As we move deeper
and into a service economy, differentiation of service offerings occurring
through the customer experience is becoming central to the success of
service providers. The emerging discipline of service design
must find new ways to orchestrate settings for customers that will result
in favourable and memorable service experiences allowing for
differentiation to take place. Services
are defined through their intangibility where customer’s efforts are
deemed inseparable from creating favourable experiences. The temporal
nature of services mean that time is an important dimension. These factors can
be a challenge for the service designer. Around the sacred, rituals and myths are
created to concretize and comprehend its intangible nature. These socially
driven constructions give structure to time and seasons, narratives to
fundamentals truths and meaning, whilst alleviating anxiety though life
changes and allowing for euphoric experiences. This
paper draws from the theory relating to sacred, mainly from the social
sciences, but also through a ‘bricolage’ approach, which aggregates
relevant and useful concepts from the humanities. It argues that service
design can benefit from the operationalization of theory relating to the
sacred as a way to create favourable experiences and value for service
customers.
Nordic Design Research Conference 2013
