Approach Involved In Service Design Thinking.
Every organization intent to provide good service to its customer, the process of building a product to solve the consumer’s problem is not a cakewalk. Considering different servicing sectors issues like bill payment, booking services, longer wait in customer calls etc. Customers often demand for a hassle free service experience, to solve these problem the approach needs to be simplified and serve better, in order to achieve this there is a need for the organization to dive deep and work constantly in getting a holistic understanding about their user’s needs and problems. The services should well define its mission, vision, strategy, process and methods for its business to take good shape, both in terms of making good business profit and satisfy its customers.
What is the approach?
Well, by connecting the touch-points of entire ecosystem of a service, the approach is to help adapt a strategy which involves interdisciplinary way of thinking, with an aim to get a holistic insight to innovate and improve the service experience to its niche users, referred as service blue print. Service design becomes more of a collaborative practice not just with management but with the people interacting to provide the services within the ecosystem. With the regard to the product, the objective is not just making things as instrumentally functional as possible, but rather with making experiences feel like worthwhile moments of being-in-the-world. The qualitative approach should benefit to define, ideate, prototype and test continuously either by observing or listening to its potential customers using certain disciplinary methods — which is referred to as tools of service design thinking. These iterative tools helps to improve a service in 3 important stages — Explore, create and reflect, finally in implement stage.
Knowing the tools…
1. Stakeholder map — The map helps to visualize the stakeholder’s relation, with an intention to give importance/ reconsideration and improve the engagement between the stakeholders.
2. Service safari — Basically it’s something common to competitor analysis, this method is used to identify the common needs and problem encounters, and also this gives opportunity to develop new innovations.
3. Shadowing — Technique of the “observer effect” is used, by just being present in the situation, one records and documents the problems encountered in a product.
4. Customer journey maps- Visually mapping the touch points of user interaction with a service. This gives opportunity to innovate and explore new ideas into the product
5. Contextual interview — Contextual Interviews are conducted in the environment, or context, in which the service process of interest occurs. This ethnographic technique allows interviewers to both observe and probe the behavior they are interested in. One of the key benefits of making an interview contextual is that it helps the interviewee to remember the kind of specific details that so often get lost in a traditional focus group setting. Contextual interviews allow researchers to also gain an understanding of the social and physical environment surrounding the service being examined.
6. The five whys — The 5 Whys are just those — a chain of questions used to dig below the outward symptoms of a user experience in order to uncover the motivations that are at its root cause. This is useful for quickly gaining an understanding of complex issues, and in provoking those being questioned to go deeper when trying to explain common problems.
7. Cultural probes — Cultural probes are information gathering packages. Based around the principle of user-participation via self-documentation, the probes are usually given to research participants for a prolonged period of time, during which they can produce richly engaging material for design inspiration.
8. Mobile ethnography — Mobile ethnography can be defined as ethnographic research that takes place independently of geography. This usually means that the researcher is not present in person, but the technique differs from cultural probes in that instead of participant’s being directed, the insights generated revolve around how participants choose to structure the research themselves.
9. A Day in the life — A Day in the Life collates the research material pertaining to a particular type of customer (which may have already been collated into a persona) in order to create a descriptive walkthrough of their typical daily activities.
10. Expectation maps — Making an expectation Map involves investigating and charting what customers expect when they interact with a service. The map can either focus on one specific service, or take the more generalized form of analyzing a particular service category.
11. Personas- Personas are fictional profiles, often developed as a way of representing a particular group based on their shared interests. They represent a “character” with which client and design teams can engage. Personas can provide a range of different perspectives on a service, allowing design teams to define and engage the different interest-groups that may exist within their target market.
12. Idea generation — Ideation techniques are what service designers use to structure and inspire group brainstorming sessions. They usually take the form of simple exercises which can be used to stimulate group discussions
13. What if? — Questions are used to provoke participants to explore potential future situations, without drowning them in everyday concerns. They can be used in both field studies and workshops.
14. Design scenarios — Design scenarios are essentially hypothetical stories, created with sufficient detail to meaningfully explore a particular aspect of a service offering. This helps facilitate discussions about how people will experience new services in the future 180
15. Storyboards — A storyboard is a series of drawings or pictures that visualize a particular sequence of events. This might include a common situation where a service is used, or the hypothetical implementation of a new service prototype. Storyboards should be easy enough for anyone to follow.
16. Desktop walkthrough- A Desktop Walkthrough is a small-scale 3-D model of a service environment. Employing simple props like Lego figures lets designers bring a situation to life, acting out common scenarios and helping develop prototypes. Desktop walkthroughs allow an iterative analysis of the situations depicted. The same scene can be acted out multiple times, and in several locations, with new ideas and refinements constantly being introduced to the simulation.
17. Service prototypes- A service prototype is a simulation of a service experience. These simulations can range from being informal “roleplay” style conversations, to more detailed full scale recreations involving active user-participation, props, and physical touchpoints.
18. Service staging — Service staging is the physical acting out of scenarios and prototypes by design teams, staff, or even customers in a situation that resembles a theatre rehearsal. Those participating will usually act out an encounter that one of the team has experienced, or explore a prototype situation.
19. Agile Development — It is an iterative methodology that allows projects to grow and develop over time, adapting around both the evolving needs of the client, and the research materials the project may generate
20. Co-Creation — Co-creation is a core aspect of the service design philosophy. It can involve anyone from staff, designers, executives or customers working collaboratively in order to examine and innovate a given service experience
21. Storytelling — Storytelling is a method for sharing insights and new service concepts. Compelling narratives can be constructed for all aspects of a company’s service, from the lives of its customers, to staff experiences and the service experience it provides.
22. Service blueprints — Service blueprints are a way to specify and detail each individual aspect of a service. Service blueprints are able to show the processes that lie behind the critical service elements around which user experience is defined This helps provide a clear roadmap for the actual service delivery.
23. Service roleplay — Just like theatrical rehearsal methods can be used to explore and generate ideas. This generally involves interactive training experiences that help staff contribute to the improvement of the service experience.
24. Customer lifecycle maps — A Customer Lifecycle Map is a holistic visualization of a customer’s overall relationship with a service provider. The maps allow service providers to present their customers with a holistic offering, as the lifecycles of several services can be synchronized around customers evolving wants and needs; by understanding why their interaction with one service might cease, providers can develop and market new services which intuitively serve customers changing desires.
25. Business model canvas — It is a useful tool for describing, analyzing, and designing business models. Its key benefits — bringing clarity to an organization’s core aims whilst identifying its strengths, weaknesses, and priorities. Using the Business Model Canvas as a template or visual reminder of the various factors a business model needs to incorporate helps manage the scope of discussions.
/��When the servicing companies starts to implement these tools into their process, beginning with the people they work with and their customers, to develop better customer driven products, the organization can ensure that they learn from their mistakes of the previous iteration, and constant improvement can be done to improvise the product and business.
