Customer Involvement In Innovation In Service Sector

Customer involvement in service innovation has been considered with a special focus on open innovation with individual consumers. The goal of the chapter was to increase our understanding on how to involve customers (individual consumers) successfully for service innovation in a controlled manner. To achieve the goal, three very different kind of Case examples on consumer involvement in service innovation (Case Owela, Case Medilaser, and Case Austrian Red Cross) were presented and discussed from a variety of standpoints related the open innovation and innovation management. The standpoints included (among others), methods and forms of the consumer involvement, openness related to the innovation work, openness related to the outcome of innovation. The three Case examples were purposely chosen to be different in these standpoints. The Case examples, together with the theoretical framework given in the chapter and the discussion of the Case examples against the theoretical framework could help managers of service firms and other service organisations in planning and leading open innovation activities with their customers in business-to-consumers markets.