SACRED SERVICES: THE POTENTIAL FOR SERVICE DESIGN OF THEORY RELATING TO THE SACRED

As we move deeper and into a service economy,
differentiation of service offerings occurring through the
customer experience is becoming central to the success
of service providers. The emerging discipline of service
design must find new ways to orchestrate settings for
customers that will result in favourable and memorable
service experiences allowing for differentiation to take
place.
Services are defined through their intangibility where
customer’s efforts are deemed inseparable from creating
favourable experiences. The temporal nature of services
mean that time is an important dimension. These factors
can be a challenge for the service designer.
Around the sacred, rituals and myths are created to
concretize and comprehend its intangible nature. These
socially driven constructions give structure to time and
seasons, narratives to fundamentals truths and meaning,
whilst alleviating anxiety though life changes and
allowing for euphoric experiences.
This paper draws from the theory relating to sacred,
mainly from the social sciences, but also through a
‘bricolage’ approach, which aggregates relevant and
useful concepts from the humanities. It argues that
service design can benefit from the operationalization of
theory relating to the sacred as a way to create
favourable experiences and value for service customers.