Service Design Mid-Semester Touchpoint
When I first decided to take the Service Design Innovation course, I had no idea what Service Design was and this intrigued me. I had never heard of Service Design before and I wanted to learn more about what exactly Service Design was and how it could help and be of use in greater society.
Over the past two months or so, I have been able to learn a tremendous amount about the vast realm of Service Design and what useful tools and methods can be used in tandem to create an efficient and universally accessible service or process for a selected target group of customers or consumers. In addition, I have been lucky to have the opportunity to hear from guest speakers who implement Service Design in their daily life and see how Service Design can be implemented in various careers and areas. I have also been able to become more open-minded when it comes to prospective jobs that I could do in the future. Before, I used to think that there was only a narrow selection of jobs that I could potentially pursue post graduation such as Project/Product Management. However, now I realize that there are more ways and areas where you can apply similar hard and soft skills to create similar impact on potential customers and individuals. Service Design is one area where I could potentially see myself diving deeper into. Though many, like myself at the beginning of the semester, may not know much or be aware of the topic of Service Design, it is a very important area that I think should and will be of more focus in the years to come.
Service Design, though the term and definition can vary from person to person, to me is focusing on the layout and implementation of a service or journey, all of its steps, and making sure that all of the steps are necessary and working together in a proper and efficient manner. Essentially, breaking down a product or service into controllable parts and analyzing the flow of the whole process or customer journey (making sure not to neglect the “in-betweens” or connections of the different steps).
At the beginning of the semester, I walked my class through a Service Safari (a deep dive into a service) of ordering from Five Guys, a fast food chain. In my Service Safari, I accounted for the possible interactions or touch points that a customer could have with the fast food chain and paid careful attention to the arrangement and props of the food ordering process. When it comes to conducting a successful Service Safari, an important skill is for one to be able to “zoom out” and “zoom in” of a process of a service.
Normally, if I was to go to Five Guys and order a burger and fries, I would most likely not pay much attention to the layout or structure of the restaurant, order my food, pay and leave. However, when I did the Service Safari, I had to be hyper aware of each step I would have to take and what factors would come into play for that specific interaction. When embarking on the Service Safari, I noticed many props and marketing strategies that I hadn’t before. Some of these included bold, advertising signage, bright cafeteria style lighting, color coordination of the restaurant and staff (red and white), and guided walkways inside the restaurant. Though sometimes they can be easily overlooked, all of these touch points or interactions are intentional and crafted to offer the customer a pleasant and rewarding experience. The Five Guys Service Safari is one example of implementing Service Design and looking at a customer journey or process more holistically opposed to focusing on one specific portion.
This semester, I have also learned about potential tools that can be used to implement Service Design. Two examples include the Blueprint and the Stakeholder map. A Blueprint lays out all of the key players in a service, lists out their specific tasks and records the emotions and/or thoughts the individual associates with that role or step in the service.
A Stakeholder map provides a more in-depth glimpse into the various stakeholders or key individuals of a service and illustrates the relationships between the various stakeholder groups. A commonly used Stakeholder map lists out direct and indirect stakeholders. Direct stakeholders are individuals that use or are responsible for the creation of a product or service. The indirect stakeholders are individuals that may not directly interact with a product or service but can still be affected by it.
Tools such as the Blueprint and the Stakeholder map can be tremendously useful to a Service Designer or anyone who wants to take a closer look into a service.
In addition to learning various tangible tools that can be used to help implement effective Service Design, I have also gained knowledge on the non-tangible skills that are essential to Service Design as well as how Service Design can be used in various industries in the real world. Besides tools such as the Service Safari, Blueprint, and Stakeholder Map, other non-physical tools such as mutual respect, story telling, empathy, and open communication are equally as important and critical to the successful operation of a service. If an company has the best product in the world but has horrible customer service, that company will most likely go bankrupt and die. Like tangible tools, non-tangible skills can be easily overlooked or forgotten. However, they are just as crucial to implementing an effective and pleasant service.
These important tools were also re-iterated and emphasized by various industry professionals who came to speak to our class. On March 10th, Agnes Kwek (Design Ambassador for DesignSingapore Council), Andy VandenHeuvel (Senior Service Designer at CVS Health), and Javiera Arenas (Design Strategist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center) shared their industry experience and how they apply Service Design into their work.
Mrs. Kwek, with knowledge spanning from over 20 years as a Design Ambassador for the DesignSingapore Council, spoke about the importance of being able to “zoom in and out” of a problem, being flexible towards various projects as well as the impact of effective story telling. She mentioned that most times, when you are working in the industry, you will encounter many individuals who come from various backgrounds and expertise. Therefore, it is extremely important that you are able to be understanding towards their stories and feelings as well as implementing storytelling to bridge the gaps, as Mrs. Kwek said, “Design alone is not enough”.
Echoing Mrs. Kwek’s points, Mr. VandenHeuvel also spoke about the importance of teamwork and placing the customer and their experience at the core of his work. Mr. VandenHeuvel works specifically in the healthcare industry, which naturally places focus on the patient or the individual seeking care. Mr. VandenHeuvel emphasized that, at the end of the day, though customers should be the focus of a service, one must also keep in mind, that the service ultimately should be a win-win situation for both the customer or user as well as those providing the service as well. He mentioned the importance of satisfying Desirability, Viability, as well as Feasibility, saying “if you satisfy all these, you’re golden.”
Also an industry professional in the healthcare industry, Mrs. Arenas shared her experience using Service Design and its tools to alter the conversations around death and the cancer treatment process. She spoke about the importance of focusing on the and in the statement “one and one make two” and more generally, the connection between two touchpoints or interactions in a customer journey. She also spoke about the importance of synthesizing and distilling your customer findings. She credits her organization of her patient’s observations and findings to her success as a Design Strategist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Through hearing various industry professionals’ inspirational stories and potential industry implementations of Service Design as well as learning about various Service Design tools such as the Service Safari, Blueprint, and Stakeholder Map, I now have a better understanding of what Service Design is and how important Service Design can be when it comes to improving the care and service in any field. Before, I mentioned that I would like to go into Product and Project Management. I would like to continue that route. However, I would like to pursue a career that actively implement Service Design and its tools to create better comprehensive and accessible care to those with disabilities. I would like to focus on helping those with disabilities because I myself have family members with disabilities and see the struggles they continue to face on a day to day basis. In addition, throughout my life, as an extremely clumsy person, I have hurt myself on multiple occasions, spraining my ankle and hurting various muscles. As a result, I have witnessed first hand the many struggles of being temporarily disabled and understand that there is huge potential for better treatment and care for those who are injured and/or are disabled.
