Service design is all about taking a service and making it meet the user’s and customer’s needs for that service. It can be used to improve an existing service or to create a new service from scratch. The goal of service design is to clarify what the service provides to the users, detailing it into more specific features. The growing demand for innovative services forces traditional product-oriented companies to perceive the potentials and strategic importance of services. Innovative services enable these companies to ensure their market positions and to achieve economical success. Due to this, it becomes necessary to systemize service design, development and management processes as well as to tightly integrate products and services.

The general principles of service design are:

• Services should be designed based on a genuine comprehension of the purpose of the service, the demand for the service and the ability of the service provider to deliver that service.
• Services should be designed based on customer needs rather than the internal needs of the business.
• Services should be designed to deliver a unified and efficient system rather than component-by-component which can lead to poor overall service performance.
• Services should be designed based on creating value for users and customers and to be as efficient as possible.
• Services should be designed on the understanding that special events (those that cause variation in general processes) will be treated as common events (and processes designed to accommodate them)
• Services should be designed with input from the users of the service
• Services should be prototyped before being developed in full
• Services should be designed following a clear business case and model
• Services should be designed and delivered in collaboration with all relevant stakeholders (both external and internal)