The Role of Service Design in Enhancing Marketing-Customer Service Collaboration

Abstracts

Customer experience would help create and improve one of the important growing aspects of business and services, primarily for managers. However, customer experience has largely been a theoretical discussion with scant practical application. Accordingly, this study is built on two theoretical pillars of service design and customer experience. First, as part of a bigger project this chapter is a case study examining how the marketing team and customer service can apply service design tools to communicate and enhance the customer experience of students. Relying on the multilevel service design model, this study adopted in-depth interviews for the marketing team, focus group discussions for the students (customers), and independent web analysts as mystery shoppers. The results of the qualitative data were depicted using a service blueprint. This study argues that service blueprinting highlights critical touch points within the college’s service ecosystem, which are crucial for the customers to acquaint themselves with the front and backend processes and delivery mechanisms. The study highlights implications for theory and practice.

Introduction

As competition intensifies, firms continuously craft and deliver the best customer experiences. Therefore, firms must concentrate on the service encounters and be aware of the pre, during, and post-service experiences. Thus, Forbes (2019) reports that customer prioritisation by firms has led to 80% growth over firms that do not prioritise the customer. The same report concludes that about 96% of customers overwhelmingly agree that customer service is critical to their brand choice. The theoretical foundation of customer experience has been applied in different service contexts. This is because the intensity of competition has predisposed firms to not only attract new customers but also retain existing customers. Empirical evidence has linked customer experience, customer loyalty, and firms’ profitability (Srivastava & Kaul, 2016; Gao et al., 2020; Williams et al., 2020).

The popularity of customer experience has gained more traction with the emergence of service design. A little over 25 years since its emergence (Mager et al., 2020), service design has grown within the practitioner and academic circles. Service design has been gaining popularity recently because it integrates the different touch points within the service ecosystem (Clatworthy, 2012). It starts with understanding the customer and his needs, mapping the customer journey for the given service, and delivering the right service (Jaakkola & Terho, 2021). A successful service design project involves interlacing the marketing team, customer service, the customer, and other relevant actors within the service delivery ecosystem (Joly et al., 2019). Service design enhances the conceptualisation of the service prototypes and mirrors the customer’s perception in every stage of the service encounter, thus enabling service providers to render customer-centric services. In addition, service design allows firms to rigorously analyse and control new analyse offerings to address service failure and quality (Vink et al., 2021). Earlier, Patrício et al. (2011) suggest that service design provides the transition from understanding the customer experience to devising service solutions that meet the customer’s needs. However, the growth of service design still faces daunting challenges across practitioners, scholars, and contexts. For instance, some views service design issues as complex and in some cases, undesignable (Suoheimo et al., 2020), while it has also been argued that major economies (e.g. the United States) have not yet appreciated the value of service design across industries and professional lines (Frog, 2021).

A thorough literature search, to the best of our understanding, reveals an apparent lack of literature on the application of service design to vocational education services, especially where such vocational educational training provides opportunities for the integration of immigrants to a new country to provide them with the requisite skills and vocational know-how to earn a living in the new country. Accordingly, this study is a case example of integrating service design thinking into the vocational education of immigrants. The case example is a Finnish vocational education institution based in Central Finland and, for the sake of privacy, would be referred to as ‘the college’ throughout this study. The college recruits students monthly into its programmes, divided into three main departments: catering, homecare, and parties and events. While there are native Fins as college students, most of its students are immigrants in different stages of their integration programs. Students are expected to conclude their studies after 2 years of intensive training.

Thus, the study has two key objectives: (a) to understand the challenges of immigrants in acquiring vocational education and (b) to apply service design to enhance their learning experience. The rest of the study is structured as follows: the next section provides the literature review. Sections “Research Methodology” and “Data Analysis and Results” treat research methodology and data analysis very well. The last section provides the discussion and study implications.

Theoretical Background

The theoretical positioning of service design has generated heated debate and is often controversial amongst service science scholars who have adduced multiple theoretical standpoints (Ng et al., 2011). At the basic level, some argue that service design has its root connection to design thinking (Edman, 2009; Ojasalo & Ojasalo, 2015). The proponents of this thought dwell more on the practice-based understanding of design thinking and link it to reflections-in-action (Schön, 1983), which emphasises the practicalities of designing, such as the tools and methods. Design thinking also emphasises empathy, intuition, and the iterative processes of decoupling the components parts from the whole (Edman, 2009). Design thinking mirrors service from the user’s perspective and sees the user as the co-creator of the service (Dam and Siang, 2018). Even more, the emergence of service-dominant logic valorises the design thinking in service research within seven fundamental premises. Service-dominant logic’s overarching theoretical assumption is that value is the fundamental premise for all exchanges and that all actors, including the customer, within the value chain are co-creators of value (Vargo & Lusch, 2004). By integrating design thinking and service-dominant logic in service design literature, the position of the customer/user as a critical and indispensable actor in the service delivery ecosystem is amplified (Edman, 2009).

The Relationship between Customer Experience and Service Design

In the past few years, increased scholarly attention has been devoted to the customer experience because of its link to loyalty and profitability (Srivastava & Kaul, 2016). It is defined as a ‘customer’s cognitive and affective assessment of all direct and indirect encounters with the firm relating to their purchasing behaviour’ (Klaus, 2013, p. 227). However, a more integrated definition views it as comprising ‘the cognitive, emotional, physical, sensorial, and social elements that mark the customer’s direct or indirect interaction with a [set of] market actor[s]’ (De Keyser et al., 2015, p. 1). This definition offers insight into how understanding the totality of the customers’ personal and other connecting elements helps the firm to satisfy the customer.

From the standpoint of service-dominant logic (Vargo & Lusch, 2004), customer experience is not designed but co-created. Teixeira et al. (2012) argue that service designers must understand the context of the customer and all the processes along the customer journey, including offering the customer opportunity for interactions along different service touchpoints. In this context, the firm is not relying on its experiences and skill set to deliver a predicted pleasurable customer experience. Still, it acts as a facilitator in which the customer is involved in co-creating their experience. In practical terms, firms employ either the reductionist approach (Ng et al., 2011) or the multilevel service design (Patrício et al., 2011) to deliver the co-created customer experience.

The reductionist approach proposes that a system must be broken down into different components, and each of these components must be analysed, studied, and understood to be able to gain an understanding of the higher level phenomenon (Vink et al., 2021). However, the practicality of the reductionist approach has been questioned in light of modern complex systems. Those who hold this view contend that modern services comprise multiple layers, disciplines, and interfaces that require different levels of interaction with service providers, thus, rendering the reductionist approach practically challenging for service designers (Patrício et al., 2011; Teixeira et al., 2012; Joly et al., 2019).

Multilevel service design recognises the deficiencies of modern services and proposes better alternatives. It proposes that services must be approached and understood from four layers: studying the customer experience; designing the service concept; designing the service system, and designing the service encounter (Patrício et al., 2011). Studying the customer experience employs different qualitative data collection methods (e.g. in-depth interviews, focus groups, observations) to gain a detailed understanding of the customer experiences. At the designing of the service stage, the firm first decomposes the customer value constellation and designs a concept that integrates the different customer value constellations. In stage three, the firm gains an understanding of the service experience through interactions with different actors and designs the service architecture and the service system navigation. At stage four, the firm designs the service encounter with the service experience blueprint (Patrício et al., 2011).

Service Design in HEIs and Immigrants’ Experiences in Vocational Educational Institutions

Amongst the different tiers of education, higher educational institutions (HEIs) have mainly benefited from the application of service design research. For instance, Baranova et al. (2011) found that in applying service design, the administrative system of the University of Derby has recorded significant improvements in terms of quality of information, online enrolment for students, staffing, queuing time, and overall student satisfaction. Wolfe (2020) contends that in the face of increasing pressure on HEIs to outperform and outlast their peers, service design provides a sustainable opportunity for effective change in the HEI sector. In a literature review study, Joshi and Alavaikko (2020) found that studies utilising service design in HEIs applied the method in co-creating and co-designing students’ experiences, group design, service studio, storyboarding, and involvement inclusion.

The key mission of vocational education institutions is to imbue life skills and competencies in students (Pambudi & Harjanto, 2020). However, several studies point out that immigrants face language (Weibert et al., 2019), information technology skills (Farshbaf Shaker, 2018), and socialisation challenges (Golan & Babis, 2019), and these challenges not only affect their integration processes but also inhibit their potentials in the new country (Gericke et al., 2018; Newman et al., 2018). As current integration methodologies fail to address these issues holistically (Gebhardt, 2016), service design could offer some relief. This is particularly important in light of Joshi & Alavaikko’s (2020) call to extend service design to the vocational education sector. Thus, this study follows the multilevel service design by first seeking an understanding of the students’ experiences of the vocational institution through different data collection methods such as interviews, focus groups, and mystery shopping. Then, the study goes further to design the service system and encounter by employing some service design tools.

Research Methodology

This study followed Patrício et al.’s (2011) postulation of the dimensions of multilevel service design. First, it sets out by studying the customer experience. Accordingly, this study employs in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and online mystery shopping. The study adopted in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with the service staff and students. In-depth interviews help to gain a comprehensive understanding and insight into the nuances, emotions, and feelings of actors of the study phenomenon (Vaportzis et al., 2017; Kauppinen-Räisänen et al., 2019). Similarly, a focus group consists of a panel discussion whereby a moderator investigates and explores the research phenomenon while conducting a discussional session with a group comprising 5–8 persons (Nyumba et al., 2018). A focus group usually helps to provide holistic information which is connected with research objective and enhance a clear understanding of the phenomenon.

Thus, the institution’s rector and a service staff member were interviewed. The interview with the rector was held on 27th August 2020, while that of a service staff member was held on September 2nd September 2020. The interviews were recorded with a digital device. The study transcribed the data into scripts, followed by repeated reading. The interviews were supplemented by mystery shopping. Similarly, three mystery shoppers were engaged. Since most of the students are foreigners who are primarily enrolled in their integration programme, the mystery shoppers were drawn from a diverse range of cultures: Fin, Chinese, and Nigerian. They were briefed to examine the institution’s website from a cultural perspective, specifically identifying the college’s offerings, service staff and their specialisations, and other touchpoints. Table 4.1 shows the participants of the data collection sessions.

Table 4.1 Summary of data collection types and participants

Data Analysis and Results

In this section, we will analyse the data and present the results. The authors adopted content analysis through repeated reading of the interview scripts. The themes that emerged from the content analysis formed the groupings for the discussion below.

Understanding the Needs of the Students

As Patrício et al. (2011) recommended, a focus group is one of the tools for studying the customer experience. In this study, focus group discussions were held with the students of the following departments: events and parties, catering and home care, and cleaning. The first focus group was held with the events and parties department on 26th August 2020. The second meeting was held with the catering department on 15th September 2020, while the last meeting was held with home care and cleaning services students on 4th September 2020. The focus group discussion reveals four key issues: collaboration opportunities, language opportunities, skills in computer operation, and food.

Platform for Collaboration

One core issue amongst the students is that they need collaboration. The session reveals that the students need closer bonding. As most of the students are immigrants and refugees who have fled different political, economic crises, they wish to acclimate to the new culture fully. They emphasised the need to make friends and socialise with others. One of the students said

‘I am interested in knowing more of my coursemates than what is presently obtainable’.

The time designated for learning and teaching looks grossly inadequate to provide the bonding opportunity students crave. They highlighted that they want to make friends amongst themselves and with the native Fins. They also highlighted that making friends with the native Fins would allow them to integrate into the Finnish system and culture more seamlessly. A majority of them are refugees, and the need to make friends and socialise with fellow students and native Fins is even more necessary because it will help them heal from the trauma they suffered in their home countries.

A collaboration opportunity could provide a more practical way to co-create the learning experience. It is argued that peer learning is more effective than teacher-to-student (Harrington et al., 2014). Additionally, a forum that allows students to ask questions and learn from peers would be a great way to accelerate their understanding of the issues discussed in class. Moreover, doing things in common to socialise can fight off lonely feelings and depressive tendencies. The socialisation opportunities could be physical or online where, for instance, they can share in celebrations such as birthdays, childbirth, graduation, and so on. We argue that while socialisation solidifies the students’ bonding, it also fosters camaraderie amongst students.

Language Skills

Finnish language skills pose another challenge to international students. The college uses Finnish as the primary language of instruction. While the students acknowledge that the college has organised additional lessons for them, they were unanimous in echoing the need for additional efforts to help their Finnish language skills. Some students who have less eductation, essentially from their home countries, face challenges in writing and speaking. They requested for more lessons to enhance writing and speaking skills that would prepare them sufficiently for their career after graduation.

Note-taking is a critical component of the learning process. Some noted that because of their poor Finnish language skills, they usually get scared when given homework. One of them said:

‘Each time I wake up and realise that I will have to go to school, I am always worried that assignments will be given. And scared of interpreting the recipe’.

The Finnish language skills are of utmost importance to them because the college is part of their integration pathway. Thus, mastering the Finnish language (spoken and written) is a critical requirement for attaining the certification level they need. To help their integration, we suggest the college organise more Finnish language classes for the students. The college can achieve the additional Finnish language classes by embedding them into the curriculum and noting the different academic levels of the students. Furthermore, since the students have admitted that there are ongoing Finnish language classes, the college can increase the time allocation for the classes.

When the college’s budget permits, it can customise the Finnish language sessions for the students by identifying their different levels and giving them special sessions commensurate to their language skills. The benefit of such personal sessions is that it does not only speed up their mastery of Finnish language skills, it also has the possibility of fostering the socialisation experience of the immigrants and also provide an avenue for their healing for those who have suffered different forms of psychological trauma in their home countries.

Basic Computer Skills

Most of the students from developing countries lack computer/technology skills. Computer skills are of utmost importance because the college uses a learning management system with which the students are expected to be conversant. With some of them without grade school experience, using computers and smartphones to access the learning management system is challenging. Sometimes, their assignment includes searching online for cleaning, recipes, and home care materials. Most of them shared their frustration during the COVID-19 lockdown, during which they stayed home to join classes and complete their homework. Some admitted that their more computer-compliant partners and children assisted them during that period.

These students may continue to suffer these difficulties in silence. We argue that the college can embed an introductory computer skills course into its curriculum. Currently, the practice in which the college assumes the same level of computer knowledge for both the immigrant and native Finnish students may prolong the challenges for these immigrant students. Additionally, the college can also pair immigrant students with native Fins who may be willing to help in bridging these gaps.

Besides embedding ICT training into the college’s curriculum will benefit the students, it will also help to imbue a sense of confidence in them during the homework sessions. Currently, most students are aided by their partners and children to complete their computer-based homework. Therefore, a situation where they can handle such a task will significantly boost their social and psychological state.

Views on Food Services

The students also hinted that the daily provision of food is both a psychological and health booster for them. Though some immigrant students found it difficult to get accustomed to Finnish food, they now enjoy it. One area for improvement, however, is that the college should, instead of providing international cuisines from countries not represented by the student population; rather integrate the immigrant students to showcase their local cuisines to their international peers. Furthermore, as the college comprises immigrant students from different countries, featuring their food will provide the students with a sense of belonging. They also suggested that some days should be set aside as special days for the college to celebrate cultural food fiesta.

The Perspective of the Service Provider

Since multilevel service design involves the co-creation of experience between the customer and the service providers (Patrício et al., 2011), this study also had an interview session with the rector. The interview with the rector reveals that the college understands the challenges encountered by immigrant students and is working to mitigate them as much as possible. The rector revealed that they understand most of the student’s challenges, especially the language skills training. To this end, he mentioned that the college is working out the best strategies to speed up their Finnish language skills. In addition, he plans that the number of staffs would be increased to balance the student/staff ratio, which is necessary for more effective communication between the teacher and the student.

When he was asked what specific attributes that make the college peculiar compared to other colleges offering similar courses, the rector stated that it lies in the flexibility of their programmes. He argued that in some vocational colleges, the student usually concludes their programmes with the cohort they started with. However, the college is different because the programme is learner-paced, which implies that the student can conclude their programmes at their pace. This also implies that students can conclude their programme faster based on previous work experience and study diligence.

The study also interviewed a member of the catering department. The interview aimed to understand how the daily provision of meals impacts the students’ experience. The school has free and quality food service for all students. Besides eating at school, students can also buy food and take it home at a considerably cheap price. School meals are also helpful to struggling and low-income families. School meals are provided to increase student enrolment. Additionally, school meals are regulated. Thus, relevant authorities ensure that the dietary and nutritional components are of high quality, which may not be so with foods provided in some homes. When asked how food helps to improve the student’s learning and experience, she opined that it helps the concentration of the students. She further stated that improper feeding could impact students’ concentration and class performance. She stated that the students are served twice daily meals and that the effect has been tremendous on class attendance.

Results of Mystery Shopping

As noted earlier, mystery shopping was also used to collect the required data besides in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Mystery shopping, a technique used to measure the quality of service offering by disguising the shopper as a true customer, has been used in different service contexts (Yaoyuneyong et al., 2018; Tarantola et al., 2012; Staudacher et al., 2021). Though the ethicality of mystery shopping has been questioned (Ng Kwet Shing & Spence, 2002), it has seen increasing use, especially within technology-enhanced services (Mulder & Snijders, 2022). Mystery shopping in our study was limited to the website due to COVID-19 outbreak (Health Crisis). Thus, the only way we could conduct mystery shopping was through the college’s website, being the sole platform to access the college’s offerings. Therefore, a briefing session was held with the shoppers in which they were told to evaluate the college’s website subject to its look, information availability, and information accessibility. These three areas were considered cardinal because most of the college’s applicants resort to their website first before contacting them. The findings of the three shoppers are analysed and presented in Fig. 4.1.

Fig. 4.1

Observed outcomes and suggested key points from mystery shopping

Discussion and Implications

The study aimed to understand the challenges of immigrants in acquiring vocational education and apply service design to enhance their learning experience. Guided by the central purpose of marketer-customer service collaboration, the study applied Patrício et al. (2011) multi-level service design model by first studying the customer experience. In this first stage, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions were held with marketers (service providers) and customers (students). Findings reveal that the college is performing well in some areas, such as information on the website, teacher-student relationships, and Finnish language skills. However, focus group discussions with students highlight areas that require improvement. Service design utilises several tools to highlight the service gap to proffer improvement. Subsequently, following Patrício et al.’s (2011) design of the service system and the service encounter, this section will utilise service blueprinting to conceptually map out the service that meets the students’ expectations. The tools include a service blueprint and a value proposition canvas.

In Fig. 4.2., we utilise a service blueprint to show critical steps and touchpoints from application to graduation. A crucial rationale for the popularity of service blueprinting is that it showcases the centrality of the customer and aligns all internal processes towards delivering excellent customer service (Bitner et al., 2008; Ryu et al., 2020). Our service blueprinting follows Ryu et al. (2020) online-to-offline service blueprint. This new model integrates the elements of the online and offline service touchpoints to deliver holistic customer service.

Fig. 4.2

Service blueprint to foster learning experience of immigrant vocational college students

Based on the findings of mystery shopping, information on admission and other information on the college’s website are not sufficiently clear, particularly from the perspective of a non-native Fin. Therefore, this study systematically presents the necessary steps new applicants need to take to enhance their experiences.

The service blueprint is divided into two sections: pre- and post-admission. The pre-admission columns detail all the necessary information the applicant needs to be acquainted with. The first column in the service blueprint highlights elements of the physical evidence that characterise student touchpoints. For instance, in the second column, ‘college website’, the immigrant students need to know that information about the college can be obtained from an internet-enabled computer system. This might be challenging for some, especially when aligned to the experience from their home countries where they depended on the manual form of information retrieval. The service blueprint further highlights that after applying the candidate will wait for a response, after which the decision will be made available via text messages or email. Another important highlight of the service blueprint is the line of visibility and line of interaction. Almost all the immigrants are of African and Asian backgrounds, where physical contact with service providers is considered a cultural necessity and a form of social obligation (James, 2019). The service blueprint is important because it not only re-orientates the immigrant students about the differences in the new culture but also clearly identifies where and when physical contact becomes necessary.

Critically important for the student to know is that below the line of visibility, there are important activities that take place at the backend. Staff involved in these roles may have physical contact with the students. Still, the awareness about these activities’ existence helps the students appreciate the various range of information available to them and the role of different service staff. From a marketing/service staff point of view, the service blueprint clearly defines roles and activities necessary to improve the college service delivery mechanism. Currently, these activities and responsibilities are mixed up, and there are no clearly defined lines of operation. The service blueprint provides the college with critical service touchpoints. Identifying these roles helps the college efficiently organise internal processes and identify critical roles requiring more attention in resource allocation and training necessary to deliver satisfactory services regularly.

Implications

Theoretical Implications

Theoretically, our study builds upon the multilevel service design (Patrício et al., 2011) to design a service delivery mechanism that co-creates the customers’ experiences. Some studies have adopted the multilevel service design in different contexts: hospitality and tourism (Chen & Chen, 2021), health records (Teixeira et al., 2019), and beauty service (Lee et al., 2019). Our study extends the multilevel service design to vocational educational services, particularly on the seamless integration of immigrants into a new culture. Several integration programmes are fraught with challenges (Gebhardt, 2016) because of the differences in the social and cultural values of the immigrants as compared to the receiving city. Our study suggests that service design is an essential tool in developing a broad-based integration programme capable of meeting the challenges of immigrants, thus, not only answering Joshi and Alavaikko (2020) call to extend service design to the vocational education sector but also demonstrating its critical relevance to the immigration literature.

Practical Implications

From a practical point of view, more attention should be given to the local language. There is an existing language lesson at the college, but it is insufficient compared to the student’s needs. For instance, if college budget is feasible, personal sessions can be scheduled with the students who are experiencing language issues. These sessions are planned after understanding the students challenges, as the idea is to help them. In addition, for those students who have psychological challenges, private sessions can be scheduled to help them. Furthermore, integration programmes should strongly emphasise computer skills training.

The percentage of persons with computer skills is higher in Europe and the United States of America, which constitutes the largest immigrant destination than the countries where these immigrants hail from. Most of the students were not taught even the basic computer skills and even few of them have not completed their graduation. Therefore, working with mobile phones and computers for homework and other school-related work was quite challenging for them. These students echoed their challenges even during the lockdown, where they were studying from home and were asked to attend the online sessions. Most of them even mentioned that they have to be depedent on their family members such as husband or children who were exposed to the ICT tools and can help them in completing their work.

Moreover, the college can initiate this socialisation opportunity by inviting alumni so that they can share their experiences periodically. In addition, social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook can be created where feelings and emotions can be shared and responses can be received from others. Interestingly, this collaborative platform will be critical in blurring the common social, cultural, and ethnocentric tendencies amongst students from different backgrounds.

Conclusion and Limitations of the Study

Service design is gaining popularity in both academia and practitioner circles. This study advances the application of service design as the connecting point for marketer-customer collaboration in a vocational education setting. Using mystery shopping by independent web analysts, in-depth interviews from the marketing team, and focus group discussion sessions with the focal customers, we provided a service blueprint that refocuses the marketing strategy of the vocational college and centralised every service and marketing activity of the college on delivering excellent customer experience. One apparent limitation of the study is that the service blueprint is just one of the service design tools – there could be one more fitting than the chosen tool. Future research could explore service design with an experimental research approach that would be more practical in relaying the customers’ experiences.