A well designed piece of jewelry reflects the use of balance, tension, depth and emphasis to present a product that generates an appealing aesthetic experience. Just as jewelry designers use design as a process to create a desirable product; jewelry managers need to use design to create most desirable shopping experiences. Consider how design is used to create something tangible like jewelry and can also be used to create intangibles like services. Just as jewelry designers use bench tools and manufacturing techniques to create jewelry products; today’s jewelry managers must now leverage the use of processes and technologies to sculpture services that deliver desired customer experiences.Selling jewelry now includes the emerging field of service design which encompasses well thought through customer experiences gained through intangible and tangible mediums. By focusing on the desired benefits to be derived through end user experiences retailers offering jewelry can design systems and processes that represent more holistic approaches to servicing customers. Today jewelry managers need to expand their expertise in design from the products created on the work bench to the services both promised and delivered while waiting on a customer from behind a display case or through a digital experience.

Jewelry sales have always included customer services. However, new jewelry business models now incorporate multiple sales channels and need to reflect more sensitivity for specific customer needs unique to each sales channel. Luxury products, including jewelry, must now reflect a new socio-economic value that addresses today’s recession oriented economy while fulfilling aesthetic desires and renewing the cyclical appeal of fashion oriented buyers.

Design for success must now include a business model that is focused on providing superior customer experiences. The principles of design enable jewelry designers to create jewelry that anticipates how people will perceive and feel about each jewelry creation. Now jewelry store managers must become more adapt at implementing cross-disciplinary approaches that combine skills in design, management, merchandising, sales and process engineering. Design is a discipline that can be applied to jewelry products and services.

Services have existed and have been organized in various forms since time immemorial. However, consciously designed services that incorporate new business models empathetic to user needs and attempt to create new socio-economic value in society are now part of running a business in 2010. Service design is essential in an knowledge driven economy.

JCK