Sometimes service design can be hard to explain because it should be so damned simple and obvious, right?

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!

Two guys come up with product idea – a “kickstand” for the iPhone than can be used to add value to the product. But to manufacture the “Glif“  they need to raise $10,000 to make the plastic injection moldings. So they turn to a fundraising website, Kickstarter to “pre-sell” the product, hoping to get 500 people to pledge $20 to buy one. (If they don’t raise the $10,000 commitment, then people who pledged don’t have to pay their $20.) Their fundraising period just ended; they raised $137,417 from 5,273 people. The Economist has just published a great story about this experience.

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.

Have you ever noticed the gap that exists between most marketing departments and most sales departments? While they have common goals to increase the revenue of the organization, they’re almost two completely different silos. The fact is that the sales team is (or should be) considered as the internal client of the marketing team.

Unfortunately, many marketers, particularly in large corporations don’t have much empathy for sales people. They often see them as overpaid whiners, who work short hours and get big pay, entertaining clients on expense accounts. Conversely, sales people often see the marketing folks as being out of touch, self-serving and focused on all the wrong things. As in life, the truth always lies somewhere in the middle.

But the cold hard fact is that many marketers have never been in the sales trenches themselves. They’ve never carried a bag, they’ve never done cold calls, had a door slammed in their face and have never had to compete head to head with a competitor – let alone bump into them in the customer’s reception area.

So how can Frontier help? We go on “ride-alongs” with sales people, and have one-on-one conversations, which we record and later get transcribed. We learn about the salesperson’s background, their day to day routines, how they do what they do, and the frustrations they face everyday. We also get their feedback on what works and what doesn’t work “on the battlefield.” In addition, we go out and meet their customers, and talk with them as well. After we get a good cross-section of these conversations done, we compile all the information and knowledge we’ve gathered and sift through it to find the main trends, feedback and themes. We present our findings and recommendations via multimedia to the marketing department which puts a “face” on the sales people in the field, and also brings the “actual” voice of the customer into the room.

In many cases, things that appear to be important to the marketing department really matter very little to the sales people. More importantly, those things also often matter very little to the end customer, who is ultimately buying the company’s services.

There is a huge opportunity to help companies realize their goals when they are willing and able to bridge this gap between sales and marketing. Empathy from both sides and common understanding delivers great payback for both our clients and their customers – both internal and external.

Too often in this nascent industry called “service design,” practitioners, students, professors and pundits seem to love to endlessly debate the meaning of “service design.” Invariably, the definitions become long, complex and too abstract for most outsiders.

As I was thinking about a way to describe service design in simple terms – to prospective clients, friends, neighbors, etc – it hit me like a ton of bricks:
Service design is about asking, “How can I help?”

- How can I help make your flight better, less stressful, more meaningful, more fun, etc?
- How can I help you do business with me more efficiently?
- How can I help you in your time of need, (death, sickness, job loss, etc) as it relates to the service(s) I normally provide you?
- How can I help you get the information you need quickly?

But the key is in asking the question with a pure heart, as in, “How can I help you?” as opposed to “How can I help you help me make more money?” The fact is that if you truly add value – if you really help – then the money will naturally follow.

Sometimes, the help that a customer wants or needs is adjunct to your core business. Sometimes it logically comes before or after your typical point of engagement with that customer. And therein lies the opportunity to not only help, but to also create new revenue opportunities for your business.

In the end, if people would embrace this core idea of “how can I help” then the world of business – and the world in general – would be a far better place.

So… how can I help you?

How much time and effort does it take to go out and talk to your customers? I’m not talking about calling them on the phone. I’m talking about going out to where they work, live or play to engage in a meaningful conversation with them. To observe their surroundings; to see what they see and to feel what they feel.

Here’s a better question: what does it cost if you don’t talk with your customers?

In the case of the U.S. government and the Homeland Security Administration, one recent failed project has cost the U.S. taxpayers over $2 billion USD. Why? Because in the rush to get the project done, no one ever thought to go ask the people on the ground – the ultimate end-user or REAL customer – what they wanted or needed. No one put on their boots and suntan lotion to actually go out into the desert to see what people actually needed to do their job more effectively. Amazingly, this happens every day in business – from small projects to large, from new brand launches to roll-outs of massive software systems. Watch the brief video excerpt from 60 Minutes below to learn more…
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I have been a big fan of Tom Peters for years. His books and speeches have had a big influence on how I have built my companies, and how I serve my clients. Peters recently posted what I thought was a profound yet very simple idea, of which I have reprinted a small excerpt below:

*****
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.

Wawa is a very successful chain of convenience stores located in the Philadelphia area which has expanded into a number of states in the Mid-Atlantic region. Wawa has a great partnership with PNC Bank, wherein PNC runs the ATM network inside all Wawa stores. For years they’ve had “no charge” ATM fees for Wawa customers, so regardless of who your bank is, there is no charge for using the ATM. (Of course, this helps drive traffic to the store – get some cash, and while you’re there, grab a hoagie.)

There’s a great user interface feature on the PNC ATMs that I’ve never seen on any other network. Once you do a transaction, the ATM will ask you if you’d like them to remember this as your preference for the future. What PNC has realized is that when most people go to the ATM, they get the same amount of money every time. Whether that’s $40, $100, $150, chances are that you’re plugging in those same numbers each time.

To speed the process, they simply ask you: “We notice that you just plugged in $100; would you like this to be your default amount for future transactions“? If you say yes, then it’s all set up. Right now. I basically slide my card in, put in my pin number, and it comes up and prompts me: “default amount” or “other”? I press one button and am done. And by the way, that also includes language preference. Most ATM machines now prompt for multiple languages but again, why confirm your language preference for every ATM transaction?

Small steps, yet so simple and so brilliantly executed that you have to wonder why every ATM doesn’t do it. Kudos to PNC!

Think about this today: What steps or requirements or hoops are you putting your customers through that are unnecessary?

An article in today’s Wall Street Journal discusses how hospitals are using the consumer version of the online virtual reality game, “Second Life,” to train nurses, doctors and administrators in dealing with “what if” scenarios. If, as in other news out today, the U.S. actually does face a shortage of 150,000 doctors in the coming years, then watch for this type of training to become pervasive. A two minute video overview of the simulation is here (along with a 15 second obligatory commercial):

Since I often refer to the famous quote, “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions” I was intrigued by an article in today’s Wall Street Journal entitled, “When Good Deeds Turn Bad” by Jefffery Zaslow. (Don’t ask my why the WSJ titles it one way in the paper edition and then titles it – “Doing Bad by Doing Good” – in the online edition. Also, don’t ask me why the search function on their website is so awful – that’s a topic for another post!) Anyway…

The article is a good one for anyone involved in service design. Zaslow points out a number of examples of people with good intentions, but bad results. While many of the examples are from the world of charity, the lessons directly apply to business and the design of services. From the article:

‘Most of us want to be effective, he says, “to make the world better. But before you help people, you have to ask them, ‘What do you need? What do you want?’” Every day, we see reminders of the limitations, and even the dangers, of good intentions. In Haiti, U.S. missionaries who said they only wanted to save orphaned children ended up arrested on child-trafficking charges. In Asian countries hit by the 2004 tsunami, residents still shake their heads over the warehouses filled with unusable donations, including winter coats and stiletto shoes. And earthquake-ravaged Chile is sure to receive its share of “useless aid” in the days ahead.

And from another section:

Ms. Hogan tells of going to a village in Peru where an aid group brought in tourists to help build public toilets. The group ran out of money and time, the tourists ended their volunteering vacations, and the toilets were never completed. The aid group had thought access to restroom facilities was needed to boost living standards, Ms. Hogan says. “But when I asked people in the community what they wanted, they said, ‘What we really needed was irrigation, and to have our bridge fixed, so we could take our goods to market.’” The never-completed toilets were gaping holes that had to be covered. Villagers feared their children would fall in.

We see these types of well-intentioned efforts all the time among businesses. At best, the companies really do (mistakenly) believe that they are working in the best interest of their customers. At the worst, the companies actually seem to have a sub-conscious contempt (see our previous post) for their customers and the very people who will be using the service. Either way, it comes down to a simple (almost too simple?) bottomline: JUST ASK.

This is what we do for our service design clients via ethnographic research; we go out and talk with their customers (internal or external) and have conversations. We observe, engage and ask questions. Then we compile those findings and bring them back to reveal what people want. This works for everything from service design, to volunteering, to parenting and spousal relationships.  It’s absolutely amazing what you can learn when you put aside what you think is right, and just ask.

On my recent trip to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, my eye caught the logo of company exhibiting in a small booth. There were about four people there, with stacks of small boxes all around the booth. How could I not stop and ask what a company called “Quirky” did?

Turns out, they have a very innovative business model for product design and development. On their website, they have created a community for designers/thinkers/makers who collaborate with the stated goal of creating a brand new consumer product every WEEK. Everyone who participates gets a piece of the revenue of the launched product, with the inventor or idea catalyst getting the lion’s share, while others who provide feedback, comments, etc. get a relative portion, based on their feedback.

Once everything is locked down on the design side, the product goes on pre-sale on the website to assure that tooling costs are covered. Once a certain threshold of sales is hit, then the product actually goes into production and revenues start to get distributed. Since launching last summer, the site has 6 products that have cleared the threshold with another 17 in line waiting. A very clever idea indeed, creating a collaborative space for inventors who up to now, usually labor/suffer as individuals.

Could this idea be applied to service design as well? Sure (and probably is in various forms on the Web) but it’s much more difficult, since service ideas and concepts are much more “portable” and easy to launch than the logistics involved in actually creating manufacturing molds, tools, packaging, shipping, etc. Still, a great model of innovative thinking. Here’s a quick video…