What is Service Design?


What is a Service?

First, let's start with a definition. 

A serve is the action, how to serve customers.

It is defined around 4 main characteristics which were defined by Zeithaml et al. in 1985. Unlike a product, a service is: 

  • Intangible: it cannot necessarily be touched; 
  • Inseparable: it is produced the very moment it is used; 
  • Perishable: it cannot be stored or transferred; 
  • Heterogeneous: it is variable over time and in its performance.

A service will be rendered over time, through one or more material media (a product, a point of sale, an invoice) and/or immaterial (an interface, a website, a sound environment, a hotline, etc.) and in a manner adapted to the context (at home, at work, on the move, etc.).

In terms of services, we can cite: 

  • industrial services
  • banking services
  • B2B services 
  • public services 

#What is service design?

Quite simply, service design is the discipline to design a service and/or optimize existing services. With the aim that the service be desirable et functional aspects for its user. 

"Service design choreographers processes, technologies and interactions within complex systems in order to co-create value for relevant stakeholders.”

Birgit Mager,

President of the “Service Design Network”.

Service design thus encompasses the user experience (the front) but also all the dimensions allowing the delivery of the service (the middle and the back): the organization, the processes, the technology, etc. Service Design is particularly interested in the objects with which the user interacts: a terminal, a mobile application, a point of sale, etc. 

#How was service design born?

This discipline was born from a paradigm shift. We have moved from an industrial economy to a service economy. Who today can say that he does not consume a service? From banking services to bike rental, everything is “service”.

You should know that we have been talking about service design since the 80s. The first published article dates from 1982 by G. Lynn Shostack, to whom the paternity of the discipline was attributed. In 1991, 10 years later, Dr. Michael Erlhof and Professor Birgit Mager of the Kӧln International School of Design (KISD) introduced service design to the design community and began to focus on service design education. research, and service design began to develop.

Today, dozens of schools around the world are introducing service design courses and offering service design majors or research orientations. Famous institutions include Royal College of Art, Politecnico di Milano, Carnegie Mellon University, Linköpings Universitet, Aalto University, Tokyo Higher Institute of Industrial Technology, Lucerne, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Kӧln International School of Design, etc

#What is the difference between service design, UX and Design Thinking?

Design Thinking is the methodological foundation of all design disciplines. It constitutes the foundation, the basis from which the other disciplines come to draw their methods and tools. UX focuses on the user experience, what can be called the front end. Service design encompasses another dimension. It comes to explore all the elements (people, process, organization etc.) that must be aligned in order to allow the user experience to be correctly delivered, what we can call the “middle” and the “back”. ”.

#How to design a service? 

Service design has appropriated the major stages of Design Thinking and adapted them to service design. At UX-Republic, we proceed in three steps: 

  • a stage of diagnosis of the existing
  • an MVS (Minimum Viable Service) design stage
  • an experimentation stage of the MVS 

The diagnosis of the existing 

The objective of this first phase is to measure the gap between the experience delivered and lived.

We seek to

  • draw up an inventory of knowledge of the service: its customer experience, its operating mode and its business strategy 
  • identify the internal irritants and the motivations of the teams to get involved in the good delivery of the service in connection with their annual objectives

For this, we use many tools: actor map, customer journey map, service blueprint, empathy map, storyboard etc. 

The design of the MVS

The objective of this phase is to identify the experiential action levers, define the target vision and prototype the target service.

We seek to :

  • bring out the value proposition of the target service and decline it 
  • identify and prototype the desired experience 
  • define the internal levers to be activated during the change management phase 
  • question the business viability of the service with regard to user benefits, in collaboration with the business teams 

For this, we use ideation and rapid prototyping techniques. The number and type of prototype are all the more important as the service is complex. We can indeed prototype an organization, a support product, processes, etc. 

MVS experimentation

The objective of this phase is to experiment with the introduction or improvement of a service.

We seek to :

  • confront the proposed solution with a representative sample of users before large-scale deployment 
  • identify areas for necessary adjustments to the service 
  • become aware of the involvement of staff with pilot users  

We are thus multiplying user tests and adjusting the service as we go along according to the results. 

#How could you mobilize our UX-Republic Service Designers? 

Here are some recent interventions in service design for our clients: 

  • Design of an Innovation Lab for a Chamber of Commerce and Industry 
  • Audit of a customer service dedicated to a premium customer segment having acquired a new product 
  • Animation of design workshops for a city wishing to offer new services to economic actors 

#Conclusion

Service design is not a fad: it is a growing discipline that is becoming more and more integrated into organizations. It thus allows companies to enter the era of experience by making these teams more agile and its products more aligned with the needs of its consumers. Its strength is to encompass all dimensions of a service (front, middle and back) in order to create a consistent user experience across all user interactions.

To go further, we recommend reading the book “This is service design doing” co-written by more than 96 authors. 

 

UX-Republic Experts team

 

 


Our next trainings