Service Design
I recently found myself in a passionate debate about poorly designed products and experiences. As designers, we shouldn’t simply accept the way things are, we should try to understand why certain design decisions are made and be that much more intentional with our own work. While a lot of our projects have been focused on specific parts of an experience or scenario, we’ve recently started digging into the larger ecosystem of service design. Service design explores the end to end experience a user has with a company.
Most organizations are centered around products and delivery channels. Many of the organizations’ resources (time, budget, logistics) are spent on customer-facing outputs, and the internal processes (including the experience of the organization’s employees) are overlooked; service design focuses on these internal processes. -Sarah Gibbons, Nielsen Norman Group
Service Design
My research group decided to focus on the experience of getting an oil change for our service design project. This is not the most glamorous experience, but it is something that many people do with relative frequency. I often wonder if these are the types of experiences that users feel most taken advantage of. If it’s something that most people have to do — like paying a parking ticket or going through TSA at the airport— the experience can be unnecessarily painful.
The Oil Change Experience
I haven’t talked to many people that love going to the mechanic to get their oil changed. The best part of the experience is generally how quickly it’s over. One of the design methods we used, after direct observation at a Jiffy Lube location, was a simple design collage. We visually mapped out different segments of the experience. Some of the pain points included the dreaded feeling of potentially getting taken advantage of, not knowing how long the service will take, and having to wait in the lobby.
As I sat in the lobby I wondered who designed this experience. It seemed pretty clear that the internal processes and systems at Jiffy Lube are driving decisions that affect customer experience. The system is built around what will be most efficient and effective for the service representatives. For example, users often have to go directly into the mechanic shop to get checked in and to choose a service.
The best part of going to Jiffy Lube is leaving. The lobby area might be the most unforgiving of the entire experience. Most of the waiting rooms are tiny open floor plans with a blaring television and seats around the perimeter.
Our next step is to create a detailed service design diagram. I’m looking forward to uncovering further insights to improve the overall experience of getting an oil change.
