Today, users expect great, consistent experiences with brands – regardless of the context or technology they are using. The entire customer experience, including both offline and digital touchpoints, is what builds customer loyalty. As UX designers, we often focus too narrowly on the digital experience of the end product. But it’s not all about digital! Widening the lens beyond digital UX to include the entire ecosystem of actions is a much more impactful and meaningful way to design for the user. Service Design provides a unique, holistic way of considering all touchpoints in the customer journey. And it’s not all that different from the design thinking that UX designers apply to digital products today! Service design uses many of the same principles, design thinking, methods, and tools – just at a much more intersectional and macro-level way. This session will provide an overview of service design, why it’s important for UX designers, and how to start thinking about it. Using a case study of a non-profit looking to increase customer satisfaction, we’ll explore the challenges, lessons learned, and opportunities that service design provided.

1. Go Beyond Digital
CHI PHAM | MAY 2017
Elevate your UX with service design thinking

2. Chi Pham
User Experience Designer
BIOGRAPHY
UX Designer by day.
Trail hiking and pie eating
enthusiast by… all other times.
Current gig:
User Experience Designer
at Effective, an experience
agency that embraces
digital complexity through
a measurable, human-
centered design approach.
Based in Denver, CO!

3. It’s nice to
meet you!

4. Agenda
1
Service
design 101
2
Current
landscape
3
Case study
4
How-to and
resources
5
Conclusion
and Q+A

5. Service
Design 101

6. Service design (noun)
Service design is the activity of planning and
organizing people, infrastructure, communication and
material components of a service in order to improve
its quality and the interaction between the service
provider and its customers.
https://www.service-design-network.org/manifesto

7. User
experience
Customer
experience
Service design
UX v. CX v. SD
Product interactions
Experience perception
System approach
Users interact with product and the experience they receive
from that interaction.
CX is the design, implementation, and management of
interactions across the entire customer journey.
Service Design also focuses on the design of entire customer journey,
but it also designs the behind-the-scenes activities that enable those
experiences to be delivered as planned.

8. Principles of service design
1
USER-CENTERED
Put the user at the center of the design….
(always).
4
EVIDENCING
Find ways for inherently intangible services
to be visualized in ‘physical elements’ that
users can remember and hold on to.
2
CO-CREATIVE
Lean on and utilize perspectives of
stakeholders from all facets of the business,
as well as the users. 5
HOLISTIC
Design for the environment the users
operate in and consider all touchpoints.
Nothing exists in a vacuum.
3
SEQUENCING
Understand how the entire service works as
a dynamic process over a period of time,
and who the interactions take place with.
http://thisisservicedesignthinking.com/

9. Sound familiar?

10. How it parallels UX
USER CENTERED DESIGN
Every research activity, design, and line of
code should be built around & for the user.
USER FLOWS AND JOURNEYS
UX makes sure that the entire user flow is
accounted for, step by step, over time.
CO-CREATIVE
In order to design truly great product,
collaboration is key.
COMMUNICATING DESIGN SOLUTIONS
Visualizing and documenting complex
design solutions for implementation.

11. How it expands beyond UX
OMNI-CHANNEL TOUCHPOINTS
Services encompass products. They can
include a product in its cycle, but the
product is not the centerpiece.
CONSISTENT EXPERIENCE
Service design ensures that users have a
consistent experience across all
touchpoints with the brand or company.
EVIDENCING
Beyond the digital touchpoints, services
should be evidenced physically for the user.
BACK STAGE DESIGNS
Service design also considers and designs
the back stage processes that occur in
order to provide the best user experience.

12. Current
landscape

13. “When you have two coffee shops right
next to each other, and each sells the
exact same coffee at the exact same
price, service design is what makes
you walk into one and not the other.
—31 Volts Service Design, 2008

14. What drives success?
IN THE PAST
High-quality products drive
profit and engagement.
IN THE PRESENT
High-quality touchpoints
drive better experiences.
Significant emphasis on:
• Product development
• Product value
• Customer service
Significant emphasis on:
• Multiple touchpoints
• Social media campaigns
• Internal business processes

15. Who’s doing service
design well?

16. Southwest Airlines
WEB + DIGITAL PRESENCE
Easy to use and intuitive, both the
desktop and mobile sites for
Southwest create great user
experiences.

17. DIGITAL TOOLS
FLIGHT
ATTENDANTS
CUSTOMER SERVICE
MARKETING
MATERIALS
IN-FLIGHT
ENTERTAIN-
MENT
FLIGHT
POLICIES
AND FEES

18. Shifting the
center of the
universe
Your website isn’t the center of your
universe. Your Facebook page isn’t
the center of your universe. Your
mobile app isn’t the center of your
universe. The customer is the center
of your universe.
— Bruce Ernst,
Business 2 Community
“

19. Case study

20. Clean energy

21. Location
HQ: WASHINGTON DC
1156 15th St NW STE 840,
Washington, DC 20005
AREA OF OPERATION:
MID-ATLANTIC REGION
DC, VA, MD, PA
with some work in NY, DE

22. 2015
THE GOAL
Allow the program to scale with limited staff capacity
by transforming the company’s digital experience
and moving resources and processes online.
The move to
digital

23. Here’s what I did
DEFINE BUSINESS GOALS
Interviewed Energy Program manager
to clearly define business goals and
key metrics for success
JANUARY 2015
BEGIN USER RESEARCH
Interviews + surveys of past participants
and folks in the community

24. REDESIGN WEBSITE
Worked with IT and Tech Coordinator to
design and build new website based on
research insights.
Heavy emphasis: FAQ page
REDESIGN MARKETING PIPELINE
Worked with Marketing manager to
redesign marketing workflow pipeline
and to rewrite email content.
TEST WEBSITE
Ran A/B tests with users to determine most
successful version, using Google Analytics,
heat maps, and several other tools

25. APRIL 2015
LAUNCH BOTH DIGITAL PRODUCTS!!!
Ready to go!
TEST MARKETING PIPELINE
Ran A/B tests with users to determine most
successful version, using Google Analytics,
heat maps, and several other tools

26. The result?

27. WE IGNORED OUR DEMOGRAPHIC
“I just don’t like doing this stuff online.
I just wanted to give someone a call so
you can walk me through it. That way
I know I’m making the right decisions.

28. “You’ve got to start with the customer
experience and work back toward the
technology, not the other way around.
—Steve Jobs

29. Digital band-aids
don’t solve the root
problem.
CONSIDERATION

30. What we learned
DEMOGRAPHIC IS KING
There’s a huge difference between
designing who you think you are helping
and who you are ACTUALLY helping.
UTILITY BILLS ARE COMPLEX
Energy is messy and complex. It’s hard to
understand and most folks don’t want to
dedicate brain space to understanding fully.
PHONE CALLS ARE PREFERRED
When it came to switching their energy bill,
users preferred to talk through issues on
the phone call, not over email.
CLEAN ENERGY IS INTANGIBLE
The value proposition of our program was
intangible, so it was difficult to translate
into something meaningful to users.

31. Redesign 2.0

32. What I did (pt. 2)
MAY 2015
REDESIGN CUSTOMER SUPPORT
In order to best serve our customers,
we needed to reevaluate our internal
systems, pipeline, and staff training.
REDESIGN WEBSITE
We went through an additional iteration
of the website, but this time making our
contact info much more findable.

33. REDESIGN MARKETING PIPELINE
We also redesigned the flow of the
marketing pipeline, this time building in
space for Groundswell to call users who
were stuck in the process.
COMMUNITY LEADERS TRAINING
We realized that our community leaders
were a huge tool in communicating our
program to people. We held more training
sessions for leaders.
LAUNCH SUMMER CAMPAIGN
Whew, ready to go pt. 2!!

36. “A customer is the most important visitor on our
premises, they are not dependent on us. We are
dependent on them. They are not an interruption
in our work. They are the purpose of it. They are
not an outsider in our business. They are a part
of it. We are not doing a favor by serving them.
They are doing us a favor by giving us an
opportunity to do so.
—Anonymous

37. How to get
started
today

38. So what?
I’m a UX Designer.

39. “Every contact we have with a customer
influences whether or not they’ll come
back. We have to be great every time or
we’ll lose them.
—Kevin Stirtz
More Loyal Customers

40. Why
care?
Service design matters, and
here’s why.
1
HOLISTIC AND IMPACTFUL SOLUTIONS
By seeing things at a systems level, you can design
meaningful solutions that truly address user pain
points and goals.
2
USERS WANT EXPERIENCES, NOT PRODUCTS
What brings users back over and over again don’t
have to only do with the product, but the entire
experience of being a customer of the organization.

41. 4-stage process
1 2 3 4
Exploration Creation Reflection
+ testing
Implementation

42. Understand the culture and goals of the
business, understand the pain points and POV
of users, and understand the big picture.
Exploration
STAGE 1
Stakeholder maps
Visual or physical representation of the
various groups involved in a service
Contextual inquiry
Interviewing and observing a user within
the natural context in which they interact
with your product or organization
Personas + journey maps
Telling the story of a particular customer’s
experience from initial contact through
a long-term relationship

43. STAGE 2
Storyboards
Visual or physical representation of the
various groups involved in a service
Explore as many mistakes as possible.
Co-create with stakeholders, collaborate
within interdisciplinary teams.
Creation
http://www.servicedesigntools.org/tools/35
Service blueprints
Visual representation of the customer
journey as well as all of the interactions that
make that journey possible.
Group sketching
Involving a diverse group of thinkers and
perspectives to sketch together and ideate
off of potential solutions.

44. STAGE 3
Usability testing
Observing and asking users about the use
of existing or future products or services in
a situation of normal everyday life.
Experience prototypes
Simulation of the service experience that
foresees some of its performances through
the use of the specific physical
touchpoints involved.
Get your ideas in front of as many people
as you can and simulate the experience
you hope to bring to life!
Reflection + testing
http://www.servicedesigntools.org/tools/21

45. STAGE 4
Business model canvas
Describes, analyzes, and designs business
models that will be necessary to implement
the new service designs.
Clearly communicate your concept and
engage with employees of all aspects of the
business to transform the designed solution
into a working service. Constantly reevaluate!
Implementation
Customer lifecycle maps
Holistic visualization of a customer’s overall
relationship w/service provider from initial
contact to stopping the service.

46. What if I can’t do service
design in my job?
How can I actually apply these
ideas to my current role?

47. 1 START ASKING YOURSELF: WHAT ELSE?
Open your mind to things beyond the scope.
2
TRY TALKING TO MORE DEPARTMENTS
See what folks have to say, even if they’re not
in the digital world.
3
THINK BIG IN THE BEGINNING
If you could address the true root of the
user’s problems, how would you do it?
STEP 1
Widen
your scope
Service design starts with YOU
and YOUR mental model

48. 1 SIGN UP FOR SERVICE DESIGN NETWORK
https://www.service-design-network.org/
2 READ ONE SERVICE DESIGN ARTICLE A WEEK
Stay in the know with the latest and greatest.
3 CONNECT WITH OTHERS IN THE COMMUNITY
Pick their brains!
Learn more
about service
design
The more you know about
service design, the better you
can fit it into your current role
STEP 2

49. Practice using
service design
activities +
deliverables
Expand on your UX skills and
build service design into your
practice
STEP 3

50. “Design is not just what it
looks like and feels like.
Design is how it works.
—Steve Jobs

51. Thank you.

52. Questions?

53. Chi Pham
User Experience Designer
CONTACT INFO:
chi.pham@effectiveinc.com
LinkedIn
/anhchipham
Twitter
@achipham
Medium
@chipham_29386

54. Resources
Part I: What’s Service Design? And Why Does it Matter?
Part II: A Service Design Case Study!
Part III: How to Apply Service Design In Your Own UX
Design Workflow!
Service Design Tools
Service Design Network
Service Design Toolkit
Practical Service Design
Adaptive Path’s Guide to Service Blueprinting
This is Service Design Thinking: Basics, Tools, Cases
(HIGHLY recommend this one)
Service Design: From Insight to Implementation (I
haven’t personally read it, but have heard great recs!)