Enhancing the Customer Journey during COVID-19 through Service Design: A Case Study of Pawnshops in Bangkok

Abstract

This paper has two research objectives: 1) to examine the customer journeys of pawnshop customers during COVID-19; and 2) to examine how service design can enhance the pawnshop customer journey. Using Bangkok as a case study, this paper discusses the roles of pawnshop businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. The key challenges in terms of the negative perceived image of pawnshops, the disruptive impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and digital disruption are analyzed. By utilizing a qualitative research method, the research design was broken into two parts. The first part focuses on the journeys of pawnshop customers during COVID-19 whilst the second part is the interviews with pawnshop executives focusing on how service design can enhance the pawnshop customer journey. By utilizing the theoretical underpinnings of service design, this paper proposes a framework to explore how a human-centered, transformative, and service system approach can help to address pawnshop service challenges with a recommended research agenda.