Design for Service

The New York Times dining section has an interesting article today on “flavor tripping.” It’s a fantastically pure example of experience design. There’s apparently a West African berry called miracle fruit that alters the body’s sense of taste; making everything taste sweet. People in New York City are paying to attend parties centered around this [...]

Nick Marsh points to a report on The Service Revolution [PDF 488K] from Deloitte. It’s written more as a wakeup call to business than a guide to the particulars of service innovation — they’re a business consultancy, after all — but they do mention the importance of a collaborative process with customers and adequate IT [...]

Service Innovation Design: Dongseo University Korea
October 20-22, 2008
Call for Papers:
The term “service” does not merely indicate working for the benefit of others in the spirit of self-sacrifice. It is in fact a concept that describes shouldering the burden of time or effort for someone else, and is a valid economic action.
The service industry occupies a [...]

From the New York Times:
For the first time, American corporations are acknowledging “customer service as something worth paying for rather than just red ink,” said [Jon] Anton, who looks at call centers worldwide and, using a number of criteria, compares how well they work. “If you can satisfy customers and keep them buying, it’s as [...]

The folks over at the Institute of Design run a blog called The New Idiom. They’ve posted a nice overview of service design. Service blueprints, commoditization, experience and the obligatory Starbucks example.

Over on the Work Play Experience blog, Adam Lawrence makes a great observation about sequence in service delivery. He recounts an example from his commute. The train attendant walks down the aisle offering coffee to the passengers, but they generally ignore him until it’s too late:

But if you watch the rows behind him, you will [...]

Here’s an interesting example of the honor system applied to payment. Customers add up how much they owe themselves and drop their money into a fare box:

The thought was, someone can pour his own coffee, grab his own bagel, cut it himself, throw the money in, and walk out. We don’t touch 60 per cent [...]

Jason Weisberger reports on an unfortunate attempt at service recovery. Weisberger bought a $5000 camera through Amazon and was disappointed at how the camera was shipped. He complained to the camera store directly and they blew him off. So he gave them negative feedback:

Rude on the phone. Really, Really, poorly packaged. I think they could [...]

I noticed the other day that I hadn’t received a postcard for Emergence 2008. I didn’t read too much into it, but today I see that they’ve canceled the conference this year.
It’s too bad; they had two solid conferences under their belt and an opportunity to build on that success. A one year break [...]

Pixar’s Brad Bird shares a nice example of sociopetal design in an interview with McKinsey Quarterly.

Steve Jobs basically designed this building. In the center, he created this big atrium area, which seems initially like a waste of space. The reason he did it was that everybody goes off and works in their individual areas. People [...]