Irene Ng’s new weblog from the University of Exeter offers some fantastic business perspective into services. Her recent post on systems thinking, service and business schools reads like a call for service design:
Who is responsible for customer experience? The answer is, of course, everyone and every discipline, but we know what happens when we say everyone — it basically means no one. Just like public goods. No ownership means no one will do anything about it. Business Schools haven’t even come round to discussing this yet — simply because no discipline owns the problem, the problem doesn’t exist right?
I really love the voice on her blog. The posts are extensive and rich with insight. It’s shaping up to be a must-read, particularly for those of us without MBAs.
I tried Zipcar for the first time this weekend and took the opportunity to examine the customer journey. It’s a great service in most respects, but I noticed a few quirks when I went to refuel the car. Hidden inside the fuel door was a blue sticker with instructions from Flexcar, a now-defunct rival car sharing service. Zipcar acquired them a few years ago and the instructions are apparently an artifact of Flexcar’s sticker-happy ways. The steps are pretty basic and while they don’t conflict with the Zipcar process they don’t inform it very well either.
Pumping gas isn’t supposed to be rocket science but the interaction design for payment seemed a little cryptic. When I inserted the Zipcar fuel card at the pump the interface simply displayed the word “DRIVER” in the top left corner. After a couple cycles in which the process timed out without activating the pump I realized that it wanted me to identify myself as a Zipcar member. The problem is that Zipcar assigns members both a “user name” and a “Zipcard number” but for some reason the interface didn’t ask for either. If the readout had used the correct terminology it would have been clear that they were asking for input, but I didn’t immediately recognize the word “DRIVER” as a prompt. Once I cracked the code the readout changed to display the word “MILEAGE.” By now I was getting the hang of the interface’s brusque interrogative style. Ideally you’re supposed to note the mileage before fueling. But it’s a six digit number and it turns out there’s actually a fair bit of rocket science before being asked to input the number. I’ve always heard that you’re not supposed to re-enter a vehicle during fueling because it increases the risk of static electricity sparks, but there wasn’t any choice so I ducked back inside only to find that the odometer on the Civic hybrid was digital and thus unreadable when the ignition was turned off. So I got back out, replaced the fuel nozzle, closed the gas cap and then restarted the vehicle. Noted the number, looked around for something to write on and, failing to find anything, scrawled the number on the palm of my hand.
Zipcar’s online gas demo makes it clear that they’re aware of the differences in terminology but in their video the fuel pump readout isn’t nearly so cryptic. Instead of “DRIVER” it says “Please enter your driver ID number then press enter,” as it should. It goes on to explain that “driver ID number” actually means “Zipcard number”. The video also shows the fuel pump asking for mileage first, a request that’s much easier to interpret. Both the phrasing and the order make a big difference, and raise the possibility that the individual gas station software at the pump might be to blame — I’ll go to a different gas station next time to investigate. Of course, that’s little consolation for beleaguered Zipcar members. If you can’t change the terminology in the interface, then at least adopt that terminology throughout the process. It’d be as simple as printing the words “driver ID” above the number on the Zipcard.
This facet of the journey illustrates the nexus of several different disciplines within a service encounter. Graphic design covers the Zipcar co-pilot manual, the renegade instruction sticker and the fuel card itself (which had helpful instructions printed on it). Interaction design informs the fuel pump interface, the call center helpline and the welcome e-mail that gave me an initial overview of the fueling process. You might even consider the potential for information architecture to establish a standardized vocabulary across touchpoints.
I can’t help thinking that the fueling process could be improved. Maybe attach a dry-erase marker or grease pencil to the sun visor and provide a spot on the back of the fuel card to note the mileage. Or maybe eliminate that step in the process altogether. I’m guessing that the driver id and mileage are for fraud prevention, but I can’t imagine how it works in cities like Portland where you’re not allowed to pump your own gas. Next time it’ll be easy but it’s tough to get over that initial bewilderment.
Focus groups have a poor reputation in the design community. They’ve been around since the 1940s and look increasingly old-fashioned against the prevailing wave of ethnographic techniques now in vogue. If you sort through a pack of IDEO method cards you’ll find focus groups omitted with prejudice.
The arguments against focus groups are well known, and my instructors at Carnegie Mellon railed against the technique, but I’ve never really spent much time thinking about the merits. I’m curious because there are some significant parallels with the group-based techniques common to service design and I’d like a better understanding of those dynamics.
The best book I’ve found on the subject is a 1997 publication by David Morgan called Focus Groups as Qualitative Research, part of a fantastic series on research methods. For me, its most thought provoking insight is the notion that focus groups can be used in conjunction with other qualitative techniques.
The author regards this as conventional wisdom and cautions against the “unwarranted assumption that focus groups must be limited to preliminary or exploratory uses in combination with other methods.” And later, “the reputation that focus groups have in some circles as a ‘quick and cheap’ technique is due to the very limited function to which they have often been relegated as preliminary explorations to set the stage for real research.”
To be honest it had never occurred to me that focus groups could be used as anything other than a stand-alone tool. I’ve seen them used in parallel with other qualitative techniques, but not in any sort of integrated fashion. Viewed in isolation the criticisms of focus groups might be compelling (though I think the author would disagree). But as a preparatory step I can see quite a bit of resonance for design researchers.
Focus Groups and Participant Observation
The principle benefit that focus groups have to offer to a project based on participant observation is a concentrated insight into participants’ thinking on a topic. This can be especially useful when the researcher is entering a field site that differs sharply from his or her prior experience.
In this case, the focus groups provide an initial exposure to the typical experiences and perspectives of those the research is about to observe. Given the well known problems of gaining access to and establishing rapport in a new field site, preliminary focus groups with participants drawn from similar locations, other than the research setting itself, can often be quite useful. [Morgan p33]
Focus Groups and Individual Interviewing
The basic idea is to use one or two exploratory focus groups to reveal the range of thoughts and experiences prior to the first individual interview. Alternatively, preliminary individual interviews can help generate focus group discussion guides by giving a feel for how people think and talk about the topics that the groups will discuss.
A different “supplementary” use for either type of interview would be to learn about differences among potential interviewees. Thus, in an individual-interview project that involved a choice among several sites or population groups, a preliminary round of focus groups would provide a basis for selecting the next set of interviews.
A final way to combine focus groups with individual interviews is to conduct one as a follow-up to the other. Following individual interviews with focus groups allows the researcher to explore issues that came up only during the analysis of the interviews. Alternately, followup individual interviews can help provide depth and detail on topics that were only broadly discussed in group interviews. [Morgan p34]
The basic argument in favor of focus groups is that they reveal aspects of experiences and perspectives that would be less accessible without group interaction. Unfortunately this interaction can cause problems of its own and much of the criticism leveled at focus groups centers on this issue.
In any event, the main advantage for designers is the opportunity to observe a large amount of interaction on a particular topic in a limited amount of time. I’m intrigued by the idea that focus groups might also provide a preliminary understanding of an otherwise foreign subject and help set the stage for more detailed research. But it’s clear that the author views this as a limited application of an otherwise robust strategy. “For many purposes, focus groups, like other qualitative methods, can be a well-chosen, self-contained means for collecting research data. … [and] when pursued in this way, focus groups demand the same attention to detail as any other means of data collection. The quality of data depends on the quality of preparation.”
He’s talking about focus groups as a rigorous tool of social science, which I gather is about as far removed from the marketing-based focus groups of scorn as actual ethnographic research is from the watered down version of “design ethnography” that designers know and love.
Throughout the book the author highlights best practices for successful focus groups. I’ve compiled a list of about a dozen practical guidelines from the book for future reference, including a set of techniques for group self-management.
31Volts’ new book on service design was released yesterday by the Dutch ministry of Economic Affairs. Entitled Innovation is Served, the 56-page booklet offers a brief overview of service design process and methodology along with eight miniature service design vignettes from Engine, IDEO, STBY and others highlighting service companies around the world.
I had been looking forward to the book since they announced it last month but only a fraction of the content is in English. The photos and the graphic design are quite nice, but since I don’t read Dutch I ran the PDF through Google’s translation engine to generate a rough English version [PDF 1.7MB] for myself. A few of the idioms don’t quite translate and it’s missing the lovely Rijksoverheid typeface of the original but now you can follow the basic outline rather than just admiring the photographs.
Innovation is Served is a good model for spreading the word about service design to a lay audience. I’d prefer a bit more detail in the case studies but 31Volts has done an admirable job hitting the design highlights and staying out of the weeds.
The AT-ONE project at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design produced a set of service touchpoint cards for the Nordic Service Design conference last month. I was curious about the cards and they were kind enough to send a pack to review.
It consists of a set of 52 cards representing various touchpoints that might be found in a typical service. Five of the cards suggest card-sorting exercises designed to help organizations think more about how they present themselves to the public.
- Forced association – Pick two cards and create a service for your project based upon just these touchpoints.
- Mapping touchpoints – For each step of the service journey, choose the touchpoint cards from the pack that the customer will encounter and map the journey.
- Touchpoint take away – Identify the two most important touchpoints at each step of the customer journey and replace them with alternatives.
- Can I use it here? – For each step of the service journey, go through the cards and envision how the touchpoint could create value at this particular step.
- Whose touch point is it anyway? – Sort through the cards in terms of who is responsible for each touchpoint within your organization. Do they work together?
Initially the scope of the cards seemed a little overwhelming so I mentally grouped the touchpoints into five categories: Media, Graphics, Servicescapes, Communications and Ephemera.
The first category refers to media outlets such as TV, radio or newspapers along with newer channels such weblogs and viral messaging. Next is graphical output such as business cards, brochures, signage and packaging. Servicescapes contain the environmental and face-to-face aspects of a service such as wayfinding, queues and actual employees. The communications category contains cards for e-mail and various kinds of telephones as well as traditional channels such as letters or word of mouth. Finally, I created an ephemera category for things like receipts, bills, contracts, instructions, credit cards and all the bits of business that hold a service together.
The pack contains two blank cards for creating new touchpoints and three specific cards for “service as a product,” referencing hybrids like the Amazon Kindle, Nike Plus and Nabaztag.
One card didn’t make sense to me. It simply contained the word “myths” and a photograph of a book entitled Myths and Legends. I’ve never come across this particular theme in regard to touchpoints. Any help?
I think that these cards are a good tool for brainstorming, but they’re an excellent tool for explaining the concept of service design to potential clients. I’d like to see the set fleshed out a bit with categories or other ways to “chunk” the cards and maybe some insight or best practices for particular touchpoints on the backs of the cards themselves.
Finally it’d be nice to see this kind of approach expanded to deal with aspects of service design beyond touchpoints. For instance, the communication mechanisms that filter information throughout the enterprise and the management systems that organize and train employees in the service culture: the backstage linkware and orgware to complement the touchpoints.
The danger is that by omission these tools reinforce the notion that only the front stage elements of a service need to be designed. Service design is about more than touchpoints.
Still, this is a good place to start and it’s always nice to add a new resource to our arsenal. I’d like to see more organizations take a crack at this type of thing.
In light of the new TSA guidelines for international flights I thought I’d dig up a National Public Radio story from 2006 on the customer service at Singapore Airlines, which travelers rate among the best, if not the best, in the world:
We will never be a hundred percent better than any one of those airlines. Our aim is to be one percent better than them in a hundred different areas so that at the end of the day the customer sees with us an all-round service proposition that they’re prepared to pay that modest premium to fly with.
There’s also a bit about how the airline trains their employees in the culture of customer service. This internal aspect is something I don’t think service designers spend enough time discussing.
Of course Singapore Airlines has lowered the bar significantly in response to the new guidelines.
I’ve added a new paper to my service design research collection. It’s called “Experience, Service Operations Strategy, and Services as Destinations” from the Journal of Production and Operations Management. The paper is incredibly relevant for the service design community and deserves a place in our canon.
Authors Chris Voss, Aleda Roth and Richard Chase introduce the idea of services as destinations and place them at the apex of a hierarchy of experiential service offerings. They analyze 28 case studies for examples of experience and identify four types of businesses along the spectrum, ranging from those that use experience as an enhancement for an existing service to those that embrace experience as a core offering.
They propose that the depth of experience must be supported by a corresponding level of integration within an organization, with the operational demands rising as a function of the complexity of the experience offered. Higher levels of experience offer greater financial returns, assuming the organizational infrastructure to maintain them. The authors also explore the role of the chief experience officer (CXO) and the organizational risks and rewards associated with a centralized authority.
But what makes this a must-read paper is the basic taxonomy identifying four components of service operation:
- Stageware – Bricks and mortar. The facilities layout, process technology and flows.
- Orgware – Management systems to organize and train people for experience and create an environment and culture for engaging customers.
- Customerware – Specific touchpoints where customers interact with the delivery system service.
- Linkware – Integration systems. The communication mechanisms that filter information across the enterprise and down to all levels.
Too often as service designers we focus on either the touchpoints or the servicescape; the sexy front-stage components of the customer experience. But what goes on inside the company is just as important for us to consider. Voss, Chase and Roth provide a simple frame for that discussion.
The list of references at the end is a gold mine for anyone interested in exploring the literature on experience. I’m amazed that we don’t talk about these sources more often. Journals like Decision Sciences and Advances in Consumer Research or the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, the Journal of Cyberpsychology and Behavior and the Journal on Multivariate Behavioral Research. I’ve dug up a dozen new papers.
Update: The authors also have a presentation summarizing their research [PDF 2.9MB] but it doesn’t stand on its own very well. I’d recommend checking out the full paper.
The launch of MyServiceFellow, a mobile phone application for capturing touchpoints, reminded me of a great case study from 2002 in a book called Web Site Redesigns. Author Darcy DiNucci, then a design director at Method, documented the initial design research phase for a travel website. It began with a combination diary and camera study for 50 travelers:
Method sent the travelers out with a kit designed to capture their experiences, plus $125 for their trouble. The kit consisted of a disposable camera and a survey book the traveler could use to record any aspect of the trip that seemed noteworthy, plus an instruction sheet telling each participant how to use them. Each traveler was asked to tell their own story of their experience of business travel. By taking pictures of places, objects and moments, each participant would reveal how he or she perceived the travel experience.
What was recorded was up to each participant — the experience would be documented through the travelers own eyes, not by answers to a set of questions posed by an outsider. For each picture taken the participant created an entry in the survey book, noting the date, time, place, and observations about their state of mind, the situation, and why they chose to take the picture. [DiNucci 39-40]
The book includes samples from the survey design and a collection of photographs and descriptions from the kits they received back from the study. Of course Method used this mainly as inspiration for the website rather than to re-design the customer journey as a project itself. But the techniques can be a great match for the needs of service designers.
For me these low-tech approaches are more appealing than the more recent examples of technology I’ve seen applied to the problem. For one thing, it just seems easier to manage for the participant. Paper doesn’t crash. There’s no software to learn or password to remember. It’s a notebook. You write in it.
Disposable cameras are simple to use but for one recent study I experimented with letting the participants use their own camera if they preferred. There’s no reason not to consider cameraphones since the quality has improved in recent years. But there’s something nice about giving the participant a set number of exposures with a disposable camera that they can stuff in an envelope when they’re done. No CDs to burn; no files to upload. I’m also keen to try the disposable video cameras that are coming to the market. For some projects Flip camcorders might even be appropriate for limited use within organizations.
Like all design research, recruitment is an important component. Method used an external recruiting service to identify their participants and just over half returned the kits.
Designers should be closely involved with the recruitment process. For instance, in the diary study I mentioned earlier I found the best respondents for a cooking and recipe study by contacting local food bloggers. I also structured the incentives so participants received half up front and half upon return (they sent all of the kits back). External agencies almost never work out well other than as a supplement. It takes time, but recruiting is important enough to handle yourself.
DiNucci’s book is out of print but used copies are available online for practically nothing. The case studies are primarily focused on website design but the book is worth it for the diary example alone. It’s a well-written, detailed case study that incidentally could serve as a model for service designers to follow when writing their own case studies.
Be sure to check out Lucy Kimbell’s year-end round up of service design. She ends with some important questions for designers to consider in the coming year regarding politics, scope and knowledge as the community evolves.
She asks when we’re going to start talking about these questions. It seems like a yearly conference isn’t enough.
Peter Boersma isn’t buying it. Earlier this week he posted a withering critique of service design as part of his Experience Design 101 article at Design for Conversion.
Yes, Service Design is here. And it’s supposed to be new, even though every book or article you read acknowledges that the service industry (main examples: hotels, restaurants) have been designing their services for ages. So what is new: The inclusion and central placement of the digital channel in modern services that do not require face-to-face contact.
Some books will try to make you believe there is something new (like “Service Design – Designing Services with Innovative Methods” by Satu Miettinen and Mikko Koivisto) but a lot of it should sound very, very familiar for anyone who ever realized that redesigning a website and its FAQ section might have an influence on the types of questions a call centre might get.
Boersma invokes the strawman that service design’s value as a practice somehow lies in its novelty. Maybe I’m out of touch but it’s not immediately clear that anyone has been pushing that argument. I’m about 2000 miles away from my copy of Designing Services with Innovative Methods at the moment but that’s certainly not what I got from the book.
It’s true that the service industry has been designing their services for ages. Lucy Kimbell addresses this practice as “silent design” in her contribution [PDF 240k] to Design and Creativity: Policy, Management and Practice and it’s worth noting as a counterpoint to what designers bring to the table.
Live|work opened their first studio in 2001 but they didn’t create the practice out of whole cloth. They’re well aware of the history behind service design and they’ve been quick to credit authors such as Shostack and Bitner for their formative contributions to the field. People have been writing about the design of services since 1953. Before that, it simply wasn’t well-recognized that services were distinctive from products. Many designers are just now coming around to the idea that services can be designed but rather than criticize them for being late to the game we should embrace the idea that they showed up at all.
Part of Boersma’s derision comes from service design encroaching on UX turf. That much is apparent from his call center example. The difference is that rather than suspecting that a website FAQ “might” have an impact on a call center, service designers are absolutely certain. They go to great lengths to demonstrate the connections and then find ways to break down the internal silos between the website team and the call center team — and every other customer-facing aspect of the organization.
I suppose there’s nothing stopping UX designers from doing the same thing, or anyone else for that matter, but for service designers taking the holistic view is our raison d’être.
