Discovery of new service concepts for diverse markets

A major challenge in service design is the ability to generate useful service concepts for development. New service concepts, however, are often difficult for customers to articulate. In this study we address the idea generation stage of the service development process and suggest the integration of customer scripts to facilitate service concept discovery with the customer. We examine the process using data from in-depth laddering interviews with lead users of mobile services across three geographically diverse markets. Results show that the new service concepts generated in this study are applicable in all three markets although usage motivations differ by market. Advanced service design and development methods need to incorporate global customer differences explicitly in order to meet market needs.