This is Service Design Thinking outlines a contemporary approach for service innovation. Service design and design thinking are lately evolving into buzz words for management and business consulting. This is Service Design Thinking strives to unveil the practical meaning behind these terms in everyday use. The book introduces this new way of thinking to beginners but also serves as a reference for professionals.

Although service design and design thinking in general recently gains vast interest by both business and research, until now there was no comprehensive textbook outlining the approach, including its background, process, methods and tools as well as contemporary case studies. A set of 23 international authors created this interdisciplinary textbook applying exactly the same user-centred and co-creative approach it preaches. "The unique visual language of This is Service Design Thinking extends the idea of a classic textbook. Based on workshops and contextual interviews using prototypes of this book, the reader is now supported with various visual aides to facilitate a pleasurable and effective reading experience" highlights Jakob Schneider, co-editor and graphic designer of the book.

Change is a constant: Innovative service concepts and ground-breaking business models outrun established products and services. Social media empowers customers and cause an overdue shift of companies from classic advertisement towards service quality and customer experience. Social media as the customer's megaphone broadcasts the perceived service experience to a growing audience. Thus, the perceived experience becomes the key factor for success of both new and established offerings. This entails business opportunities particularly for small- and medium sized companies, since customer recognition does not necessarily rely on mere market share anymore.

"The strength of service design thinking is that it is not a defined and thus restricted discipline, but rather a common approach and process including various tools and methods rooted in different disciplines from design to engineering, from management to marketing." explains Marc Stickdorn, editor of This is Service Design Thinking. An appendant website to the book offers free downloads of ready-to-use tools such as the Customer Journey Canvas.