Let’s say you have a digital product and you have managed to attract some customers. As the business owner, you might think that the service you are giving people is the product you have. Well, you’re right but not exactly. Your product is only part of the service you provide. You also have customer support, right? And a phone-in service? and a website? How about a physical store? Well, if you look into it, there could be several other services connected to your business, too. In fact, your product could only be a small chunk of the services you offer. All the services you offer are designed to give the customer a better experience in their mutual deal with your company and this is where service design comes into play: to design all your services so that they give the customer a better, smoother, more useful, and a more enjoyable experience; and a better customer experience usually means better sales.
In fact, if you think about it, it’s not only the product that is selling but the services you offer. Two similar products from two different companies could sell differently not because of the quality of their products, but because of the different services either of the companies deliver to their customers; and this is why service design matters.
What IS Service Design?
So far, we know that a business is comprised of several services surrounding the product. In fact, as some say, the product actually IS the service itself; or better to say, ‘the service is the actual product’. It is the service that decides the number of sales and it is the service that brings an added value to the brand. So as a tech founder, you must know that your app or any other SaaS product you have is a combination of different services you offer including the product itself.
Service is the way you connect with your customers. Your customers see you through your services and the service touchpoints. A touchpoint is the spot where your customers face any service of yours.
Let’s give an example; in the example above about your digital app, your website’s UI is a touchpoint – it is the point where your customers see you and start to get information about you and your company. In the same way, the dialogue box you have on your website is another touchpoint – it is the point where your users start to use your ‘answering inquiry’ service. Even your app, as your digital product, is a service and it has several touchpoints. The UI, the FAQ part, the drop-down menus, and all other services you offer are touchpoints where customers interact with and realize their experience with your brand.
Even if there are some physical things and places where you offer your services, like an office, a phone line, a physical store, and so on, those services have touchpoints, too and you must think about their design as well.
- A Touchpoint
So, let’s put it this way: as the service is an abstract idea, a touchpoint is the tangible version of your service; it is the other side of the service coin.
Now that we have realized the importance of service and service design, let’s see how service design and customer experience can interact with each other.
Links between Service Design and Customer Experience
So far, we have realized that your business’s connection with the customers is through service touchpoints. It is these touchpoints that make up the customers’ experience with your brand. A good service design considers all aspects of the service experience including customer interactions, back-end processes as well as the front-end ones, the technology involved, and even the physical environment. The purpose is to create services that are user-friendly, attractive and effective, and ones that are aligned with the whole business goals.
At this point, we must define another term often used in the service design literature: Customer Experience Design (CX Design).
- What is Customer Experience (CX) Design?
CX Design is the process of designing products, interactions, and environments that can wholistically create an enjoyable and meaningful experience for the end user. So, we can say that CX Design is a subset of service design and is incorporated in it. They both align with each other and are created to create a better experience for the customer.
When it comes to user experience, tech business owners usually only think of a good user interface (UI), but this is only a reduction of the matter. When designing CX, the customer’s whole journey must be considered – from the moment they engage with your product until they leave it. The goal is to create an experience that is memorable for the customer. Therefore, there are a number of things you must think about before you start the service and experience design:
- Make sure your customer has clarity over your service principles. They must know how their data is going to be used and they must also know about the policies, fees, rules and regulations (if any), and the limitations they will face during their journey with your product.
- Make sure you have a good onboarding policy. Your customers must be immediately trained on how to use your app or product once they are engaged with it. So, your guidelines must be easy to understand.
- Predict what issues customers might have with your product and try to have solutions for them in advance. This will make the customer’s journey smoother and more satisfactory.
- Have an offboarding policy as well. As much as it is important to have a good onboarding policy and taking new customers and training them along the way, the point where your customers are leaving your product and saying goodbye to you (not for good, though!) is also important. You must make this digital goodbye a memorable experience. The point where the customers are going to log out or close your app is a touchpoint you must never underestimate.
Key Components of Service Design
The key components of service design could be listed as follows:
User Research
No good business plan can be made without research. Here, you must carry out research to find out about the key areas of customers’ interest, goals, purposes and their impression of your product.
Service Blueprinting
This is a visual plan that decides on the design of various touchpoints and interactions that the users will experience dealing with your services.
Service Prototyping
This involves creating some low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes of your services so that you can improve them if necessary.
Service Delivery Design
This is the stage where you design user interfaces and the touchpoints where the customers face your product. It also involves designing the channels that deliver your services
Service Measurement and Optimization
This is about creating measures that help you constantly monitor your services and allow you to improve and optimize them if necessary.
Service Culture and Organization
This involves creating a culture within the business that supports service design activities and practices.
What Are the Benefits of Adopting Service Design?
It might be pointless to talk about the benefits of something that almost makes up your whole business, that is, your services. Your product is, in fact, your service, and the more you work on it the better. But anyways, it is possible to list a few major advantages of adopting a service design protocol.
- It leads to customer satisfaction
- It will help tech businesses to deliver a more effective service to the customers
- It will reduce costs in the long run and thus it will contribute to better efficiency
- It will help your business have a competitive advantage in the market
- It will foster an atmosphere that boosts creativity and innovation within the organization
How Does Service Design Improve Customer Experience?
An enhanced service delivery has an overall positive impact on the user experience and once this becomes interwoven with the business culture inside the organization, it can have a far-reaching impact on the users’ impression of your product and brand. Regardless of its general positive impact, the following list is a short-hand of the major impacts that service design could have on customer experience.
- Delivering services that are modified specifically for your users.
- Since it starts with research on user needs, preferences and behaviors, service design will lead to creating services that are specifically tailored to the needs of your product users.
- Improving customer satisfaction and decreasing frustration.
- By enhancing the overall delivery of the services and through correcting activities such as reducing waiting times, eliminating bottlenecks, etc. service design will lead to a more satisfactory experience on the user’s behalf.
- Creating a coherent experience of service delivery.
- Service design works across all service delivery channels and tries to harmonize the functions of the several touchpoints that customers face and this will make customers feel like they are having a more coherent experience while they are dealing with your services.
- Keeping the services meaningful and relevant over time. The feedback loop that service design is committed to allows for a continuous effort to keep services relevant to users and their circumstances and allows for any modification in case the customers’ needs change over time.
What is User Experience (UX) and Customer Experience (CX) And How Does Service Design Relate to Them?
UX and CX are closely connected terms with some slight differences. Both of these terms describe the experience that people have with your product, service, and your brand; however, their difference lies in the two business concepts used – that is, the customer and the user. ‘The user’ is a concept that refers to a person who is – at the very moment – using your product, app, or any other of your services whereas ‘the customer’ is a more covering term and indicates a person who is dealing with your brand at a broader level. So, we can say that ‘the customer’ is a more general term that ‘the user’. Consequently, when we talk about user experience, we might be referring to the interactions a user has with a particular service while customer experience implies a relationship with the brand in general.
The following are some ways in which service design deals with user experience and customer experience:
Service design at the user experience level
- It deals with user interaction with the product or the service.
- It is involved with issues such as functionality, design and user satisfaction while using the service.
Service design at the customer experience level
- It is concerned with the customer’s relationship with the brand.
- It studies customer experience at different touchpoints of various business activities such as marketing, advertising, and customer service.
Despite these differences, service design must deal with both user experience and customer experience in order to create a smooth and coordinated experience for the customer at all levels.
What Are Some Service Design Examples?
The following are some of the most successful service designs carried out by some very successful companies:
Airbnb
Airbnb’s successful service design has managed to perfectly align all its services with the company’s business goals, turning the renting process into a unique experience for both travelers and the home owners.
Tesla
Tesla has managed to transform the customers’ traditional engagement with the automobile industry, simultaneously making it a meaningful experience for the customers. By rethinking traditional roles of sales and customer service representatives, its service design has allowed the customers to have products tailored to their interests.
Starbucks
Starbucks is a perfect example of a successful service design that has managed to enhance the image of a very ordinary product like coffee into something very special.
Conclusion
As they say, ‘a product is nothing but a service’. Therefore, Once you start thinking that your business is only comprised of services, you will definitely begin to rethink how you must deliver those services, and this is where service design begins. The way you design your services is the key to stand out in the market and the pathway is research. Studying your users’ interests and finding out about their behavior will help you deliver a unique service through your digital product.
And one noteworthy fact, your users are not the only humans dealing with your product. So sometimes it might be necessary to look at the bigger picture and design services that can successfully interact with any customer who is dealing with your brand, wherever the touchpoint!
