Service Design is all about…well, it’s about services. It’s a way to look at the big picture. It looks at the interaction between everyone involved in the service where they touch. It’s about looking at the whole journey, the people involved, and how they feel at different points in their journey.
Another way to think about this is as a service-focused offshoot of Design Thinking and under the umbrella of User Experience. Design Thinking is a methodology for solving complex problems and creating innovative products and services. Service Design takes it a step further and optimizes how the infrastructure of a service needs to look and function.
How Do We Do This?
The main goal of Service Design is to make customer-friendly and competitive products. One of the unique ways it does this is co-creation. This method involves the end-users in the creation process of a service. This ensures it is user-centered. User-centered means it focuses on the needs and wants of the user, while traditional companies just focus on themselves.
The principal method of Service Design is mapping where customers interact with a service, known as touch-points. This mapping starts way before a customer ever actually comes into contact with a service and continues long after a customer has finished their interaction. What makes this methodology exceptionally effective is how it looks at a service from the customer’s perspective, rather than from a company’s perspective.
Why Does This Matter?
Designing based on the customer’s perspective and feelings is what will make the difference between a functional service and a truly desirable one. Functional services will work. But desirable services work and also make their customers feel positive emotions. If your customers feel great when interacting with your services, then you’re doing the right thing. They’ll gladly use your service, recommend it to their networks, and keep coming back. If they only ever feel negative emotions, then they’ll look for something better.
No one wants to lose customers. And that’s why you can’t afford to ignore Service Design.
Service Design Takeaways:
- Service Design is all about how to make services as enjoyable and helpful as possible.
- Service Design is user-centered, meaning it puts the customer first.
- Service Design maps each time customers interact with a service and makes that interaction the best possible.
- If services are desirable, enjoyable, and useful, customers will come back for more.