Adam Lawrence has a very interesting blog on experience and service design. I found his example on experience design very interesting: if you sit in a train and hear the voice of the service guy selling coffee you probably do not react, unless you really need a coffee. But one minute later, when you can smell the coffee of the passenger in the next seat, who ordered a coffee you desperately desire to get one, too. But when you call the guy he is gone already!!! Passengers needs to be prompted somehow to the service. The experience starts before the service.
Another interesting post from the same blog is the director chair exercise. you take a member of the design team and you nominate him/her as the director, than you nominate one member as the customer and a third one as the service attendant. the director has to design the interaction on the basis of the behaviour of the other two acting the service. Of course it requires that the customer behave very honestly…
nicomorelli 