Abstract:

Service Management and Design MSc is a taught conversion MSc that develops candidates into Service Professionals. The dissertation project is worth 50% off the academic credit and equates to 900hours of work. If this project is sponsored by a business then the project is immediately more appealing and generally brings more significant development opportunities for the student. This project was sponsored by Vortex Creates, a local Immersive Environment, and Events business. The company has a strong track record and a good reputation in developing immersive experiences. However, despite the rise of the experiential economy, they had not tapped into VR/AR or opportunities posed by social media to have customers promote your business. The immersive experience has a variety of technical presentation methods and is now gradually coming to be widely used in different industries to boost customer engagement.

The purpose of the work was to identify opportunities and enhance the customer experience using digital technology and to determine how much resource is required to be able to successfully acquire the technical knowledge and actual implementation. The technology suggests such promise but smaller businesses rarely have time to evaluate let alone implement anything other than core business. Through initial analysis of the customer journey areas of greatest opportunity were identified pre-event as participants who attended events generally report having a great time.

A pilot event was run where a treasure hunt was developed so event participants collected AR characters close to the event location. When they arrived at the location the characters they had collected in AR were present as facilitators in costume or manikins. All participants were asked to complete a questionnaire and interviewed to determine the effect of the pre-event journey. At the dinner event, QR codes were located so participants could take branded selfies to post on Instagram and Facebook accounts.

Findings suggest a strong narrative will impact how memorable an experience is and offers a good opportunity to share with others after the experience. This research also summarises a service process by research data analysis which covers the organisational perspective and customer journey for immersive experience events. This helps the organization understand the issues which require attention when applying immersive experiences at different stages. All software used to create the experience was free. It took hours to upskill to be able to develop the technical skills and the storytelling skills to create the event.

The student project delivered real value to the business and a workshop was developed and delivered at a local co-working space to incubator businesses. The boundaries between student/staff/business and consultancy were sufficiently blurred and real co-creation emerged.

It takes enormous energy to foster the links between local business and industry. Breaking down perceived barriers between staff/students and business takes skillful management and should not be assumed.

Keywords:

Co-creation, widening participation.