Palveluketjua

Palveluketju, or service chain, is the sequence of activities, actors, and technologies involved in designing, delivering, and consuming a service. It covers front-office interactions with customers, back-office operations, and the information and materials that flow between them, often across organizational boundaries. The concept highlights that value is co-created with customers through a coordinated network rather than a single department's output.

In service management and operations research, the service chain is a component of the broader value chain and central to service-dominant logic. It maps the journey from identifying a customer need to service design, delivery, interaction, and post-service recovery, treating performance as the result of interconnected stages, touchpoints, and channels.

Key stages include identifying needs, designing the service, delivering the encounter, providing support and governance, and handling feedback or recovery. Interfaces with customers, suppliers, and partners occur at multiple points, and information systems or digital channels coordinate activities across the chain.

Management approaches emphasize mapping and improvement using tools such as customer journey maps, process diagrams, and value-stream analysis. Metrics commonly tracked include cycle time, lead time, utilization, throughput, customer satisfaction, and Net Promoter Score.

Service chains can be internal (within one organization), external (across multiple organizations), or digital (driven by ICT, APIs, and automation). The digital variant often combines data from several services to underpin experiences.

Applications span hospitality, healthcare, IT services, retail, and public administration. Examples include hotel check-in, hospital discharge planning, IT service management, and government service delivery.