A CRX framework and tools to design for relationships in service settings

Abstract

This paper presents a framework and tools to improve—by design—relationships between customers and large-scale service organisations. Up to now, several attempts have been made in both academia and practice to improve these relationships, but so far approaches such as relationship marketing and customer relationship management have failed to deliver on their theoretical promise. Several design studies and projects have pointed to more pragmatic new directions for improving relationships, albeit mostly in highly local settings and without as an extensive theoretical background. In this paper we revisit this issue from the perspective of large scale service organisations that seek to enjoy better relationships with their customers at a sustained and large scale. We propose that improved relationships be based on designing for ‘customer relationship experiences’ (CRX), in which both the customer and the organisation benefit, through mutual contributions that go beyond direct commercial exchange. To this purpose, the present paper provides a CRX framework and tools (with industry evaluation) that bring together the theory of marketing and practice of design literatures for assisting larger service organisations to design for relationships.