consequently; the experiential aspects of customer care may represent an unrealized potential in these sectors.
Keywords
Customer insight; customer care; service design; future services
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/servdes2014.31
Citation
Følstad, A., Kvale, K., Bråthen, J.,and Haugstveit, I.(2014) Service Futures: What is Expected from Customer Care?, in Sangiorgi, D., Hands, D., & Murphy, E. (eds.), ServDes 2014: Service Future, 9–11 April, Lancaster, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/servdes2014.31
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Research Papers
Service Futures: What is Expected from Customer Care?
Customer care is a critical aspect of service provision. A customer-centric approach to the design of services depends on knowledge of customers' preferences and expectations for customer care. In this paper; we present a study on customers' near future expectations for customer care within selected service sectors. As part of a future scenario process; 151 participants contributed their perspectives on customer care for banking; telecom; and logistic services. The study findings highlight expectations concerning service value and service experience; and shed light on preferences for self-service vs. manual care. Furthermore; we find that; though the participants expressed a marked preference for service providers that add a positive experiential aspect to their customer care; the studied service sectors were not closely associated with experiential customer care. Consequently; the experiential aspects of customer care may represent an unrealized potential in these sectors.