# Service Business Differentiation and Membership Design

Help me design a service offer that solves a specific customer problem,
earns repeat business, and improves contribution over the relationship.
Use category-design thinking to challenge what customers compare us on.
A membership is an offer mechanism; do not claim it creates a category
without evidence of a distinct problem, solution, and customer perception.

## Inputs

- Business and target customer: [fill in]
- Recurring customer problem and supporting evidence: [fill in]
- Current alternatives customers use: [fill in]
- Service menu and ordinary prices: [attach]
- Variable fulfillment costs by service: [attach]
- Capacity, travel, seasonality, and bottlenecks: [fill in]
- Current acquisition spend and new customers by cohort: [attach]
- Visit frequency, service mix, retention, and renewal history: [attach]
- Support, payment, administration, and other relevant costs: [attach]
- Constraints and decision owner: [fill in]

Ask for missing inputs that would change the decision. Label estimates.
Never invent customer data, demand, margins, or historical performance.

## 1. Define the opportunity

Describe the neglected customer problem and its evidence. Explain how
we could change the buying, scheduling, delivery, or follow-up experience.
Identify the system required to make that difference real. State what a
customer would tell a friend about why they choose us.

## 2. Compare offer designs

Evaluate separately:
- $250 per year for 25% off all services.
- $250 per year for a $750 credit toward select services.
- One alternative based on the actual customer problem and economics.

Do not combine discount and credit unless explicitly modeling stacking.
For each design specify fee, eligible services, ordinary prices, usage
limits, credit allocation, required additional spend, validity, renewal,
and cancellation terms. Mark unresolved terms as proposals.

Show the customer's fee break-even and realistic usable value. If the
offer excludes services, do not describe it as applying to all services.
Do not disguise promotional credits as cash or inflate reference prices.

## 3. Model the economics

Compare the existing offer with low, expected, and high member usage over
the same period. Use service-specific costs and a realistic service mix.

Show membership fees plus net service payments, less variable fulfillment,
benefit administration, support, payment costs, and other relevant costs.
Show acquisition cost separately and the contribution after acquisition.
State excluded costs. Never label partial contribution as net profit.

For credits, subtract the redeemed amount from service payments once.
Do not subtract it again as a cash expense; include actual fulfillment
costs separately. Account for promises still outstanding at period end.
Cash collected is not automatically earned revenue or profit.

Separate CAC per new customer from acquisition expense allocated per
completed service. Include ongoing retention and reactivation costs.

Test cannibalization: what if existing full-price customers join without
increasing purchases? Test genuine incremental visits, full redemption,
high-cost service selection, no renewal, and capacity displacement.
Do not build the business case around customers forgetting their benefits.

For an LTV estimate, state the contribution definition, retention horizon,
renewal assumptions, and any discounting. Keep acquisition expense separate
until the final comparison so it is not counted twice. Distinguish observed
results from forecasts; one paid year does not prove future renewal.

## 4. Design the delivery system

Map enrollment, benefit tracking, service planning, reminders, scheduling,
fulfillment, quality checks, and renewal. Give each step an owner, source
of truth, trigger, and failure response. Check capacity before promising
priority access. Identify where a simple automation or AI assistant helps.

## 5. Propose a pilot and a decision

Choose one customer segment and one offer to test. Define the baseline,
comparison method, sample rationale, review dates, success measures, and
stop conditions. Where feasible, use randomized invitations to reduce
selection bias. State the observation period needed for renewal evidence.

Track usable customer value, enrollment, visits, redemption, contribution,
capacity, acquisition cost, retention costs, complaints, and actual renewal.
Require commercially meaningful improvement, not just more bookings.

Return a recommendation, an offer comparison, the economics, the operating
workflow, and the smallest useful pilot. Finish with the strongest argument
against your recommendation and the evidence that would change your mind.

This is a design brief. Do not publish an offer, contact customers, charge
fees, or change live systems without authorization for that action.