For most of history, we’ve considered industry divided into two areas: manufacturing and service. Pretty straightforward so far, right? A product was a tangible item, something you could hold in your hands, or a material item you could own (like a house, car, jewellery, shoes, or clothes). A service, by comparison, was something of value another person or business could do for you, for example, a lawyer, therapist, waiter, or taxi driver.
Today, those lines have become increasingly blurred. Every business and brand that delivers a product (or, indeed, a service) also offers a host of additional actions (services) as part of their overall product.
For example, a sports brand makes hundreds of products; it markets them, engages in mainstream and social media, has a website showcasing those products and those who endorse them, provides information and tutorials so customers can get the best out of their purchases and educate themselves in their area of interest or expertise, they operate chatbots and helplines to answer questions, queries, complaints, and so much more. All of these ‘services’ aim to provide a better and more informed customer experience, but they’re not the product, are they? Well, yes, actually, they are if the product isn’t just a pair of trainers or a tennis racket but the brand itself and everything under its umbrella.
Service Design probably isn’t the best name for the process we’re exploring today. Perhaps procedural and behind-the-scenes systems design would be more accurate, but let’s face it, that’s a bit of a mouthful. For those who haven’t encountered service design in the UX world, it would make more sense if the process involved in designing a service, but that’s not quite right. If you’d like to go another confusing step further, the terms ‘service design’ and ‘design service’ are entirely different things, too. Service design covers how the organisation gets things done from an employee perspective, whereas designing a service focuses on the customer’s journey from the user experience perspective.
Confused? Well, today, we’re going to clear that confusion up.
So, what is Service Design?
Service design caters to all the behind-the-scenes operations required to deliver a product. That goes for delivering a service as a product, too—whether it’s a digital product or a real-life service.
The Nielsen Norman Group tells us:
Service design is the activity of planning and organizing a business’s resources (people, props, and processes) in order to (1) directly improve the employee’s experience, and (2) indirectly, the customer’s experience.
Service design is all about what’s happening behind the scenes
The most popular analogy, also taken from the Nielsen Norman Group, is that of a theatre performance. The audience sees everything in front of the curtain: the actors, audience, scenery, and more, yet backstage, vast teams of people do all kinds of jobs to make sure everything happens when it should, how it should, and by who.
Service design concentrates on all those backstage components. For a new product or service, it organises what it will take to deliver it smoothly. For existing products/services, it’s about making them finely honed machines that are better for those working those behind-the-scenes systems and, indirectly, a better experience for its end-users.
How service design delivers better customer and user experience
UX and UI design services cater directly to the end-user experience by focusing on the features and facets they interact with. Service design involves improving behind-the-scenes processes with upgraded and refined operations, adding to the end product through improved performance.
- Optimised customer journeys
- Repairing or redesigning problem touchpoints
- Providing additional value to the user experience through refined operational delivery
- Aligning partner, employee, and end-user needs to enhance the product at every stage
The difference between service design and UX design
As our earlier Nielsen Norman analogy shows us, the difference is that UX happens frontstage, and service design delivers the backstage elements required for an enhanced operator experience, resulting in a seamless user experience.
For example, UX strategy caters to customer-facing outputs such as the user interface, navigation, site architecture, product design, marketing outlets, and more. Service design happens backstage, for example, system processes, business operations, service delivery, etc.
The key components of service design
The three main components of service design thinking are:
- People
- Props
- Processes
1. People
As with UX, people are at the heart of the design and research process. However, where our UX customers are our end-users, with service design, we’re not solely concerned with them—although their behaviours and feelings play their part—but the bulk of service design user research focuses on employees and partners, those who are directly involved in delivering the services. So, we conduct comprehensive user research on employees to identify problems in the process and procedural points instead of those of the end user.
Operators and managers share a vision: to deliver the seamless integration of behind-the-scenes operations that result in high-level user satisfaction. UX consultants may use and adapt typical research methods, such as interviews, focus groups, usability testing, interactive prototypes, etc., to gain a fresh perspective from those on the front line. Partners will be concerned with the business goals of their tangible and digital products and, again, offering a great user experience at every touchpoint.
2. Props
Our second resource, props, covers any physical or digital products needed to perform the service throughout the entire brand ecosystem. These can include physical items such as buildings, rooms, vehicles, computers, servers, and technology systems, as well as digital items such as websites, pages, social media outlets, digital files, and data products.
3. Processes
The processes include the workflows, actions, and rituals employees or users perform throughout any stage of the organisation ecosystem and product delivery. These include creating software systems, managing data, customer service methods, sales management, product packaging and delivery, and more.
Key tools for service designers
- Customer journey mapping and sequencing
- Service blueprinting
- Collaboration and relationship management
- Touchpoint design
- Ecosystem design
There’s a lot of common ground between UX/UI and service design. They each use typical UX design and research practices, with key tools such as customer journey maps and touchpoint design used to explore user behaviours and improve service delivery.
Service designers’ and UX consultants’ work often cross over, with both considering their end-user experiences and how they were delivered. A service blueprint is invaluable for mapping the business ecosystem from end to end, highlighting weak points and redundant or duplicate operations, and redefining and optimising workflows to reduce waste and safeguard resources. It isn’t just a spreadsheet or flowchart but a map that sets out every arm of an organisation’s operation and how they work together. For many leaders, this could be the first time they realise just how complex the operation is and the many roles required and executed by each team. It can also uncover how disconnected or inefficient those essential connections have become and offer an opportunity to overhaul how teams connect in the bigger picture.
Key methodologies of service designers
Given that the ultimate goal of the practice is to benefit all project stakeholders, many of the methods and questions asked of our designers overlap. However, here are a few of the key issues and areas they explore:
- Understanding the brand goals, purpose, and market position
- For all departments to deliver on expected goals
- For all departments to operate holistically, unified in the organisation’s ecosystem
- To focus on customer needs and how they can be satisfied by internal operations
- To streamline operations, processes, and procedures to maximise efficiency
- Collaboration between teams and departments and significant individuals
- Reduce or remove paint points, unnecessary features, or items that offer little or no value
The benefits of service design
Service design ensures the quality of delivery for new products and projects or invaluable optimisation of existing products and already operating brands. It identifies problematic gaps in organisation and delivery and introduces upgrades and fixes that boost operations.
- It highlights conflicts between the alignment of the organisation’s goals and operational goals.
- Collaboration between individuals and teams encourages difficult conversations that expose weaknesses in procedures and policies. It also helps to build new relationships, keeping everyone on the same page and aware of each other’s involvement in the organisation’s overall operation.
- To fine-tune the use and protection of the organisation’s valuable resources.
Summary
There’s so much more to running a business than the product or service it promotes and sells. The how and why behind every organisation’s service delivery can make or break leading brands, SMEs, and startups. Exploring the joys and pitfalls for real users and employees can help businesses and brands flourish, stay competitive, and thrive.
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