Abstract
Service innovations are crucial for service marketers to differentiate from competitors and to meet the expanding needs of the focused market segments. Nevertheless, service innovations are usually generated in a haphazard way. There is a lack of application of market research techniques in this area as well. Therefore, the purpose of the paper is to show the development and application of a research tool, which should help generating service innovations systematically.
In order to fulfill theoretically deduced requirements regarding the special characteristics of services and service quality, the Sequential Incident Technique was modified into the Sequential Incident Technique for Innovations (SITI). This paper describes the method in detail and gives deeper insights into the results of its first application. Study findings suggest that especially negative, but also positive incidents can trigger innovative suggestions from the customers’ side. The development of coherent service innovation concepts from these suggestions, however, remains left to the research team. Implications for the future use of the SITI as a research tool as well as limitations of the study are discussed.
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Decker, A., Meissner, H. (1999). The Sequential Incident Technique for Innovations (SITI) — A Tool for Generating Improvements and Ideas in Service Processes. In: Kunst, P., Lemmink, J., Stauss, B. (eds) Service Quality and Management. Focus Dienstleistungsmarketing. Deutscher Universitätsverlag, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-90981-7_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-90981-7_8
Publisher Name: Deutscher Universitätsverlag, Wiesbaden
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