Service Design
01 / Understanding services
Key question
What does someone experience before, during and after a service?
A service is more than just a product with a counter. It is made up of many moments, people, channels, and processes that need to work together in harmony. Service design shapes this interplay, from the very first point of awareness to long after use.
Learning objective: You can explain what constitutes a service, apply the key principles of service design, and identify all stakeholders involved in a service.
A service is an interplay.
1.1 / What defines a service
Invisible, simultaneous, involved.
Services differ from products. Three characteristics shape their design.
01
Invisible
A service cannot be touched. It is something you experience, which is why tangible traces like tickets, spaces, and messages matter.
02
At the same time
It is created at the moment of use. If something goes wrong, the customer sees it immediately.
03
Together
Female customers play a part in shaping things. Their behaviour influences the outcome.
That is why it is not enough to just make the app or the counter look nice. Everything has to fit together.
You can immediately see what goes wrong.
1.2 / Record participants
Who makes the service possible?
Behind every service are many people and organisations: front-desk staff, the workshop, app developers, partners, and public authorities. A stakeholder map displays them at a glance, highlighting who needs to be involved.
Those at the core provide the service directly. Further out are the stakeholders who enable it or set the framework conditions. Often, the greatest leverage lies with the people the customer never sees.
The biggest leverage is often found at the back.
1.3 / Principles of Service Design
Human-centred, collaborative, iterative.
Service design puts the people who use and deliver the service right at the centre. It involves collaborating with all stakeholders through rapid cycles of understanding, testing and improving. It thinks in sequences and considers the wider context.
Designers bring a particular strength to the table here: they make the invisible visible. Maps, sketches, and prototypes help everyone involved speak the same language.
Making visible what cannot be seen.
Exercise
A service at a glance
Task: Choose a service from your everyday life, such as the Rhine cycle station, a library, or a doctor's surgery, and record it.
STEP 1
Describe the service in two sentences: who gets what, how and when?
STEP 2
List all the moments when you interact with the service.
STEP 3
Record all participants across three rings in the tool.
STEP 4
Select the two stakeholders you consider to have the greatest leverage.
Evaluation: Which stakeholders did you forget at the beginning, and why?