When developing new services or products, interaction with the customers can, at best, result unique, functional innovations, beneficial to both the company and the customer. Still many companies fail either involving customers or achieving the benefits of the customer involvement. (Research suggests that more than 50% of the companies involve customers in B2C context, but their scope is limited to traditional market research techniques (customers as informants), only 6% of the companies involve customers as sole developers, the deepest level of involvement.)

The background for this blog post is the book “Involving Customers In New Service Development” edited by Bo Edvardsson et al. The Book is a collection of some breakthrough researches on customer’s involvement in various industries.

Roles of the Development Team – Management & Choosing the Right Customers

Successful management of different development process stages enables integrating customer involvement in company’s innovation system. Continue reading →