ISS 2020 Vision Future of Service Management | Page 57

3. Assess: Validate measurements of the service design and perform any
corrective measures as necessary.
4. Improve: Reflect on design performance and process effectiveness,
including the relationship between financial objectives and overall outcomes.
Identify current challenges, service gaps and new opportunities, and implement
process improvement initiatives.
5.2.3 Service touch points
The fundamentals of end-user interaction are changing. As a result, 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. 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. 67 The accepted definition of a touch
point is any point of contact between a user and a service provider. Yet, such a description
lends itself to subjective interpretation – do touch points exist in physical or virtual spaces, or
both? Are touch points fixed or dynamic? 68
Managers involved in the provision of services will be challenged in navigating the virtual-
physical and dynamic-fixed dichotomy within a more human-focused service journey (see
figure 23). Touch points along with user journey will be regarded more as moments in which
a sensory interaction results in an emotional one. Users have different types of emotional
responses as they experience an interaction. So while users are the ones who determine the
points of interaction, 69 service providers can benefit by designing these sensory interactions
to induce the desired emotional experience. 70 It is less about the format of the touch point
itself but the experience the user will have at that moment.
67
68
69
70
Groen, B., Staffeldt, S. ISS 2020 Vision: Future of Service Management, 2016
Gogia, S., Defining the Touchpoint, Master Service Design, 2013.
Coenen, C., ISS 2020 Vision: Future of Service Management, 2016.
Gogia, S., Defining the Touchpoint, Master Service Design, 2013.
55