• Good blog on why Apple is the new Nordstrom’s of customer service at retail… http://is.gd/526Sz

• Forrester study shows people unlikely to pay for web content if forced to… http://bit.ly/3rLQvn #servicedesign
• Great article: “Google Redefines Disruption: The ‘Less Than Free’ Business Model” - http://is.gd/4YKTP #servicedesign
• Wow - TVs account for 10% of a home’s electrical usage, according to California regulators - http://is.gd/4YdnW - New biz opps?
• Internet traffic growing at 46% CAGR due to video, will grow 6X from 2007 to 2012…. http://is.gd/4Ydfb
• Great #servicedesign article - “Is there really a water crisis?” - http://is.gd/4WwFf

• Google offering free Wi-Fi at 47 U.S. airports this holiday season… #servicedesign
• Just posted a new blog post entitled, “Happy Birthday? Wow!” on our blog….
  http://is.gd/4SSQX #servicedesign #SvD
• Great idea - website for finding, buying and giving “experiences” - http://bit.ly/2pYSdS - #SvD #ServiceDesign
• #servicedesign - Agree with you - let’s use #SvD as THE hashtag for Service Design and save our precious Twitter characters!
• WalMart plans for better crowd control to prevent trampling deaths on Black Friday - safety is part of service! #SvD - http://is.gd/4RPCS
• Clever - latest Verizon ad sends iPhone to Island of Misfit Toys… http://bit.ly/1v6tvv
• Just posted four new service design case studies on our website at http://is.gd/4R9oq - #servicedesign
• Video: How to integrate “fun” into design - #servicedesign - http://is.gd/4R3Vw - Full website: http://www.thefuntheory.com

We have a saying that we share with our clients when talking about service design: “Add value and money will follow.”

What this means is that you should look at your business - your expertise - and find small, inexpensive ways to leverage that expertise for the benefit of either your existing customers,or prospective customers. Often, the net effect is huge.

Why? Because, supposedly, you are the expert in whatever you do. And consumers these days don’t have time to be experts in all things. So they are looking for what we call “editorial filters,” the companies or individuals who know something they don’t, that can point them in the right direction, make their lives easier, safer, richer, more convenient, etc. These are the “trusted advisors” in our lives. You would think that the those vendors who make the most money from us (think lifetime value) would be most incented to actually be a trusted advisor, and not just a provider of a commodity service. (Think bankers, lawyers, insurance companies, mortgage companies, auto dealers, airlines, etc.)

So imagine my dismay the other day when Allstate Insurance - who I have been with for over 20 years and in that time have probably given them over $35,000 of my hard earned cash - sent me a “Happy Birthday” email. Really? A birthday email? Does someone at Allstate marketing really consider this a best practice of “customer relationship management?” Come on folks. This is 2009!

There a plenty of ways for Allstate to add value to our relationship beyond paying a claim I might submit on average, once per decade. How about using that same email to direct me to that online video about the horrors of texting and driving that I could then send to my teenage daughter? (You know I have teenage daughter - she’s on the policy!) Or how about links to defensive driving classes and offering me a 5% discount for taking it? Maybe you could send me the annual list of the top 10 safest cars, as rated by an independent agency? Tips on how to make my car last longer? Anything… except a gratuitous birthday email!

And these are ideas I am coming up with off the top of my head. This is YOUR business - cars, safety, driving, technology, best practices, statistics, data. You have thousands of employees and massive investments in collecting and analyzing all this information. So why don’t you share a bit of it with me - your customer - to make me a better driver, a safer driver - and ultimately a better customer for YOU?

But you better hurry, because statistically speaking I only have about 40 more years of driving (and insurance payments) left!

Need some help figuring this out? Call us - you’ll be in good hands…

We just added four new PDF case studies to our website, which can be found on our client list page. These include case studies about:

- ColorQuick, a software company developing game-changing technology in the printing industry. Our ethnographic research turned up new and compelling benefits for their target market.

- BlackGold BioFuels, an energy technology company that has a patented system for converting waste products into high quality bio-diesel fuel. We helped them design new services that support the technology product, as well as innovative new business models for rolling out their products and services.

- A major hotel chain and our work with them on designing new service revenue opportunities related to rapid developments in the Connected-TV space.

- A major luxury retailer and a series of card sort exercises we did for them related to a new product design initiative.

Also, after a number of requests from our business partners, we created a one-page executive summary about Frontier Service Design that can be downloaded here.

Read, learn and enjoy!

• United FAIL: refuses 1st class upgrade to frequent flyer exec wearing a Puma track suit - wow - http://is.gd/4Njqb
• 7-Eleven launches largest in-store TV network, reaching 190 million viewers monthly, 24/7 - http://is.gd/4NaIc
• California moves closer to pay-by-the-mile auto insurance - #servicedesign - http://is.gd/4Mcjm
• If all TV ads were this great, I would actually watch them… a local TV ad for a business in Alabama - http://bit.ly/3O4SsZ
• Great article on Radical Service Innovation from DMI… five steps to make the “aha” ideal real… http://is.gd/4M2GM
• Cocoa Krsipies helps boost immunity? WOW - way to leverage H1N1, Kellogg! Who thinks these things up?!? http://is.gd/4Lbhg

We heard a story the other day from a large infrastructure service company that has over a thousand field service personnel on the road on any given day, around the country. One of the senior executives did a ride-along with one of these long-time employees and heard an interesting story.

“You know, I’ve been driving this van for about 16 years now, going to people’s homes to help them out, or going to troubleshoot at one of our field facilities. For years, I always felt that I was part of a bigger team of people, you know? I’d be driving along and I’d hear the dispatcher coming over the radio calling out assignments to different techs. I’d hear those voices go back and forth and I’d have a feeling for what was going on around me, you know? So, if maybe Jim got assigned to a big issue about a mile away and it was raining, I might swing by there to see if he needed help. Or I might check in with him on the radio. But ever since we got these GPS systems and smartphones a few years ago, I just get text messages from central dispatch telling me where to go next. I go through an entire day never hearing any human voices of people I work with anymore, and frankly, I feel like I’m out here all alone. In fact, I don’t even feel like I’m part of the company anymore.”

The beauty - and terror - of service design is that it all revolves around people. Certainly, we want to leverage technology to make every process run more smoothly but we also have to keep in mind the collateral damage incurred by such choices. In order to provide an outstanding customer experience, service personnel need to feel as though they are part of a larger mission, and community. How has technology disintermediated your employees from your own company and culture?

• Just posted a blog and photos of our #servicedesign field trip to Wegmans - awesome grocery chain - http://is.gd/4IsBy
• Service brings 400 pairs of eyeglass frames to you - get feedback from friends/coworkers - #servicedesign - http://is.gd/4Ibrl
• Amazon launches Pay Phrase - buy stuff online (not just AMZN) by typing in two words. Sounds cool - http://is.gd/4Hyxl
• Wal-Mart starts selling caskets, urns online - #servicedesign - products: http://is.gd/4Hcyp
• Yikes! @lixindex: “A service design profession won’t flourish without an agreed body of knowledge” REALLY? Then I give up now…. BC
• Tmobile just launched a $79.99 all you can eat plan with no annual contract. Undercuts VZ and ATT by $20. Can you say “price-war?”
• RT @apolaine: Mark Jones: “A brand is a collection of all the experiences I have with the services of the brand.” #sdnc09
• “The moment a man begins to talk about technique that’s proof that he is fresh out of ideas.” - Raymond Chandler
• Microsoft to spend $300MM on Windows 7 ad blitz. Amazing.
• Yikes - recent Neilsen study: kids ages 2 - 5 watch over 32 hours of TV each week. Ages 6-11 watch 28. http://is.gd/4Efbp
• RT @choosenick: Great post via @Jamesamperi - Service Design is ‘R&D for the rest of us’ - http://bit.ly/1p96hC