How do you know when you are service designing?
Understanding our current experience, and imagining the future of that experience is to service design. Therefore, many service design projects are about innovation and future states. Services are also about interactions between people, and their expectations form those interactions, so understanding people and their behaviours are at the heart of service design.
My first service design project was to redesign the service experience for a fast-food chain, re-introducing Mexican cuisine to the Australian public (2008). There was one major problem; customers didn’t know how to, what to choose — so ordering times were quite high. Starting with behavioural research to understand the service experience of the customer, and the staff (who are taking orders and working in the kitchen) together.
We talked to the founders to understand where they want to be with the brand, how they define their business problems, and the metrics they use to measure performance.
We observed the staff, the processes and the systems they used. Intercepts (quick interviews in situ) helped us understand customers’ emotional triggers. Listening to the conversations during food ordering helped us with simplification. Watching CCTV recordings helped us analyse and learn customers’ movement patterns within the store.
Synthesising all input we proposed a number of changes that improved the experience. Service design works best when the stakeholders are aligned and excited to do something new. In my first project, I was lucky enough to be able to prototype the new experience in an actual store. We only needed to close the store a half-day to do a number of layout and furniture changes, pin up a new menu poster printed in actual size on top of the existing menu board, and perform the new customer-staff dialogue rehearsals. We re-opened the store in the evening to monitor the new customer and staff experience, and took time measurements for 2 hours, so we could show improvements to ordering times.
The results were great, ordering and queueing times were halved — that is quite tangible. The business implemented the proposed changes over the next few weeks ready for a new store opening. On the day of opening, ordering times were decreased by over 70%, which enabled them to sell 300% more. Great metrics showed the business value of the redesign. Although I have to emphasise, only a few of my experience design projects ended up with such quickly measured, tangible outcomes.
As in the above example, the service design project was about re-thinking an ecosystem of actors (people), touchpoints, systems and processes, therefore we were dealing with interdependencies of problems — for example, if we reduce the time to order food, more people need to work in the kitchen to keep up with the increased number of orders. So one change or improvement can create harmony or chaos at the same time. By the nature of it, redesigning a service requires multiple streams of work, people and processes to be aligned behind the scenes. Implementation is best when we design with the people who deliver the service and train them on the spot. Within a smaller business of up to 50 staff, implementation was possible, relatively easier and faster.
However, for larger companies and corporates, fulfilling future service experiences becomes a challenge. Many of my projects with large organisations finish when we deliver the service blueprint because the business takes time to consider the impacts before they implement anything. Sometimes proposed changes to the service and business may be too costly after feasibility studies. Sometimes the idea of change, re-modelling or experimenting in larger businesses creates anxiety and resistance. To reduce the risk and cost of changes, we help the business prioritise the opportunities and set them on a roadmap. When and if the business is ready, we may pick up the project again.
My preference as a freelance consultant is usually to start a new project, rather than staying on for the next phase. The next phase is often a longer-term engagement, where we prototype and test the redesign of the different streams of work. The teams also get larger as the implementation often involves people, process, material and system changes. It is totally my personal preference that I move on to something new when a project gets longer and larger.
