User Experience for Services

A long time ago I came across an article, which discussed the rise of services versus products. The image on the right, more or less, summerizes the essence of the article. In the top half, there is an illustration for how the U.S. economic output for products and services has evolved over the past 3 decades. The output of services is definately on the rise, while the output of products is actually on the decline. What is driving this dynamic? Does this trend exist across all kinds of services and products (consumer goods, technology, retail, etc) or with specific industries?

And on the bottom half, three different, yet equally related, disciplines are associated to each decade. In the 80's the predominant discipline was quality. After all it was in 1982 that Edward Deming, the known American statistician, published his well-known book "Out of Crisis" which addressed several management topics. And of those topics, Deming emphasized that quality and continuous improvement of product and services were required for companies seeking transformation in the marketplace.

Deming's work probably created a foundation for the a discipline that prevailed the 90's, which this image dipicts as re-engineering. It was Dr. Michael Hammer, a well-known management strategist, who professed the discipline of business process re-engineering or BPR. Hammer is quoted to say that "Serving the customer is not a mechanical act but one that provides an opportunity for fulfillment and meaning."

And interestingly enough, the emphasis on fulfillment and meaning has probably resulted in another discipline to come to the forefront of business, which has emerged already in the 2000's and is being proliferated across industries -- namely user experience. And a key contributor for this discipline is Dan Pink, a journalist who is the author of "A Whole New Mind" a book that encourages businesses to provide fulfillment and meaning to their customers.

So if one were to look at products and services, it is quite clear that products are sold once, while services are sold for a lifetime. And while these disciplines of quality, re-engineering, and user experience have been (and continue to be) applicable to products, they are equally applicable to the services that accompany them. This is especially important to consider when one re-engineers services. How can optimal user experience be attached to a companies's service strategy? What strategic activities should companies develop? What sort of skills sets should companies look for in teams that will innovate service?

These are topics I hope to explore in my blog entries. But it goes without saying that in light of the dynamics at play between the output of products and servcices one should keep in mind the evolution of the various disciplines that attach to these entities...