A Service Model for Customer-Centric Electronic Business

The needs of the Service Economy have not been yet investigated in depth in academic research. This paper analyzes customer participation in services and considers the value-adding opportunities it offers. It proposes a conceptual framework for customer participation in services that is based on customer needs, the service offering and its outcomes. As experiences may be a major type of outcomes of the service process for the customer, we examine value-adding opportunities in dealing with customer experiences and we propose a service model for the association of needs, services and experiences. Such a model can be used for the development of customer-centric services, in which the customer is empowered to configure services according to his/ her needs and preferences, services which bring superior experiences and satisfaction. Based on the example of the tourism, which is experience-intensive, we describe the functional and technical aspects of the model.