ISS 2020 Vision Future of Service Management | Seite 17

Service strategy
A constantly shifting service landscape will challenge organizations to reinvent their service
strategy towards 2020 and beyond. This challenge is being driven by a shift towards a
focus on user experience, which is the next frontier for differentiation, value creation and
growth. Service providers must explore methodologies to help improve or innovate service
experiences that result in more satisfied users and more profitable enterprises, necessitating
service innovation. 6 Service innovation in the future necessitates a people-driven digital
transformation – combining deep insights into the needs and wants of users with digital
technologies to create new business value.
Service touch points
Service providers will need to take the steps required to redesign their industry in a more
user-centric fashion and to organize it for optimal business outcomes towards the future.
Improving user experience involves embracing a shift in thinking from “touch-points” to
journeys. The touch-point forms an integral part of the user journey and is a moment that is
carefully mapped and designed by designers and service providers. 7 The accepted definition
of a touch-point is any point of contact between a user and a service provider. Touch points
exist across physical or virtual spaces that can be either fixed or dynamic. 8
Managing the user journey across service touch points is of critical importance, because users
experience businesses and brands through end-to-end journeys and not only through single
“touch-points”. As a result, individual “touch-points” may perform well even if the overall
service experience is poor. As one subject-matter expert put it, “your brand is the sum of all
“touch-points” and, sometimes, one touch-point can ruin everything.” 9 Research indicates
that 25% of users will defect after one bad experience. 10
Service actors
Service actors include collaboration partners as well as employees. Ensuring that both deliver
an excellent service experience entails creating a sense of common purpose.
Due to an increasingly complex global business-operating environment characterized by
greater industry convergence, competition is increasing, as is hyper-specialization. Therefore,
the number of service actors required to deliver a service to an end-user is growing. This
requires that organizations identify the right collaboration model for service delivery as well
as a means for ensuring alignment and engagement among the partners’ employees. This
is because it is no longer enough to be best in class in a region or country – leading service
providers must aspire to be world class. Service providers will have to develop anticipatory
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Moritz, S., Design for Services, Keynote, Service Experience Summit, 2014.
Groen, B., Staffeldt, S. ISS 2020 Vision: Future of Service Management, 2016
Gogia, S., Defining the Touchpoint, Master Service Design, 2013.
Bechmann, S. ISS 2020 Vision: Future of Service Management, 2016.
McKinsey & Company, The CEO Guide to Customer Experience, McKinsey Quarterly, 2016.
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