Good Services: a bloody good read (Part 1)

Good Services by Lou Downe tells you how to design good services that work.

I’m sharing my book notes so that you can enjoy the highlights for now, and hopefully be inspired to go on and buy it.

I’m not on commission. I just think that if you work in a job where you’re responsible for the delivery of services to other humans — you should read this book. It will help you to make your services better.

The book contains 15 principles, which if followed, will help you to design services that work. Many of the examples in the book are from Lou’s experience of working in UK government organisations.

My notes are personal to me. I’ve noted the things that resonate, or that I want to remember and in places, added my own examples. I recommend you read the book to understand things in more depth and to read Lou’s stories of good and bad service design.

I’ve separated my notes into a three parts.

Part one: pre-service stuff

Part two: during service delivery (coming next Wednesday)

Part three: post-service stuff.

What is a service?

Quite simply: something that helps someone do something.

A service is one continuous set of actions towards an end goal, regardless of who is providing it.

It isn’t the product. An hotel isn’t just the room, it’s the booking service, the greeting on arrival and all the other things that wrap around it.

Each time a new communication method arrives, this has a massive impact on the way services are delivered: Post Office; telephone; internet.

Services designed for the industrial age, often relied on a real person for expert knowledge to help the service user to achieve their goal — eg, open a bank account. Today, if a user can’t self serve, they’ll go elsewhere (reduced income) or ask for help (increased costs).

Government users don’t have the choice to go elsewhere because they tend to be the only show in town.

Often, people are trying to shoehorn services designed for the industrial age into the internet age. Example: forms sent out on pdf’s, asking for a ‘wet’ signature, requiring the user to have a printer that works to engage with the service. What would the internet equivalent be?

The goal can be very large (buying a house) or very small (getting lunch). Each goal is broken down into steps. Steps should be at points where the user needs to make a conscious decision. Where they need visibility and control over what happens next.

What makes a good service?

Services today are likely to be the result of at least some of these:

• technical constraints (legacy systems mean “the computer says no!”),
• political whim and
• personal taste

The same can be said of some policy design, organisational design and system design.

They should be:

• evolved to the conditions around them (rather than lifted from another place that seems to be doing well and implanted in the new situation)
• consciously designed
• meet user needs
• financially sustainable
• achieve desired outcomes

Case study: US Student Loans Co.

The US student loans company administers the repayments of loans. Teachers qualify for grants which pay off the loans under certain circumstances. One lady, who qualified for the grant never got to hear about it. Instead, she was offered the option to defer repayment. In order to qualify for the grant, you have to demonstrate regular payments over a number of years. Deferring payment instantly disqualifies users from the grant.

Why did this happen? Because the call centre operators were measured on how quickly they dealt with phone calls. Offering and setting up the grant payment took longer than offering the deferment and the call operators would miss their target.

Which KPI’s in your organisation are driving the wrong behaviours?

What are the unintended consequences of your KPI’s?

In the UK

(GDS 2014 research)

⅓ of UK GDP = spending on PUBLIC SERVICES

80% of the cost of government is spent on SERVICES

60% of the cost of these services is spent on SERVICE FAILURE

Service failure: phone calls asking how to do something, incomplete forms hidden in wrongly worded questions, broken links and poorly trained staff, pdf’s which aren’t accessible, phone lines that no longer work etc.

Each time we decide to incentivise our staff, change a policy, open or close a channel, buy new tech, we make a decision that will impact on the quality of a service for the user.

Good services are good for the:

• user
• organisation
• society and the environment

Whether a service works or not isn’t a matter of personal taste. It either works or it doesn’t. Services need to be find-able, usable and benefit the lives of users and others around us.

No new ideas until everything is fixed!

The first three principles in the book, which are covered in this blog, relate to the things you need to think about even before your user engages with your service.

15 Principles of Good Service Design

1 — A good service is easy to find

Use verbs not nouns to describe your service. Nouns are for experts, verbs are for everyone.

If you use a noun (eg, SORN — Statutory Off Road Notification or RIDDOR Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995) the user first has to discover what you call it. This results in an additional step for the user to engage with your service.

The result? A call to your call centre (increased costs) or they won’t use your service (reduced revenue).

What can we do differently?

When naming your service:

• Use words your users understand
• Describe the goal they’re trying to achieve (e.g., ‘Learn to Drive a Car’ rather than Apply for Driving Licence)
• Avoid legal or technical language
• Describe a task not a technology (e.g., portal)
• Don’t use acronyms(e.g., SORN)

2 — A good service clearly explains its purpose

A clear purpose covers all these things equally:

• What does your service do?
• How does the service work?
• How does it work?
• Why does it exist?

A service’s form follows a service’s function: you shouldn’t require lengthy handbooks to explain how to use your service. It should be obvious by its very design.

What can we do differently?

Clearly explain the purpose of your service.

3 — A good service sets the expectations a user has of it

Expectations are all the things a user needs to know in order to make a decision whether to use it. How much is it, how long will it take, will I be contacted, do I need anything else to do this? Knowing expectations helps people plan and take control of the situation. It gives them power.

Expectations are usually based on people’s previous experience.

There are three types of expectations:

• Universal expectations are the basics that everyone expects from a service like yours. E.g., a self catering holiday rental has beds.
• Assumed expectations are more tricky. Some services have them, some don’t. Users need clarity. E.g., we might assume a self catering holiday rental includes towels.
• Outlier expectations don’t need considering now, but you need to watch out for them for the future. E.g., a self catering holiday rental includes free access to Netflix, or fresh bread and milk delivered daily.

Outlier expectations have the habit of becoming tomorrow’s universal expectations.

What can we do differently?

• Meet all universal expectations
• Reduce assumed expectations — by explaining clearly what to expect, or change your service so that its closer to what most people expect
• Keep an eye on outlier expectations — they may become the next universal expectation

These first three principles deal with the things you need to consider before a user even starts engaging with your service.

In the next two installments, we’ll look at the things you need to get right during service delivery. If you can’t wait until next week, why not buy the book?

EDIT: Link to part 2.

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We help government and third sector employees to design services that work through training, consultancy and workshops.

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