Value exchanges are the heart of service design.
In service design we try to arrange things (in the broadest possible sense) so that each person involved in a service — whether receiving it, delivering it on the front lines or supporting it behind the scenes — feels at each moment of the experience that the service is “worth it”.
At every moment of a service each “service actor” — each participant in the perpetually emerging service — invests something valuable in order to receive something even more valuable. “Worth it” is rarely a calculation. More often it is an intuited and felt verdict.
To the degree all the value exchanges that make up a service feel worth it to all service actors, the service works as intended and everyone flourishes, including the sponsoring organization.
To the degree value exchanges do not feel worth it to any of the service actors, the service begins to break down. Service actors withhold or withdraw, or cheat the system, or drop out of the service altogether. The withdrawal and defection of any of the service actors makes the service as a whole deteriorate, and the service becomes less and less worth it overall to everyone involved. If the deterioration continues, the service fails.
It’s all about value exchanges.