In the biggest keynote of ServDes 2018, Enzio Manzini – one of the godfathers of service design – predicted where he believes the field will expand into next - relational services. In fact this is something that Livework has already been working on with clients in recent years. We call it ‘Design for relationships’.

'Customer loyalty' doesn’t exist, loyalty requires give and take on both sides.

It’s long been thought that the way to keep customers coming back was simply to deliver good products and services. Adding a loyalty program or two should make customers even more satisfied, right? Wrong. In fact, organisations that want to build valuable, long lasting relationships with customers, should find ways to encourage two-way interactions in which both parties benefit.

The customer becomes more than a sales opportunity

When people  take on other roles as well as being paying customers,  they provide tremendous value for organisations as well as opening their wallets for them. For example, Cisco saves $200 million annually by means of customer-driven support communities. To find out more on the types of roles customers can take, read our article about this:

Two-way street between academia and practice

Livework has been working  with Delft University of Technology and SiR – a spinoff from Penn State University that researches service integrated relationships. Together we developed a framework and toolkit to design for relationships and presented this at ServDes 2018. The presentation we created for the conference is shared below.

Relationships are the key to future business success

Building sound relationships, not ‘customer loyalty’ is what sets successful organisations apart. They ensure customers will keep coming back and tell their friends. Building relationships is frequently an instinctive process that happens organically- not something that has been  consciously engineered. Our ‘Design for relationships’ resources can help organisations, by designing for them at the desired level from the customer’s point of view and in a way that the organisation can deliver.