Service Design intro

A visualisation and holistic approach that aligns every aspect of service delivery with the goal of creating meaningful, user-centered outcomes

Behind every good customer journey lies a complex web of orchestrated operations, systems, and teams that must work in harmony to deliver the outcome the customer is seeking. A Service is everything that happens to deliver the outcome. A service design is a visual blueprint of the service that not only maps the customer journey but also aligns it with the often unseen backstage activities that make it all possible.

What is Service Design?

Service design is more than just an extension of the traditional customer journey map. It’s not about plotting a path from point A to point B. It’s about understanding and shaping the entire ecosystem to enable a service to deliver its intended outcomes. This includes not only the visible customer interactions but also the behind-the-scenes operations, processes, technology systems, and staff that deliver the service.

A service design…

  • Visualises the ecosystem - Service design brings the entire service landscape into focus. It identifies the key journeys where businesses need to excel, ensuring that customer needs are met consistently across every touchpoint.
  • Aligns teams around customer needs - By visualising the service as a whole, service design helps business and technical teams align their efforts, ensuring that everyone is working towards the same goals. This alignment is crucial for effective roadmap planning and prioritisation.
  • Breaks the service down - Service design breaks the service into logical components, depicting the steps or tasks in the process, how they’re executed, and the evidence of the service as experienced by the consumer.

A service design is a living artefact

Service design is not a static artifact. It is, by nature, a draft—a work in progress that evolves over time. Expect extreme volatility at the start as new ideas and disruptive suggestions shape the future vision of the service. Embracing this change is essential, as a service design is a living document that continues to be refined until the service is eventually retired.

It’s important to note that a future service design should be seen as illustrative for the majority (80%) of use cases, rather than attempting to cover every edge case. This approach allows for a focus on the most critical elements of the service while remaining flexible enough to adapt to changes and new insights.

The value of service design

The value of service design lies in its ability to make the intangible tangible. It provides a way to visualise and align, making it easier to spot gaps, breakdowns, and opportunities for improvement within the service.

To visualise

  • Previously intangible experiences, bringing them to life in a concrete way.
  • Interconnections and dependencies between service components, technology, and operations.
  • Potential gaps and service breakdowns across the end-to-end experience.

To align

  • Multiple perspectives by offering a cross-silo view of how a service will be built and delivered.
  • Multiple collaborators by using a communal canvas, where everyone can see the larger context of their work.
  • Understanding of how different elements will connect once built by their respective teams.

To Prototype

  • Common customer flows and interaction points, validating the experience before it’s fully developed.
  • How multiple touchpoints will interconnect, ensuring the nature of these connections supports a seamless customer experience.
  • The impact and changes to operational processes necessary to bring experience innovation to life.
  • The operational viability before investing in development, ensuring resources are allocated effectively.

Current-state vs Future service design

Both are useful, but serve different purposes.

I use service design to map out the current-state as it stands today. The primary goal here is to identify pain points and areas where the service falls short, offering a clear picture of unmet needs and the challenges that need to be addressed to deliver better outcomes. This analysis can serve as a foundation for generating ideas and solutions aimed at improving the service.

On the other hand, I use a future service design to serve as a blueprint for what the service could become and how new or better outcomes could be achieved. It’s a forward-looking tool that articulates the vision delivery teams are working towards. This design doesn’t just aim to fix current issues, it should reimagine the service in a way that aligns with future goals and customer expectations and guides the development process as teams work to bring this envisioned service to life.

Anatomy of service design

A robust service design considers the full spectrum of the customer journey and the backstage operations that support it. This includes:

  • Scenario - A use case that unfolds over time, combining the customer’s experience with the backstage processes and systems.
  • End-to-end - The entire journey across time, channels, products, and silos.
  • Surface-to-core - The depth of support actors, touchpoints, systems, and policies that create the end-to-end surface.

Touchpoints (Front-Stage): These are the steps and activities performed by contact employees that are visible to the customer.

Behind the Scenes (Back-Stage): This involves the support activities that occur behind the scenes to aid front-stage actions, for example administrators, finance teams or delivery drivers.

Elements within a service design

A service design often includes the following elements:

  • Stages - High-level descriptions of the customer journey.
  • Timeline - The time elapsed in the scenario.
  • Customer activities - Steps, choices, activities, and interactions performed by the customer (try to illustrate them where possible)
  • Touchpoints with the business - The direct steps and interactions with the service from the customer’s point of view.
  • Customer pains - (‘Pain’s releived’ in a Future Service design) Describes how the future will alleviate current issues in the customer experience.
  • Back-Stage Activities - The steps and activities that occur behind the scenes to support touchpoints.
  • Organisational pains - (‘Pain’s releived’ in a Future Service design) How the future will alleviate current issues for colleagues, like engineers.
  • Support Activities - Internal support services and processes necessary for delivering the service.
  • Partners - Third parties needed to deliver the service.
  • Systems - The technology and key hardware that drive each step, including any redundant systems slated for decommissioning.
  • Key Measures - Metrics that illuminate the step’s importance, success or pain.

Run workshops and iterate

A service design is only as good as its implementation. In its early stages, it’s crucial to run workshops to bring the service design to life, gather insights, and align teams around a shared vision. Here’s an example to get started…

Workshop goals

  • Achieve a shared understanding of the service and scenarios, both end-to-end and surface-to-core.
  • Focus on breadth—cover the full range of the service before delving into the details.
  • Generate ideas to improve the service experience.

Workshop Agenda

  • Introduction to service design and key concepts.
  • Walk the wall - Familiarise participants with the initial draft scenario.
  • Split into small, cross-functional groups to add notes, ideas, and comments in the swim lanes.
  • Playback and updates - Review contributions and update the design accordingly.
  • Final review - Examine the service as a whole and capture any final thoughts.