So here’s a link to a great article from The Toronto Star newspaper that ran in December of 2009, which I just saw today (thanks Twitter!) The article explains how Israel handles their airport security and compares it to the process in the U.S. (And airport security is even a bigger mess now than it was 11 months ago.)

In reading this article, I realized that this is a near perfect example of great service design and terrible service design. And yet, the phrase “service design” is never used once in the entire article.

Airport security is a service, paid for by our taxes and our airline fares. It is about people interacting with people and process and technlogy. Airport security is something that we’ve all experienced. So read the article and see how:
- One is logical and effective. The other is not.
- One balances what the customers need with what the service provider needs. The other does not.
- One combines the best of technology and people. The other relies almost exclusively on technology.
- One is quick and efficient with both time and money. The other is not.

This is service design!

Our three takeaways from this story:
1 – The iPhone is a whole economic eco-system until itself.
2 – Anything can always be made better thru good design.
3 – Create value and money will follow.

Kickstarter – as a web service – is a great example of service design facilitating product design.

*****
That is “service”—WITHOUT MODIFIERS—is a sacred word.
To “be of service” is the highest aspiration possible.
To have “been of service” is the highest tribute possible.
*****

So true. This is what service design is about; helping companies to “be of service” that really matters to their customers.

As a result, your customers will give you the insight you’re looking for. The problem is – you have to ask them! This is a key issue in that a lot of companies just don’t ask their customers what they think, how they feel, what they want, etc. A lot of people think that market research has to be very complex with long surveys, and thousands of respondents.

Our experience – time and time again – is that you simply need to go out, sit down eye to eye with folks and have a conversation. Of course, you need to have enough conversations to get a good cross-section but in the words of Nike, “just do it!”

For the most part, you’re going to get pretty consistent answers pretty quickly if you actually have a sit-down conversation with people. And ask clarifying questions to get to the root of the issue. For example, “What do you mean when you say that?” or “That’s interesting – can you elaborate a bit more about that?” It’s useful to record the audio of these conversations and then have somebody – who was not involved in the conversations – review the transcripts to identify consistent themes that come out over and over and over again in those conversations.

What we’ve found is that while people have a problem filling out a survey because they don’t get around to it, they see it as a bother, etc. they are often glad (even thankful) to talk with someone from your company if they are approached in a direct, heartfelt conversational style. The approach is the key. When someone calls you with a survey, can’t you tell they’re reading it straight off the paper? No one wants to deal with that!

We’ve covered this theme before in other blog posts but it’s worth repeating over and over; the key to success in service design is to simply talk with your customers. That’s it.

Airports are interesting from a service design perspective because they serve as an aggregation point and hub for a wide variety of other independent services (both commercial and governmental) in an environment that is charged with stress caused by time (arrivals, departures, delays), security clearances, risk of life and limb (from engine failure to terrorist plots), crowds, money (hundreds or thousands of dollars at stake via airfares) and purpose (from business travel to once-in-a-lifetime vacations to your father’s funeral.)

So you would think that the designers of airports would take all of these factors into consideration when designing an airport. I could write a whole paper on this topic (note to self: do it!) but for now, I will share these quick observations:

- Chicago – Beautiful airport, but where are the electrical outlets? Travelers are sitting on the floor plugging their phones and laptops into any outlet that is available. There is a whole social dance that takes place when one has to approach a fellow traveler and ask, “Can I use that other plug?” This is an untapped business opportunity. (See “Dallas” below.)

- Dallas – Nice airport, but what is with the layout of the restrooms? Virtually everyone in an airport has something slung over their shoulder or is dragging something behind them on wheels, right? In this airport, it is impossible not to bump into fellow comfort-seekers as you enter, exit and awkwardly wait around because they have few too many toilets. (I can only imagine that this problem is even worse for the ladies.) However, you can easily juice up your phone or computer at any number of charging stations, which are essentially electrified billboards that serve a purpose.

- Key West – After a few days in paradise, you really don’t want to leave. So the airport has built an faux outdoor lounge next to the gates where, once you’re through security, you can enjoy your last Mojito before you board. It’s a clever laid-back layout built in a glass enclosed atrium, complete with a boardwalk, sand, beach chairs and Jimmy Buffet tunes. However, keep an eye on your watch because the airport’s pubic address system does not provide boarding alerts in this little respite. (Maybe this is designed to get you stay longer in the Keys?)

Once again – as in most service design “misses” – these all are very easy issues to address if only airport designers and their municipal clients would actually go and watch what people do, and then ask those people what they want and need. It is far less expensive to design and build it right the first time, than it is to go and correct these issues after the fact. If there is any space that should be designed to minimize stress and hassle (besides hospitals), it should be our airports that serve as non-stop, human transport switches.

In effect, would you make a deal with your car insurance company that you promise not to go over the speed limit, in exchange for a 10% decrease? How about 15 or 20%? In order to prove that, would you be willing to let the insurance company install a small device on your vehicle that tracked your speed? Maybe you get one or two chances, but then the third time you speed – bing – you lose the discount.

Well, that future is here. Progressive Insurance has announced the My Rate Program, which provides a small device that plugs into your car’s on board computer. The device tracks things like when and how you drive your car including acceleration, hard braking, etc. and then sends that data back to Progressive wirelessly. (The system is not based on GPS, so it’s not tracking where you go but still, we can imagine that in a future generation.)

Let’s take this one step further: How about a deal where you promise your life insurance company not to text or talk on the phone while driving, in exchange for a very big discount? After all, that behavior has shown to increase the likelihood of accidents by a factor of four. After an accident, it would be a simple matter for the insurance company to compare the time of airbag deployment with your cell phone bill to determine if you kept your promise. If not, no health care for you or no death benefits for your loved ones. Would you take that deal?

There is a saying that “everything in life is a trade-off,” and with advances in technology these types of automated trade-offs will start to permeate our relationships with service providers and impact pricing options. Watch for these trends in everything from insurance to mortgages to TV and shopping. It’s one thing to have privacy taken away from you, but it’s quite another thing to trade it for cash. So what’s your “break-point,” at which you would give up details of your private life in exchange for a discount? 10%, 30%, 80%? Everything’s negotiable.

According to the Journal, vertical integration is “a 100-year-old strategy in which a company controls materials, manufacturing and distribution. Others moving recently in this direction include ArcelorMittal, PepsiCo Inc., General Motors Co. and Boeing Co.”

What’s causing this trend? Volatile commodity prices, financial pressures at suppliers and quests for new revenue, all of which have become more acute due to the recession. Ultimately, these companies want more control over their destinys and their customers. From our vantage point in the area of service design, one point not mentioned in the article was the role of the Internet on these changes. Since the Internet has made almost everything much more transparent and immediate, large companies can better control the vertical “stack.”

But in the end, time will tell if this trend stays or goes. As Mr. Ellison summed up: “We’re really brilliant, or we’re idiots.”

But then again, Ellison didn’t get to be one of the most successful CEOs (and the 4th wealthiest man in the world after Gates, Buffet and Helu) by being an idiot. Watch this trend.

But how much of this is attributed to the phone itself, which has been lauded as an “iPhone killer,” versus the partner that Palm chose to dance with on the network provider side? This is a classic case service design example of the symbiotic relationship between products and services. From our vantage point, Palm’s problem is not the Pre product, but the Sprint Nextel network, which is suffering from massive customer flight due to spotty coverage, dropped calls and bad customer service.

As a long-time (and happy) Verizon customer, I have been jonesing for the Palm Pre ever since I saw it in Las Vegas last January at the Consumer Electronics Show. Add into the mix that I am also a long-time (and happy) Palm Inc, customer who started on the old Palm Pilot handheld organizer, moved up into the Treo family of smartphones and is now happily using a Palm Centro. And even though I’m happy I STILL want a Pre. But I will not buy it until Verizon has it. (This is probably also the number one reason I don’t have an iPhone – even though I am Mac everywhere else in my life – you can only get an iPhone via AT&T, another inferior network to Verizon.)

Call me old fashioned, or just call me loyal. But Verizon has always done right be me when it comes to mobile communications and that service relationship is the stake in the ground around which my product decisions are made. This is a key insight of service design that product folks often don’t get: it’s more about the service “eco-system” than it is about individual features of a product.

When is this insanity going to stop? Imagine if you bought a Chevrolet and you could only put Sunoco gas into it. In Europe, the phone networks are independent of the handsets so that consumers are free to combine their favorites. Until the U.S. adopts the same model,  I just have to hope that Palm hangs in there long enough for me to get a Pre on the Verizon network. Please, Santa…

According to the article, “in tests and now in regular service, usage drops off considerably when travelers must pay for the service.” Even Alaska Airlines, which only charges $1, saw a steep drop off in usage. (By the way, Alaska Airlines is a “cashless” airline, so if you want the Wi-Fi, you have to pay for it with a credit card – ggrrrrrrr.)

So what’s going on here? Is the economy causing people to cut back on non-essentials? Or have people become so used to ubiquitous computing that they expect “the cloud” to envelope them everywhere, all the time, for free?

Or could it be – as we suspect – that sitting in an (albeit overpriced and cramped) airline seat at 35,000 feet is one of the last places where you can seek refuge from our “always on” world of instantaneous communications?

An interesting question to answer for sure, and one which has ramifications for service design in the worlds of travel, entertainment, and hospitality.