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Service design is the tipping point that determines whether your customers will return and use your product or services. This extends beyond traditional user experience enhancement and addresses every single touchpoint that users might come across, from human and digital interfaces to infrastructures and communication messages. If companies wish to keep with the times and outlast the competition, then they must come to terms with the reality that consumer behavior changed and will continue to change with the advent of new channels. Service delivery needs to be rethought to accommodate new business models. Consumers are not hard to please; they just want what they have been promised.

A Comprehensive User Experience

Service design is typically concerned with 3 main events related to a product or service: the pre-service,  service and after-service periods. To illustrate how good service design functions, I will relate a personal experience I had a while back when I bought a new car at a dealership.

Let's start with the pre-service phase. My mind was already set on the car I wanted so I accessed the manufacturer's online platform. The website proposed an attractive user experience which included a nifty comparison tool with competitors' cars, developed specifically for the car of my choice. This was the dealer's way of succinctly pointing out that their car was better than their competitor’s. Now that I had gathered all the information I needed, I visited the showroom to crunch down options and extras. Finally, I was assured that my car would be ready for delivery within 2 days. At this stage, the touchpoints of service design I interacted with included the information available on the dealer's website, online reviews and videos, as well as my in-store experience, leading up to my purchase of the car.

When my car was delivered, I entered the service and after-service period. After a certain number of miles, the car notified me it was time for its maintenance checkup. I started by looking up my dealership’s number online; and ended up on the manufacturer’s website for the region and found a page labeled "Car maintenance”. I was presented with comprehensive information about the car parts that get replaced and tested at this scheduled maintenance. The information also came with the pricing and mileage details for each checkup. This was a great example of online user experience at work, and I admit it was a first for me back then. I made an appointment with my dealership and when I came in, I was politely greeted by a staff member who helped me deal with the paperwork. While I was there, I noticed an interactive display that listed the maintenance schedule and pricing for every car scheduled for that day. As I was about to leave, reassured that my car was in good hands, the service crew informed me there was a cab at my disposal if I needed a ride. A couple of hours later, I received an SMS and a phone call to notify me that my car was ready. When I returned to pick up the car, it was cleaned, the seat and seatbelt were back in their original positions and the pricing was exactly as stated on the manufacturer's website. Flawless! You can see how service design covered different aspects of the after-service period from the in-car notification to the alignment of the message on the website, in-store and by SMS notification (primitive though it may be, it did its job).

If I were to spice up the service design in the example above, I would add a mobile application to automate the dealership's emergency response service covering the entire region, no matter where drivers may be in their car. This type of app would require serious user experience enhancement. Looking at the bigger picture, we would have to determine how to treat the data and use it to grow business and retain customers. For instance, the second step after developing the app could involve an adapter (already out there) plugged in to all cars by default, which would make after-service response even more timely. A touch of their smartphone would allow drivers to alert other cars similarly fitted of road hazards. Putting in place such a follow-up and response system would fall under the overall service design.

A mobile app could deliver good user experience with one touchpoint but it is not enough. For a business to generate and maintain satisfaction, it requires good service across the board. Businesses who still cling to old models would still spend huge sums on advertising rather than improve their services. Every one of us can remember at least one occasion where reality didn't match the expectations set by the hype around a product or service. The result? Disaster for a business is spelled out in a simple equation: huge marketing expenditure + failing to meet customers' expectations = loss of future profit and customers.

Walking Through Service Design

Before you get hands-on with service design, you have to keep in mind the end you are working towards. It is safe to say the 2 most common goals are a) increasing customer acquisition, and b) increasing loyalty and creating brand ambassadors. Ultimately, it all comes down to increasing profit. Now the question is "How?" the next time you are planning a new business, application or service, it would be useful to keep the following points in mind:  

1. Framing: Set the objectives of the product/service you are offering, based on market research and the company’s objectives. This sets the whole direction of your business.

2.User insights: Know how consumers use your product, why they are using it and whether they are using some workaround that you might add to your offering. How are employees handling the business flow? Make contextual inquiries involving both your employees and users.

3. Personas: After gathering and analyzing all the necessary data, you will need to create "personas", i.e. profiles of key persons involved at all levels of the supply chain process. This helps outline their wants, needs restrictions more clearly.

4. Design: Here the term design denotes the requirements of users. Define who does what and why from both the business and consumer side, and cover the rational and emotional goals while setting KPIs.

5. Ideation: In the design phase, you will come up with a lot of ideas. It is crucial to prioritize those ideas: what constitutes a must, what would be a nice addition to your offering, what could wait until later, etc.

6. Service concept: Document the "user journey" comprising the whole process of the service from supplier to consumer. Then identify key points that can be fixed, changed or excluded, and key touchpoints to be enhanced or created (in-store, mobile app, social media, website, proximity marketing, etc).

7. Prototype and testing: Start with a demo of your service concept; test it, analyze the collected data and tweak the process for optimal results.

8. Feasibility: This is where service design starts to come to life. You understand pre-service, service and after-service behaviors from users and suppliers, and you have set your priorities, so start implementation.

9. It's never over: Your work does not stop at the implementation phase. Service design involves a continuous cycle of data collection and analytics, with constant reviewing, recommending, and re-adapting.

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George Khabbaz is a digital consultant who has headed digital strategy departments and managed user experience for local, regional and multinational agencies covering different verticals. He is currently the Chief Digital Officer of Dress Code - Converse, which he also co-founded.