Abstract

By combining the theory of jobs-to-be-done with design thinking, this chapter investigates how a multinational technology company successfully implements a new digital customer support service. By engaging representatives from different customer care units, service designers, and business decision makers through workshops and by conducting in-depth interviews with end-users, the company developed the idea to launch an online customer support community to better meet the customers’ most pressing jobs to be done. The idea was further substantiated by a best-practice study of the functional, emotional, and social dimensions of customer jobs that were developed by examining the online support community of another European telecommunication company as a best practice case. Finally, post-implementation success was confirmed by monitoring activity in the new community, interviewing employees working with the community, and by conducting a consumer survey. The chapter contributes to the innovation and customer engagement literature by showing how jobs-to-be-done and design thinking can be applied to identify key customer issues and to innovate a new service concept. For managers, we show how companies, by offering gamification mechanisms and moderating the community, can ensure its return-on-investment and success.