The majority of service providers have recognized the need to develop innovative services that
meet sophisticated customer needs on time. Because of structural changes in the market, rising
costs and shorter lifecycles of services and technologies this has become a more demanding task
than ever before. Most of the existing research focuses on the development of products rather
than services. However, research in service related innovation activities is highly rewarding, as
the service market is about to become a dominant factor of economic development.
The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the current state of interaction research
with special focus on service marketing and service purchasing processes. A short presentation
of the most important theoretical results and findings from empirical studies will be given.
Furthermore, we will present results from our own case study investigating the IT Service
industry. In this context, we have identified three different approaches of successful
interactions between service providers and potential buyers during marketing and purchasing
processes with innovative results. We will describe these approaches, show their similarities
and differences and as a result, provide recommendations for the service industry and potential
buyers.