Service design made easy - approach, tools and methods
Service Design Thinking is a proven method for developing new services and launching them on the market. How can you expand your after-sales portfolio or improve existing services with suitable tools?
The approach discussed below represents an exemplary outline of a design process. Of course, many roads lead to Rome, and in practice your approach must be adapted to the circumstances of the individual case anyway. Nevertheless, we would like to present an effective approach and associated methods at this point.
Also note the Success factors for the expansion of the service businessif you want to increase your service offer!
What are the benefits of service design thinking?
When developing new services, the greatest focus is on the needs and wishes of the customer. This principle sounds obvious at first, but is often lost sight of in development practice. Experts tend to come up with increasingly sophisticated solutions that the customer either doesn't understand, doesn't need, or can't use due to a lack of knowledge.
In a customer-centric design process, on the other hand, a lot of time is spent working with customers and getting to know their perspective on things. Designers work iteratively and test ideas repeatedly with later users as part of the development process. By creating prototypes and presenting them to customers and employees, you get consistent feedback that can be used as a basis for designing services that are highly beneficial. In this way, you minimize the risk of undesirable developments and can also find more resource-efficient solutions.
Because ideas are made tangible at an early stage, they can also be shared with others right from the start. This makes it easier to launch them on the market, because customers can already find out where you want to end up during the development phase. But employees from other areas of your company can also be made aware early on of what they need to be prepared for.
The design of the design process
In service, everything revolves around the various touchpoints at which customers come into contact with your company. The goal of the Service designs is to design these touchpoints and also determine how they should interact with each other in the end. This allows you to either create new services or improve your existing portfolio.
The scheme for a design process presented here is divided into four temporally separated sections:
1. discovery phase
The discovery phase is used to seek inspiration and gather information and ideas. Classic methods of market and user research are often used here. But also simple brainstorming in the context of heterogeneously formed Design Research Groups can already achieve good results. The aim is not only to discover customer needs, but also to identify any weaknesses in existing processes. The ultimate goal should be to develop even better and more profitable services.
Methods used:
- Customer Journey Map: A Customer Journey Map is a visual representation of the different touchpoints that exist between a company and its customers in the course of providing a service. It starts at the point where the customer first becomes aware of the existence of the offer. The end, in turn, is the final contact with the company. This is a very effective way of identifying the critical core elements of your service delivery. It also facilitates the search for weaknesses in previous processes. The graphical representation can gladly include photographs and quotes to visually illustrate this process.
- Customer Diaries: In customer diaries, customers independently record their experiences of using services over a certain period of time. This gives you qualitative information about actual customer needs. You may need some persuasion to motivate your customers to do this. If successful, however, customer diaries provide excellent input for your design process.
- Service Experience Journey: As part of a service experience journey, participants put on the customer's shoe and use a service as an example. They make a note of their experiences and can add video and images if necessary.
- Customer Shadowing: This is where you closely observe one of your customers using a service and gather information about what their experience is. The most effort has to be put into selecting the right customer and the necessary persuasion. Properly implemented, you also gain excellent knowledge about the user's perception here.
2. analysis phase
As part of the analysis phase, the information obtained must be evaluated. What is most important? Which issues need to be addressed first? Define the challenges that arise when designing a new service or enhancing an existing one. Following this, you can define a reduced set of problems and opportunities from the insights gained. In the end, there should be a clear statement of what outcomes you want to achieve as part of your design process.
Methods used:
- Customer Personas: Creating customer personas allows you to take the perspective of different customers on your offer. When creating them, you should of course stick to the insights you gained in the discovery phase. Then, personas can be very useful to keep in mind the different needs of your customers when defining targets.
- Brainstorming: Collect many different ideas and possibilities by brainstorming in heterogeneous groups. Established processes should also be questioned and evaluated here. Afterwards, you can reduce the output to a few core ideas.
- Design Briefing: As part of the design brief, define the fundamental challenges that will be addressed as part of the design process. In addition, waypoints should also be described that will guide the further design process.
3rd phase of development:
In the development phase, you create the solutions that were defined in the previous step. You can start designing the different service components (e.g. online tools, user interfaces). Prototypes and pilot phases are designed as needed and tested and developed iteratively. This trial-and-error process is probably the greatest asset of applying design methods in the After-Sales. Make your desired service tangible and tangible here so that you can demonstrate it to customers and employees from other company divisions at an early stage. Their feedback will help you make your service more effective and profitable.
Methods used:
- Service Blueprinting: The blueprint of a service is created as a visual representation of all customer touchpoints as well as the processes that need to take place in your service department in order to ensure a smooth process. You can then present this blueprint both to the employees who will later offer your service and to the customers who will later buy your service.
- Experience Prototyping: Here, you create a prototype that can be used to bring to life the experience customers will later have with your service. This is particularly suitable for data-driven services such as Predictive Maintenance whose benefits are sometimes not immediately apparent to the customer.
- Business Model Canvas: A visual tool that can also be used to describe new types of business models in the service sector. It can be used to design and test touchpoints. You can explore which elements actually increase customer value and how these can be further improved.
4. launch phase
During the launch phase, the developed service is finalized and introduced to the market. A final test phase can help to eliminate the last weak points. Suitable strategies for evaluating the new offering during its early phase should also be developed. Ensure that appropriate feedback mechanisms are installed to continue to improve your service after launch through the resulting feedback loops. The launch phase is also an appropriate time to share the experience gained during the development process with other members in the company.
