Conference article

Companies are searching for new and better ways to differentiate their market offerings in order to stay competitive and make a profit (Shaw and Ivens; 2002). The move towards service as a competitive weapon is a fundamental reaction to the evolution of competition and one of the major ways for companies to differentiate by creating new customer value through favourable service experiences (Johnston and Clark 2005; Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004; Voss 2003). The aim of this paper is to undertake some exploratory and grounded research into service organizations that provide pre-purchase experiences for their customers. Our research question is: how do service organizations go about designing and delivering pre-service experiences test-drives; for their customers. The purpose of the paper is to develop and test designs of test-drives for services and discuss guidelines which might inspire and help organizations design and manage pre-purchase service experiences. In particular we will explore the applicability of an earlier theoretical framework; (Edvardsson et al. 2005); then illustrate; develop and refine the framework and propose design dimensions to be used when developing pre-experience services.

The next section provides our theoretical points of departure and presents the theoretical framework. The following section explains our method; followed by the description and analysis of our case studies. In the final section we discuss our research contribution; managerial implications and suggest areas for future research.

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