Service design experiential learning: Michèle Paulin

Professor Michèle Paulin has created two of the most progressive and advanced courses in Marketing at Concordia using an approach that is based in humanism, reciprocity and the senses. The course methodology focuses on understanding how a human-centered service design experiential learning approach to teaching inspires and engages the "Next Gen" for deeper, meaningful learning and active transformation. Students develop their improvisation skills, sense of worth, and kindness towards others while mastering key service design concepts with different complexities. Through their transformative process, they discover innovative, creative, and out-of-the-box thinking for future entrepreneurship and decision-making endeavors.

Can you tell me about the course design?

John Bentley: Good morning, Michèle. Thank you for joining me this morning. I'm delighted to have this opportunity to discuss two courses you teach, Service Marketing (Mark 451) and Business-to-Business Marketing (Mark 485). I've been fortunate enough to attend and observe your classes on several occasions. And when I speak to the students, they're always really excited to talk about your course(s) and the impact it's had on them in terms of changing the way they think, the level of engagement and the delight they walked away with from the course(s), so much of what they learned and the impact it has on their lives. When I describe your course(s) to colleagues, I say it's based on the fact that you take students, work with them, and task them with applying a complex service design using an experiential learning style approach to real-world problem-solving. 

You work with students, and you ask them to remain true to the principles of humanism. You often discuss the importance of humanism, emphasizing the practice and understanding of empathy, humility, and how students are responding to these characteristics in a meaningful way. You want them to work to achieve viable outcomes in their project(s) and the cases that you asked them to work on. The students enjoy the course(s). It has a significant impact - they say that it enables them to embody marketing theoretical principles into practical and current issues. You use role-play and case studies together, and students practice those principles through theatrical case study performances and role-play. They engage in service design challenges that they have identified and work on them throughout the term. It's something fascinating to observe. So, my question to you and the reason I wanted to speak with you today was to ask you a little bit more about the course(s). What was the impetus for the design of the course(s)? How long have you been working on this design, and what inspired you to create it?

Michèle Paulin: For the Business-to-Business Marketing course (Mark 485), it was introduced from the start of my enrollment in 1997 at Concordia. For the Service Marketing course (Mark 451), it was initially a slot course that required approval and changes to the curriculum. So let me backtrack on the process. As a young professor, I took a pedagogical course on learning objectives, goals, competencies, learning assessment, and follow-through, which emphasized what students need to achieve by the end of the semester. What baggage will they take from this course into the business world, the community, or other courses, and how will it impact their personal growth? Initially, I followed the traditional path of using textbooks, taking tests, and completing exercises in class. However, I soon realized that the students were not as engaged. And it's not that I was not an engaged person, because for me, a class is a theater production itself. I'm offering a service. I'm offering an education, a learning process. It's more than just instruction. They should come out of my class thinking, ‘OK, WOW, I didn't see that blind spot before… I didn't have that perspective.’ As a researcher, I also used my class to identify trends. Later, I taught the same process in graduate courses (MSc and PhD). Coming back to the undergraduate courses, even though I was using cases from the book and everything, I felt I was trapped in a box. 

So, I discussed with the students every semester how to improve the course(s) and what they would like to see. I must make a little parenthesis, the classroom settings (geometry and physical space) are (for most of them) not conducive to collaborative teamwork or exchange in the class because of the structure of the layout, the lack of boards on the walls to write, and everything else that goes with a classroom that is designed mainly for a lecture. I tried to make the most of what I had, feeling it was a period of profound change. We had the acetate, and then we transitioned to PowerPoint. I was working on redesigning these courses in different ways, trying something new. I thought to myself, ‘let's have students come to class and be the teacher of the concept.’ That was my first trial. I had interesting input and examples. Students would start with an example, and then they would link their examples with the course concepts, and would say, Professor, it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit.’ I answered, ‘OK, what doesn't fit?’ Well, the concepts and what you're teaching us. OK, so I stepped back and I said, ‘Let me throw away this textbook’ because most textbooks come from a review of the literature and synthesis representing a particular paradigm. By the time marketing management reaches the customer journey, 25 years have already passed. Now, it's in the 2025 textbook, but I've been teaching customer journey since 1997. I saw a gap between what is done in terms of research, what can students be learning in terms of recent or more up to date, or classic elements and how they can embed themselves in that concept and be able to translate it to a businessperson or a decision maker position to change the way we do things. So that was my first baby step. Then I said, 'Okay, I got rid of the book,’ but I tried to think of the methods I need to capture throughout the course(s).

Whether it is Business-to-Business or Service Marketing, the same principles apply in terms of designing the courses. So, let me take the Service Marketing; it is, first and foremost, a service experience. I need to embed my students with the service experience design to become experts in enabling themselves to analyze a service. Identify the gaps, understand the problems, comprehend the context, grasp the customer's needs, and recognize the movement, as everything evolves rapidly when you experience a service. A detail of a detail can significantly impact your business through negative word of mouth, and the effect can be exponential with social media if the design of the experience process is not well-managed. As I got the idea that the service is the class, I went through, 'Okay, let's do a B-D-A.’ Let's review what students need to have “Before” they come to class, which is linked to experiential learning. It's the abstraction aspect of the course, the concepts. You've got to read, you've got to reflect, you've got to write, and then, “During,” is the theater where learning happens with the synergy of everyone because they are prepared. Some are more or less prepared, but I follow through with that process. It's work, but you avoid having 50 pairs of eyes staring at you. It’s about moving from ‘giving me more’ to ‘let’s share and co-create, because it’s fun and worth coming to class.’ 

Instead of me doing a ‘pony show’ in front of students, I reverse the psychology by giving students the chance to become professors, coaches, and teachers. At first, they do as they are used to in other traditional classes. They come and present a PowerPoint; ‘bullet PowerPoint’ I call it. I say, ‘No, you're not going to push the information to us.’ You want to get us involved in the process. They must set the scene before they start, so they can experience the flow of ‘before, during, and after an experience’ before they begin the ‘live acting.’ I ask them, ‘How are you going to create attention and interest with your audience? I use the term' decision’ rather than just ‘desire, referring to ‘decision and action.’ When they oversee a workshop, students have the service design in their heads. The purpose is to have the audience (the teams) work on the concept(s), briefly summarize their findings, capture their attention, and engage with the concept(s). Here is a practical example. Let's say the theme is about the service blueprint. Instead of presenting the service blueprint concept in front of the class, students showcase what it is and ask teams to work on developing blueprints that may vary depending on the complexity of the context. The blueprint is the architectural design of a service from a business standpoint (which is transposed to what customers’ feel about the design of the experience), encompassing what the customer sees, what they don't, and interactions between the visible, invisible, and digital aspects, or what we also refer to as the ‘phygital’ complexity.

You work with your computer, your cellphone, and social media; you get into the scene (physical architectural space), the theatre of service, and then you act, you know you've been served, or you participate, and then you leave the service. The same principle can also be applied in a classroom setting.  Concepts are transferred through live exercises, play, and theater roles; students become embedded in the story, get involved in the process, and everyone must participate. Their case study is something that will interest them, given the complexity of the world in which we live. For example, this semester I accentuated vulnerability. That was the theme. The concepts and methods remain unchanged because this is the architecture of the course. However, the vulnerability was central to making them more empathetic towards the service experience issue, whether they were experiencing a service themselves, delivering a service, or designing a service.

John Bentley:  Do you change the theme every semester? You mentioned that vulnerability is a general theme for a particular semester. Do you change that, or do you change the word? Do you change the concept so that students come from a different perspective?

Michèle Paulin: Students will come from different perspectives. That's a good question. It depends on the trends of how much there is a sense of ‘Awake, Aware, Attitude, and Action.’ I called this the four As. If the public is starting to become aware of the subject, my students progress from awareness to attitude and action. The theme around ‘vulnerability’ can persist throughout the year. I'm not necessarily changing it from semester to semester, but I may emphasize it depending on the conversation I have with students. However, it's all linked to what I read and what I watch.

I listen to Radio Canada, different philosophers, economists, and social historians. I watch documentaries on TV5 to gain a well-researched, journalistic perspective on various subjects. I read about the subject to stay up to date on what Europeans are doing and developments on other continents. I track trends in the Financial Times Magazine (and others). For instance, the green rooftop concepts that are becoming increasingly recognized as a business trend were presented by my students ten to fifteen years ago. I encourage students to take a bold approach. Interestingly, there is a link between green roofs and vulnerability; it is not exclusive. I take on angles that are upfront and challenging the status quo. I stay with that idea until I see that the students are grasping it and applying it to other courses, in business, in the community, and in their personal lives.

Humanism and design

John Bentley: And so, the humanistic perspective is something you infuse into your course(s), teaching students the importance of practicing empathy. How did the students respond when you first introduced those concepts and the importance of practicing those?

Michèle Paulin: It's interesting to talk about that. So let me go back to one thing. Once I shifted the Textbook-Test-Trash (TTT) to a more learning-embedded process, I would perfect one part of the learning or service design experience every year. Let's say one semester, I emphasize the ‘Before’ design of the course until it works. Then I work on the ‘During’ part, using the same process, and later I improve the ‘After’ part. In any case, storytelling becomes critical because that's how I get students not just to listen to me, but also from the storytelling, I observe and listen to them. I evolve with them on what they are concerned about. For example, from the COVID-19 pandemic period to now, the emphasis I see is that my course(s) are essentially incubators, and I innovate while sensing trends.

I try to, even from the work students do, to sensitize them to the role of decision-maker while being empathetic to what they want and what they live. Going back to your question about the humanistic perspective, through storytelling, I engage in the conversation. At first, students question, ‘What is she doing?’… being skeptical about the process. I put them in a circle, infusing vulnerability from my part and, with a humble aspect, acknowledging that I can learn from them, recognizing their intelligence. It's a given for me; it's a question of how, given my expertise, experience, and a particular kind of age wisdom, as well as the fact that students also possess age wisdom. So, by having that kind of open conversation, I start to discuss why respect is essential and what it means. You can discuss ethics and become passionate about it, but the foundation of ethics is to respect others as you would like to be respected. In class, I make a point. I don't care what color you are, what sex you are, whether you have long or short hair; there's respect, and I look for that respect as I will respect you. You bring information, and I share information; together, we co-create, co-dialogue, and co-design. Yes, I'm a coach, but I may not always be right; I can be wrong. 

Allow the conversation and potentially ‘professor, I disagree with you.’ Please explain your thoughts, offer a better alternative, and elaborate on your point. So, by establishing that constant dialogue, they step back and reflect on their being, what they have been doing, and try to mirror it. To address the other aspect of empathy, some people argue that it cannot be taught or measured. I can tell you that through my class, after 12 weeks, there is a transformation. You can feel the transformation; students have gained some confidence in their depth of understanding, of explaining, and articulating. It may not be done in the way you would like to measure your learning objectives and outcomes, but there has been a noticeable difference in the way they approach learning.

John Bentley: How is that demonstrated? How do you observe that change in the students?

Michèle Paulin: Oh, it takes time, and it's an ongoing struggle because it's not reinforced necessarily across other courses. We should have a passport. I have a passport in my class that outlines the norms and values, which establish the boundaries of good behavior both individually and collectively. Students struggle with overuse and abuse of social media and different addictions. And they have significant problems that relate to the stress, lack of sleep, trying to make ends meet with rent, and a place to be... We’re missing that space at Concordia; we're missing the warmth and loving care. Students need places where they can chill, a place where they can sit down and relax, and close their eyes for 20 minutes.

We resemble a train station, where students come and go. To establish alumni relations, start from day one. To create effective alumni relations, students need to identify with various aspects of the service experience, including those embedded within the class, outside of the class, and across classes. When students sometimes complain, for example, about other courses, I say, ‘No, that's not necessarily the right approach. What can you learn from this? How can you grow from that?’ It's beneficial to have classes like mine, but it's also necessary to have more structured courses. It's not one or the other. It's the combination of the learning pedagogies that are needed to make a well-rounded person. Because we are providing them with a diploma, we are also giving them a passport, enabling them to enter and succeed in society. And we want it to be reflected: 'Hey, where do you come from?’ Who was your educator?’ Students, coming out of the class, can say ‘I am certified Paulin branded,’ it means they identify with the learning and understand the necessity of being self-disciplined, learning with autonomy, developing their critical thinking, articulating their thought in writing, and verbally, show and demonstrate the methods used because it's mostly methods I teach.

In Service Marketing, the emphasis is on methods to analyze a service, redesign a service, and innovate with a humanistic approach from the ground up. So, it's not about the business to the customer, but it's about the customer and stakeholders’ perspectives to start with.  You develop the mindset process, as opposed to focusing on the outcomes, or considering how I'm going to communicate the message once everything is in place (focusing on the end of the process). So, when you're talking about humanistic design, it’s about putting stakeholders at the beginning to understand the differences in designing the physical, systems, architecture, aesthetics, and the ecological aspect of nature, which is embedded and integrated from the start. It's not about using resources and users. ‘Use’ resources is a goods-logic approach that relies on aggregate data, big data, and here’s the flow of people going right and left. I'm going to cut this and that. I'm going to redesign and move boxes, including people who are often considered ‘boxes.’ The humanistic management approach begins with the sense of dignity, the starting point.

For example, when vulnerable people come into play, it's not just about looking at the outcome, ‘Oh, we have a problem in the street.’ Yeah, why do you have a problem in the street? You have a problem in the street because you have drug abuse, or drugs are problematic. You have lodging, you have education, and you have trauma from childhood problems. My father, an internist, would often say to me, “We should never judge another person because you don't know what the other person has lived.” The humanity aspect is, ‘Who am I to judge you?’ It may be a very Christian approach, but let's set aside the religious aspect. It’s a fundamental aspect; if I'm privileged, I also have a responsibility. It's a queen or king's responsibility to say, ‘Yes, I can make a profit for what I have, but I also have a moral responsibility towards others to share.’ And I'm not talking about politics, communism, and whatnot. It's a framework. If I possess more intelligence, knowledge, and expertise, what innovative approaches can I take to problem-solving? In the Business-to-Business, the same perspective applies. The concepts, methods, and research I've been working on over the years come from a European perspective. From the start of my thesis, I was drawn to the Nordic School approach of integrating the social, aesthetic, and design aspects that relate to the complexity of a problem, from its inception to its identification in the before, during, and after stages (processes). And then, understanding the complexity of the experiences within the ecosystems and the decision-making process. One of the models is the German model, which is decentralization, politics, social, economic, and urban planning. 

In North America, we have been concentrating on how to make more profit, how to be consumers... for the ‘benefit’, ‘the desire of the customer,’ and so on. It is not bad or wrong. There are different models, and the one that suits my inner perspective the most is the hybrid model. It is not either or. You don't throw the bottle. This sets the scene for the service design, transitioning from the textbook and test to an approach that incorporates a degree of chaos, grounded in the constructive theory from a learning perspective. It's an embedded experiential learning approach, as described on our website (Kolb): abstraction, observation, experience, experimentation, both before, during, and after, with some graduation. So, I can anticipate your next question. Is this replicable? To a certain extent, yes.

Student transformation

John Bentley: Okay, before we get there, so, the students are leaving the course, they're finished completing the course, and they're more attuned to robust ethical practices than. That's something that they leave with. Is that the sort of success of the course, or is one of the objectives of the course to prompt students to develop and tune that ability to focus on ethical practices as well? I mean, you have the humanistic elements, but ethical practitioners. 

Michèle Paulin: There is definitely a transformation factor. It depends on the individual's personality, culture, background, and upbringing. Nevertheless, you cannot walk after completing your 12 weeks the same way you walked in. That's the number one level, the base. One team presented at the end of the semester the idea of swapping time for more access to the gym. So instead of paying a membership fee, some don't have the money, so they swapped some hours to help. Students teach and participate in the process and redesign. It was well done. I'll get to your answer. They were doing it as a movie presentation embedded with theater production. So, we were watching a movie with a narrative that explained the concepts, and the actors played out the different steps, freezing at each step of the methodology, which was embedded into the acting. A WOW! They had a good leader, and the point they made to me afterward was, ‘Professor, we all contributed… Although we faced our challenges, both personal and professional, we all contributed.’ The learning process changed their way of thinking. When students (or teams) have a problem with their presentation, others genuinely offer them tips to improve. It's not so much, ‘do you have it, it’s to see how they share it.’ And when the team was presenting, I asked for takeaways. Students were saying before they leave class, ‘What are the takeaways today?’, ‘What did you learn?’, ‘What are the methods you learn?’, ‘What personal aspects do you bring to the next level?’ What information can you transfer to your team or other endeavors?’ They said… ‘Professor, I have a problem with attention, but I was listening, and I was concentrated… There were so many movements, there were so many actions that, you know, I was embedded in the process. I could feel it.’

Because vulnerability was central to the semester, one team presented a service on how to improve the process for prisoners (taking into consideration the level of crime) before they are released into society. How can we improve the process? They worked on how to infuse education while gaining something of value…  It's fantastic. One team imitated me in terms of how to teach other professors the method. That was hilarious because it was a satire. They were all involved in the process of the exchange and how the concepts were developed, and empathy was integral to that process, as were ethics. Everyone was deeply embedded in it. 

One team presented a chill space service. We were all involved in what was happening. The team articulated the entire design process, including physical space, yoga, breathing exercises, games, and socialization, live. We were on the floor, taking part in the process. We were embedded in it. Embedded in the process, students choose their team project and audit to work on; of course, I monitor the angles. To repeat, they are embedded in the process; they ask themselves questions about other teams. It's in the design of the workshops, and it's in the design of theatre production. They make others participate in role-playing and customer questioning. They get into the emotion, act from it, and need to find a solution and figure out ways to do so. Yesterday I had the students here because we're working on a case together about replenishing second-hand shoes, and she said, ‘What is superb about your course, Michèle, is that we are asking the questions, we are designing the process, we remember everything.’ Even after 15 years, they still remember whether I was jumping on the chairs or the table. 

At the beginning, in the first or second year, I would stand on a table and say, ‘You need to read this, this is critical.’ Everybody laughs… who's going to stand on a table and say you're going to read this? ‘Do you get that you need to read this?’ They all laugh… ‘Why aren't you reading? Tell me. I want to understand. Do I need to do it with you?  … You need to concentrate. Do I need to wrap you onto the chair?’ I'm showing them about acting skills, and I also share my vulnerability. However, it doesn't mean I'll be vulnerable all the time. It's just an example.

John Bentley: Michèle, I want to thank you for speaking with me today. I think it's fascinating. As I said, being able to see the students and the sheer delight on their faces while they're engaged in class is incredible, and the level of engagement is equally impressive. And then, speaking with the students afterwards, I had the opportunity to chat with them and hear how profoundly affected they are by all the classes throughout this semester, and how they've changed as individuals by the end of the course. Thank you very much. I'd like to follow up with you with some future conversations, learning a little bit more about perhaps assessment, other elements of the course in terms of the design and the service design and where you'd like to go in the future with this course, with these courses and the idea of the transfer of some of these ideas and these practices in your course to other courses for faculty that may be interested. So, thank you very much for today. I look forward to speaking with you again as a follow-up.

Michèle Paulin: My pleasure, John.

John Bentley: Thank you.