Service Futures: What is Expected from Customer Care?

Customer care is a critical aspect of service provision. A customer-centric approach to the design of services depends on knowledge of customers’ preferences and expectations for customer care. In this paper, we present a study on customers’ near future expectations for customer care within selected service sectors. As part of a future scenario process, 151 participants contributed their perspectives on customer care for banking, telecom, and logistic services. The study findings highlight expectations concerning service value and service experience, and shed light on preferences for self-service vs. manual care. Furthermore, we find that, though the participants expressed a marked preference for service providers that add a positive experiential aspect to their customer care, the studied service sectors were not closely associated with experiential customer care. Consequently, the experiential aspects of customer care may represent an unrealized potential in these sectors.