Innovation in the Service Industry

This is my favorite quote from Selling the Invisible. It drives and motivates much of what we do at Newfangled. I've been persuaded from this book that it should be the goal of every service company to create "the possible service." Beckwith points out that there are at least three stages to the maturing of a service industry. First, it creates a service that the market needs. Then it improves the service to meet what the market wants and demands. This is usually the stage where most service companies assume they've reached the goal. But some rare companies move beyond stage two, they innovate and devise services that would never even occur to a customer to ask for. They create "the possible service." These are the Disney Worlds, the FedExes, the McDonald's. Fast enough is never fast enough; fun enough is never fun enough; good enough is never good enough. While few companies accomplish this kind of service, it should be the ambition of all service companies to strive for it. This kind of service can't be created by asking the question "what do my customer's want?" but rather "what would they love?" To answer this question we can't look to our competition for ideas, because most of them have stopped at phase two. Striving after this principle insures that we never get caught in the trap of thinking our service is good enough when we have covered the bases of what our clients want or need. We need to make it better. There is always room for improvement. We can always make our service better.


Selling the Invisible was Beckwith's first book, he was written two more since then. The Invisible Touch focuses more on positioning and branding a service company. His latest book is called What Client's Love. As good as these two books are, in my opinion the first is the best. If you haven't read it already I would recommend buying yourself a present and ransacking it for the treasures within.