In my keynote at Forrester’s recent Customer Experience Forum, I introduced the audience to the emerging field of service design. Here’s a short video clip in case you missed it:

Because of their breadth and their focus on creating value for customers — as opposed to, say, developing marketing communication programs — service design agencies are key partners for companies looking to improve or overhaul their customer experience. If you’re not familiar with service design or haven’t yet worked with a service design agency, you should:

  • Read the Touchpoint journal. Touchpoint is the publication of the Service Design Network (SDN), a professional association for service designers and customer experience professionals.  You can order hard copies on the SDN website or get Kindle editions from Amazon. (Disclosure: I’m on the Touchpoint advisory board, contribute a regular column, and act as an occasional editor.)
  • Attend the 2011 service design conference on October 20th 21st in San Francisco. This year’s global service design conference will look at service design’s impact on business. (I hope to see you there!) Companies in Europe can also attend several regional conferences that take place each year.
  • Check out my reports on service design. My report "Service Design Creates Breakthrough Customer Experiences" recaps some of the standout case studies from the 2010 SDN conferences. And my report on "The Customer Experience Ecosystem" discusses some of the key principles and practices of service design.
  • Get in touch with a service design agency. If you’re a Forrester client, set up an inquiry with me, and I’ll point you to service designers in the US, Europe, and South America who can help your company transform its customer experience. The SDN website also has a list of service design agencies.

P.S. If you’re a service design agency and we haven't yet had a chance to chat, please get in touch with me on Twitter (@kerrybodine) so we can set up a briefing. Or, just send a request directly to briefings@forrester.com, and they'll help us out.