title: Service Innovation: How to Go from Customer Needs to Breakthrough Services
author:  Lance Bettencourt 
description: <span><b>Lance A. Bettencourt, PhD</b>, is aPartner with Service 360 Partners, a consultancy focused on helping companies excelat service. He is also a Distinguished Marketing Fellow with the Neeley Schoolof Business, Texas Christian University.</span><br /><br /><span>As a consultant, Lance has workedwith many of the world's leading companies to uncover product and serviceinnovation opportunities, including ADP, Microsoft Corporation,Colgate-Palmolive, Hewlett-Packard Company, State Farm Insurance, TD BankFinancial Group, and others.</span><br /><br /><span>He has also led service andinnovation workshops with executives from hundreds of companies, including Dunn&amp; Bradstreet, Intel, McDonalds, Ingersoll-Rand Corporation, Marriott,Roche, and the Central Intelligence Agency.</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>He is the author of severalpapers focused on best practices in service and innovation published in <i>Harvard Business Review</i>, <i>MIT Sloan Management Review</i>, <i>California Management Review</i>, <i>Business Horizons</i>, and <i>Marketing Management</i>, as well as severalacademic journals. Prior to consulting, he was a marketing professor at IndianaUniversity.</span>
zlib_text: The State of Customer
  Service in 2020
  Data-Driven Research Report
  
  Table of Contents
  Introduction
  Chapter 1
  How customers are changing, and how 
  companies are adapting
  Chapter 2
  The biggest challenges and industry 
  trends for service teams
  Chapter 3
  Tools of the trade for service teams
  Chapter 4
  Structure, measurement, and career paths 
  for service teams
  Conclusion
  
  Introduction
  
  Introduction
  Welcome to HubSpot’s annual State of Service research report. 
  This report is our effort to better understand the service industry. Each year we survey 
  service teams, analyze the data, uncover trends, and share our findings with the larger 
  community. This annual report is produced by HubSpot’s in-house research team. 
  For the 2020 State of Service we surveyed 1,125 respondents from the US (62%), UK (22%), 
  Canada (12%), and Australia (4%). We asked these customer service professionals about 
  their tools, processes, and teams, as well as their thoughts on the industry as a whole. 
  Respondents ran