What is service design: CX Mini Masterclass – E58

Welcome to Decoding the Customer, a podcast about customer experience and how to realize customer-centric change in today’s dynamic business world. I’m Julia Ahlfeldt, certified customer experience professional, business advisor, and host of this program. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you’re new to the show, welcome.

If you’re a returning listener, thanks and it’s great to have you back. This episode is part of my CX Mini Masterclass series here on Decoding the Customer. These weekly episodes are published each Thursday and designed to be punchy, bite-size overviews of key customer experience concepts and ideas for how you can help your organization thrive through customer centricity. Whether you’re new to the field of customer experience, are preparing for the CCXP exam, or are a seasoned professional looking to brush up on a few basics, this series will help you improve your knowledge, skills, and performance to stand out as a CX professional.

If you’re keen to do some more intensive online training in the field of customer experience, stay tuned at the end of this episode for an exclusive listener discount code from CX University. This is Episode 58, the third episode in the month of October, a month I’ve dedicated to exploring topics that are a buzz in the CX professional community. I’m doing this so we can unpack them and understand how these concepts relate to the work that many of us are out there doing in the field of customer experience. Today, I’m covering service design.

A lot of people talk about service design, but I think it’s widely misunderstood, probably because it has the word service in it. Common sense might tell us that service design is about designing customer service, but that’s actually not the definition. Service design is much more than that, and it’s a critically important competency for nearly any organization that wants to attract and retain customers. So, if you’re interested in learning what service design is and is not, then stay tuned.

If you’re busy carving a pumpkin or putting the finishing touches on that one-of-a-kind Halloween costume, and here’s something that you’d like to remember later, don’t worry about writing it down. You can find an overview of the key concepts that we’ve covered today in the show notes for this episode, which are on my website, juliaahlfeldt.com, or decodingthecustomer.com. To understand service design, we need to first clarify the difference between goods and services. Goods are tangible items of value, things like cars and cartons of milk.

Services are intangible items of value, like medical consultation, expert advice, or training. If we were to look at most economies, say, 100 years ago, the majority of brands would have either provided goods or services with just a handful providing a hybrid of the two. In the modern marketplace, however, that idea has been turned completely on its head. Most organizations provide both goods and services.

Software as a service is a great example of this. Companies like Google and Hubspot provide products through their software, but they also provide a suite of services around that software to enhance its usage. The doctor’s office is another great example of a combination between goods and services. They provide tangible products in the form of medicine, along with consultation as a service.

Yes, there are definitely still organizations out there that provide just a product or just a service. But they’re the outliers. And with consumers doing more and more themselves and interfacing with their phones and software every day, it’s given a rise to a whole ecosystem of services to support customers. Last week’s episode, number 57, looked into design thinking.

Design thinking was essentially born out of product design. And while modern design thinking can also be used to creatively problem solve for service-based solutions, actually providing experiences that are based on a blend of goods and services is an entirely different kettle of fish. We can dream up an amazing ideal outcome for our customer journey, but delivering that is no small task. That, my friends, is where service design comes in.

In preparation for this episode, I looked into some of the definitions of service design and settled on the one from Wikipedia, of all places, as my favorite. This definition states that service design is the activity of planning and organizing people, infrastructure, communication, and material components of a service in order to improve its quality and the interaction between the service provider and its customers. Service design is where we lift up the hood of the car and look at all the parts that are needed to make the car run. Well, not literally because a car is a product, but in a metaphorical sense, service design is where we understand what an organization needs to do in order to make experiences happen.

So service design is where we get to turn our perspective inwards to the people, processes, and technology that make experiences happen. Service design clarifies the roles, responsibilities, interdependencies that are needed to deliver an experience. Service design impacts this in terms of the interactions that a customer sees and also the layers behind the scenes, the actions and supporting functions that are also necessary. As I’m talking about this, I imagine that many of you are now thinking about the spaghetti wire of processes that happen in your own organizations to bring experiences to life.

It’s probably not just a simple linear process. So don’t worry if the idea of service design sounds a bit scary and quite a bit overwhelming. Next week, I’m going to share a simple tool that you can use to help visualize service design. If you’re looking for help with service design in your organization, feel free to get in touch.

I’d be happy to explore how I could help. You can reach me via email, tweet, or LinkedIn message. My handle is at Julia Ahlfeldt, and my full contact details are listed on my website, juliaahlfeldt.com or decodingthecustomer.com. So that’s it for this week.

Short and sweet. Thanks so much for listening. If you’re enjoying the show, please share the program with others or head on over to iTunes and rate the podcast. This helps others find the show.

I’ll be back next Thursday with another Mini Masterclass. Be sure to tune in then or subscribe for updates when new episodes go live. Are you keen to do some more intensive online training in the field of customer experience? If so, I’d encourage you to check out CX University.

They offer a broad array of e-learning options that you can access anywhere and anytime. Their offering includes practice tests for the CCXP exam, and their customer experience professionals association accredited resource and training provider, meaning that their materials have been reviewed and vetted by the association for alignment to the six core competencies that are in the exam. And what’s better is that all this is available on a flexible monthly subscription plan, meaning that you don’t have to fork over hundreds of dollars to get started. As of the time of publishing this episode, plans including CX courses and practice exam questions start at just $75 per month.

And listeners to the podcast can use the discount code PODCAST10 to get 10% off the first month’s subscription and help support the show. All right, thanks so much and I’ll see you next Thursday.