Maximising your Services Value

There are numerous ways Services can add value!

A previous post discussed how the value of a service is not just the 'technical solution'. So what's a checklist of other things that can add value to the customer?

The graphic shows 5 areas where value can be added (risk transfer, efficiency, etc). Value-adding features don't always sit just in one area. For instance a feature might be more efficient because it has superior 'output'. (One could also use the word 'performance' instead, remembering that sometimes performance just needs to be as good as asked for and not better.) So as the value-adding areas are sometimes over-lapping and re-inforcing - and in the spirit of London 2012 this year - the 5 areas are shown as interlocking Olympic rings.

The 'running track' shows a list of potential value-adding features. Some are common phrases, such as Sweat Assets. Others are less well known, such as 3PR (3rd Party Revenue, selling excess capacity) or Serial Sell (sell capacity/assets/service to someone else when 1st customer no longer needs it). It might be as simple as selling a service to a customer so that assets employed sit off their balance sheet and on yours or other parties!

There's probably no end of features and combinations that could be used, and they can be every bit as important as the prima-facie solution!

10 'Basics' for Service Design

A colleague pointed me to the resources of the Service Design Network on the internet. There's a fair amount to plough through, but also some refreshing takes. Below are 10 basics ideas for Service Design from Prof. Birgit Mager. The material is somewhat B2C focused, so for some points I've added comments for a B2B & B2I (Institution or Govt) environment.

Service Design. Basics.

1. Look at your service as a product. If Service Design is to be used in a substantial and not in a ‘decorative’ manner it has to be connected to the business strategies. Do B2B or B2I companies expend the same effort in Service Design as product Design?

2. Focus on Customer Benefit. We’re talking user benefits not technical product benefits.  These could be with uses for the product, not the product itself.  (iPads are good examples of this - my use of an online banking app to save time, for example, or to keep  kids quiet by play Angry Birds.)

3. Dive into the customers' world. Think of their world of emotions and experiences.  Help them envision and describe more of their own desires.

4. See the big picture. The service experience might start long before the customer gets in contact with the provider – and the experience does not end with the “Goodbye” at the shop or training centre door! Services are embedded in larger systems of relationships and interactions.

5. Design an experience. The choreography of experience – or at least of conditions that enable certain experiences - is a major challenge in the Service Design process. Can you learn from performing arts, or Customer Service courses?

6. Create perceivable evidence. Making the invisible visible and the not yet existing perceivable is a contribution of Service Design. The invisible service needs to be transformed into perceivable evidences along the touchpoints of the service experience.

7. Go for a standing ovation. In many service encounters the success depends on people – the service performance needs to be supported by a designed setting that serves the needs of the “actors”. As well as being about recruiting, development, empowerment and appraisal of people, are your infrastructure and IT part of the “choreographed” setting?

8. Define flexible standards. A 100% standardization as often found in production sites is not applicable for services – the right balance of standardization and flexibility needs to be defined when considering the type of service that is being designed.

9. A Living Product. Services need to be designed for learning and development, an open membrane towards customers, employees and environment needs to be part of the service system.

10. Be enthusiastic. The corporate culture has a major impact on the quality of the delivered service. So an attentive observation of existing culture and a support of cultural change is part of the design process.