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?

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.

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):

In our service design practice, we triangulate the trends of business, technology and society to predict for our clients where things might be in one, three or five years. (Okay, five years is a very long time.) So we’re always gratified when those predictions come true and here’s one we’ve been talking about for years: car monitoring to reduce insurance rates.

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.

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…

The Wall Street Journal pointed out an interesting trend this week, in which many of the best known names in corporate America are reversing a long-standing trend and now going vertical with their business models. Using the recent acquisition of Sun Computers by Oracle Software, CEO Larry Ellison plans to transform Oracle into a maker of software, computers, and computer components, and a services arm which will look more like the large computer conglomerates of the 1960s.

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.

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!