When dreams collide: Service design values in a purpose-led company
This post is about happiness. And about service design as a way to bring happiness within a Company.
I joined John Lewis as a Service Design Manager in February 2022 and my role here has included setting up the service design practice as well as leading cross-functional projects to design great services.
I have been working as a Service Designer for quite a while now, but this is the first time I am able to see the direct correlation between what service design actually is, and the happiness of a company’s employees.
And I had to start working for an employee-owned and purpose-led company like John Lewis to see this clearly.
The Partnership and our purpose
The John Lewis Partnership is the UK’s largest employee-owned business and parent company of two retail brands, John Lewis and Waitrose, which are owned in Trust by its 80,000 Partners. ‘Partners’ is what we call ourselves: we aren’t just employees, we are owners.
Our Partnership purpose is ‘Working in Partnership for a happier world’. Happier for our customers, the communities we work with, the country we live in, and more… But it’s on the Partners I would like to focus for a moment.
Behind the curtains — the backstage
Service design’s peculiarity, and what makes it different from the other design disciplines, is the attention to the backstage, what happens behind the curtains.
Let’s make a short digression, using the theatre metaphor…
The elements of a service or an experience are split between the frontstage and the backstage, depending on whether the customer sees them or not. Think of a theatre performance. The audience sees everything in front of the curtain: the actors, costumes, orchestra, and set.
However, behind the curtain there is a whole ecosystem of people, tools and activities: the director, stage helpers, lighting coordinators, and set designers, who perform activities before, during and after the show.
Empathy for employees
There are different ways service design can support an organisation in making its employees happier, but I want to focus on these:
- Service design involves understanding the needs and pain points of customers, but it also involves understanding the needs and pain points of employees who deliver the service. By taking an empathetic approach to service design, organisations can identify ways to improve employee satisfaction, such as reducing workload, simplifying processes, or providing better tools and resources.
- Collaboration and co-creation: Service design is a collaborative process that involves stakeholders from across the organisation. By involving employees in the design process, organisations can tap into their expertise, insights, and creativity, and give them a sense of ownership and pride in the service they deliver. This can lead to higher levels of job satisfaction and motivation.
Service Designers work with research teams, experience design, product, engineering and many other stakeholders to bring together the customer view — the frontstage — with the people, props and processes — the backstage. By doing that, service design puts the internal users into a prominent position.
How this works in practice
I recently worked on a project looking at in-store payment. For several weeks, based in one of the John Lewis stores, we observed and talked to customers and Partners about the payment experience.
The majority of in-store payments happen at the till bank. At a till bank, there are typically front stage activities that are visible to customers, as well as backstage activities that are not visible to customers. Partners working at a till bank typically perform front stage transactions such as cash handling, card processing, and refunds.
But much more happens at a till. First of all, there are other front stage activities that take up Partner’s time and are adjacent to the payment moment, like de-tagging items and bagging. On top of that, we observed that Partners also support customers with questions on directions and products.
If we look at the backstage activities, we can see that they include admin tasks like counting cash or handling returns, as well as training.
But on top of the Partners who work at the till, other Partners are involved with the functioning of a till bank. For example, the in-store operations teams are accountable for replenishing the tills with bags, wrapping paper and receipt paper.
To design a great payment service, all these internal users need to be understood and involved, and all front stage and back-stage activities need to be orchestrated. Service design is the force that drives the attention to these people, props and processes involved in the delivery of any service.
When dreams collide
John Lewis already focuses on the wellbeing of its Partners, and service design as a discipline is a great ally to make sure all Partners at all levels are involved when improving a service or designing a new one.
This creates a sense of ownership and pride in the service they deliver, which can lead to higher levels of job satisfaction and motivation — and to achieve the purpose of ‘Working in Partnership for a Happier World’.
