Question

--what is the difference between a service and an application?

--What is service design and the role of service designer?

--Product Managers Versus Service Designers

--What are the Differences Between a Service and a Product?

--What is a Service?

Answer 1

1) An Application is a software that is designed to be installed and managed by users whereas a service is a software that is managed for users. This includes services like APIs that users never use directly. It also includes services like websites that people use but don't install & manage for themselves.

2) Service design is the activity of planning and organizing people, infrastructure, communication and material components of a service in order to improve its quality and the interaction between the service provider and its customers. Service design may function as a way to inform changes to an existing service or create a new service entirely.

The purpose of service design methodologies is to establish best practices for designing services according to both the needs of customers and the competencies and capabilities of service providers. If a successful method of service design is adapted then the service will be user-friendly and relevant to the customers, while being sustainable and competitive for the service provider.

Role Of Service Designer

A service designer works with an organisation to identify any problems with the way in which customers use the service or any improvements that could be made. The designer will research how the service is used, and suggest possible solutions.

The service designer will work to identify 'touchpoints' on the customer's journey through a service. This could be taking a bus journey, booking and taking a flight, or visiting a hospital.

Touchpoints are areas where the customer will interact directly with a brand. For example:

> logging on to the company's website
> buying a product online
> going into a shop to see the product physically
> anywhere where branding is displayed.

3) Product managers are largely concerned with their own individual products, it's a service designer's job to map out the whole ecosystem, understand how people move across services, and design the connective tissue. Service design has been around for many years, and shares much of its DNA with UX design.

4) Differences between a product and service is shown in the below table:

Product	Service
A product is tangible, it is physical and can be held, seen and movable	A service is intangible, can only be felt and not touched
Product value is derived by the customer	Value of service is offered by the service provider
Customer care of the product is limited	Customer care forms critical component of marketing a service
A product can be stored for future use	A service is perishable and cannot be stored for later use or sale
A product can be owned	A service cannot be owned by the consumer once payment has been made
The quality of a product depends its nature	Quality of a service depends on the service provider who shapes it
A product can be returned to the seller	A service cannot be returned to the seller
The billing process of a service is a once off transaction	Billing process can be continuous in the form of subscriptions for services rendered
It is easy to compare quality of products	It is difficult to compare the quality of services offered
Products can be quantified numerically	Services cannot be quantified in terms of numbers

5) Service is software that performs automated tasks, responds to hardware events, or listens for data requests from other software. In a user's operating system, these services are often loaded automatically at startup, and run in the background, without user interaction.