How Service Design can make you stand out in your industry
In traditional marketing, differentiation was done by creating the marketing mix based on the four «Ps» – product, price, promotion and place. With the development of modern management, further «. And the Harvard Business Review story interpreted the «Ps» . The basic approach in the P model is producer-oriented. By adding «Ps» like «people», «passion» or «permission», marketers started to understand that the producer-oriented approach of the 4 «Ps» is definitely outdated today.
In a global sourced world, marketing ecosystems need a service-centred approach. Service is the new product. It doesn’t matter if companies sell telecom services or water beds, the element of differentiation will be the service that is attached. In the end, great service creates outstanding customer experiences and this drives word of mouth and recommendations.
If this would be easy, everybody would do so. Here’s a list of the . Watch out, that you never get on a list like this. It’s difficult to shake it off.
What Service Design can do for you
«Service» is the word on how to treat customers and «Design» is the word for beauty and conception. Beautiful and well structured customer treatment would be the logic for exceptional customer service. Highly sensitive customers compare all the time. So if you want to stand out and make your customers feel it, you need a systematic approach called Service Design.
Think in journeys, not in silos
Companies are built around , you have a marketing department, a sales department, a support department and so on. Silo clustering is essential to build large scale companies and maintain the whole productive and specialized. But the fact is, that customers don’t care about how your business is structured. They don’t care if a particular problem they have with your brand is about IT, customer support or complaints. They just want help. In fact, customers don’t follow the linear structure of our silos. They interact with one silo after the other in whatever order suits better their journey. To build great customer service experience, you have to see the not as a linear process but rather as a road trip through your whole business.
Meet and observe your customers
Service Design is about helping people achieve actions with the least frustration and the most pleasure possible. To achieve this goal, you have to see how your customers really interact with your service. Surveys and analytics give you a good sense of what is happening, but it’s only through one to one customer and that you can unveil the «why» of these actions.
Ask someone to be your mystery shopper
Observation is a first good step to get a sense of how customers can feel in your service. The next step is to be «in the shoes» of the customer. To make that possible, you can ask a friend or external partner to test your service as a . This person, that is unknown to your staff, will test your service and then give a valuable feedback about the missed opportunities and the hidden treasures of your services to take care of.