Customer Co-Creation in Service Innovation

الملخص

Service firms increasingly invite customers to help design new offers, but the benefits depend on how and when customers are involved. In a field study of nine hotel and healthcare organisations, we compare co-creation workshops held at the idea stage with those held during prototyping. Early involvement produced more varied ideas, while later involvement produced more usable ones. Customers who were given concrete tasks, rather than general invitations to comment, contributed more and reported higher satisfaction with the process. Frontline employees played a decisive role by translating customer input into changes to daily routines. The study suggests that firms should plan co-creation as a sequence of focused activities, choose participants for their experience, and give staff time to act on what they hear, since good ideas collected from customers often fail at the point of implementation.