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Lab 9 - Sylvain Cottong Service Design

What is service design and why is it so important?

Service design combines design methods from product design and interaction design for designing the experience of and the interface to services. Services represent between 60% & 70% of GDP of most industrialized nations. As most products are combined with services, the actual overall experience is what counts and is what customers look at and is most evident in northern Europe.

Service design uses the user experience design honeycomb and applies it to its field. It is a human-centered approach focusing on the customer’s experience in order to be successful. It’s about making what you do more useful, usable, and desirable for your users and more efficient, effective, and valuable for you. Some key concepts involved in service design include having service “touch points”. There are the tangible things such as spaces, objects, people, or interactions. For example: physical environments such as shops, reception areas, hospitals, as well as customer facing staff in settings such as call centers, or in front of a receptionist.

Additionally, some other key concepts of service design include: systems, value, journeys, people, and propositions. Systems involve services that are provided through systems and relationships. Value involves providing the best value for both users and producers of the service. Journeys include what steps and journeys are involved to, through, and from a service. Services also rely on people (both user and the producer) working together. Lastly, services are presented as “propositions” for users to buy into.

Also, Sylvain Cottong looks at the tools and methods utilized by service design. There is a customer journey map which illustrates how the customer perceives and experiences the service interface along a time continuum. The journey map then generates a service solution to the challenges a user may face in that situation. Another tool used is service blueprinting. Service blueprinting allows for a quantitative description of critical service elements such as time, logical sequences of actions and processes. Service blueprinting includes a front stage (events that happen in the time and place of the interaction), and the back stage (events that are out of the visible area for users but are necessary in order to deliver the service. In addition, service design uses ideation, context mapping and participatory design. These methods reveal the users’ conscious and latent needs, experiences, hopes and expectations. Another method used is service prototyping which uses tools such as scenarios, storytelling, storyboards, and real world experience simulation.

Thus it is evident that service design is very important. Service design enables ease-of-use for both the consumer and producer allowing for higher conversion rates and a greater amount of cross-selling and up-selling opportunities. Service design also helps in reducing support costs, and creates an improved perception of the brand through customer satisfaction and loyalty. Sylvain Cottong stresses that everyone is a service provider. The whole experience is what really counts and is what reels in the customers permanently. A good experience with a service will enable a user to return several times, where the user will be willing to pay more money just so they can have an easier and enjoyable experience.